Something Missing_ A Novel - Matthew Dicks [21]
“Hey!” Martin answered, oddly hurt by the comment but stopping before saying more than his limited vocabulary would allow.
“Hey!” the bird repeated. “Hey! Hey! Hey stupid! Kissy! Kissy!”
Martin speculated as to what might constitute a kiss for a bird but had no intention of finding out. He turned again, needing to move faster this time.
“Hey dumb-ass! Scotch and soda! Neat! Neat! Neat!”
Martin wondered if Alfredo had timed his comment to match the moment that he passed by the Grants’ well-stocked bar. Either way, he had to move now, ignoring his desire to turn around and scold the bird, with the dozen or so words currently available. Despite his initial affection for Alfredo, the insults were starting to wear on him.
Martin made his way back into the kitchen, taking one last peek at the bird before moving on. As he turned the corner and moved into the living room, he heard Alfredo squawk, “Arrivederci!”
“Arrivederci!” Martin squawked back, quickly adding the word to his list.
“Dumb-ass!” the bird squawked one final time, causing Martin to doubt the future of their relationship.
Since that day more than four years ago, Martin had added more than seventy words and phrases to his list and had committed most of them to memory. Today Martin spent more than five minutes with Alfredo, listening to the bird speak, responding in turn, and kissing the bird whenever Alfredo demanded. It turned out that a kiss was merely the rubbing of Martin’s nose to the bird’s beak, an action that had frightened Martin at first but had become second nature by now. In fact, in the time that he had gotten to know the bird, Alfredo had become very familiar with Martin, often leaping from his perch onto Martin’s shoulder, as he had done today as Martin approached.
Martin was particularly amused today by a routine that he had seen only once before. Alfredo began by pretending to kiss his own foot, cooing and imitating the sound of large, wet kisses, and then suddenly, without provocation, the bird would bite his foot, screeching “Ow! You jerk! No biting!” He would then hold his foot in front of his face, staring it down like a child in a no-blinking contest. After a moment, his expression would soften and he would begin cooing again, squawking “Gimme kiss! Gimme kiss Mommy dearest!”
Martin did not believe that Alfredo had come up with this routine on his own, but he found the flair with which the bird performed the bit to be astounding. Though Martin often wore a smile of satisfaction during the workday, the smile that Alfredo brought to his face was quite different.
It was the smile of pure joy.
Following Alfredo’s routine, Martin began the business that had brought him to the Grants’ home in the first place. With the bird still perched on his shoulder, Martin moved to the kitchen and pantry, filling his burlap with half a bag of flour, two handfuls of artificial sweetener packets, five potatoes, a pound of lean hamburger, three boxes of frozen vegetables, and a bottle of barbeque sauce that had been in the pantry for six months without being opened. He took photographs of the usual locations, inspected the desk in the office, sorting through the mail and examining the Grants’ checkbook register, looking for anything new (he would inspect the Grants’ computer files the following week, as scheduled), and quickly made his way to the dining room, on the west side of the living room, the site of Martin’s latest project.
Martin called large-scale acquisitions like Sophie Pearl’s diamond earrings “projects” because they required more time and research than the acquisition of a few potatoes or a bottle of barbeque sauce. He had made large-scale acquisitions at the Grants’ before, a string of pearls in 2005 and another in 2006, but it was the Grants’ crystal and silver that had been garnering large profits for Martin most recently.
An enormous oaken hutch along the south wall of the dining room contained the Grants’ collection of silver, china, and crystal. Wine and champagne glasses were hung from racks across