T. G. Parrot—whose given name is Mr. Big—started whooping as I worked the latch. "Help! On, please, Mister, don't hurt me no more." He sounded like a terrified child. He thought it was great fun trying to get me lynched.

Mr. Big was a practical joke that had been played upon me by my alleged friend Morley Dotes, who must have spent years teaching that bird bad manners and worse language.

Dean wrinkled his nose as he pushed inside. "Is that thing still here? And what is that dreadful odor?"

By "thing" he meant the bird. I pretended to misunderstand. "He was too heavy for me to move by myself." The Dead Man goes somewhat over four hundred pounds. "Maybe he's getting ripe. You better work on his room first thing." Dean hates the Dead Man's room. He doesn't like being in the presence of a corpse, possibly because that rubs his nose in his own mortality.

Your sense of humor has putrefied.

Dean, of course, didn't receive the Dead Man's mind message. Wouldn't have been fun for His Nibs if he caused a reaction that the old man understood.

I didn't pay him any mind. That always irks him. I was preoccupied, anyway. Still looking outside, I noticed that the redhead was back, watching from across the street. Our gazes met. That energy crackled. Down the block my favorite neighbor, the widow Cardonlos, spotted my open doorway. She pointed, jabbered, probably telling one of her tenants that I was the linchpin of all the evils plaguing our street.

Her mind would not stretch any farther.