As Dean was finishing, old Toot-Toot came by with his red snack-wagon, which was covered with handlettered Bible quotes (“REPENT for the LORD shall judge his people,” Deut. 32:36, “And surely your BLOOD of your lives will I require,” Gen. 9:5, and similar cheery, uplifting sentiments), and sold us some sandwiches and pops. Dean was hunting for change in his pocket and saying that we wouldn’t see Steamboat Willy anymore, that goddam Percy Wetmore had scared him off for good, when old Toot-Toot said, ‘What’s that’ere, then?”
We looked, and here came the mouse of the hour his ownself, hopping up the middle of the Green Mile.
He’d come a little way; then stop, look around with his bright little oildrop eyes, then come on again.
“Hey, mouse!” The Chief said, and the mouse stopped and looked at him, whiskers twitching. I tell you, it was exactly as if the damned thing knew it had been called. “You some kind of spirit guide?”
Bitterbuck tossed the mouse a little morsel of cheese from his supper. It landed right in front of the mouse, but Steamboat Willy hardly even glanced at it, just came on his way again, up the Green Mile, looking in empty cells.
“Boss Edgecombe!” The. President called. “Do you think that little bastard knows Wetmore isn’t here? I do, by God!”
I felt about the same … but I wasn’t going to say so out loud.
Harry came out into the hall, hitching up his pants the way he always did after he’d spent a refreshing few minutes in the can, and stood there with his eyes wide. Toot-Toot was also staring, a sunken grin doing unpleasant things to the soft and toothless lower half of his face.
The mouse stopped in what was becoming its usual spot, curled its tail around its paws, and looked at us.
Again I was reminded of pictures I had seen of judges passing sentence on hapless prisoners … yet, had there ever been a prisoner as small and unafraid as this one? Not that it really was a prisoner, of course; it could come and go pretty much as it pleased. Yet the idea would not leave my mind, and it again occurred to me that most of us would feel that small when approaching God’s judgment seat after our lives were over, but very few of us would be able to look so unafraid.
“Well, I swear,” Old Toot-Toot said. “There he sits, big as Billy-Be-Frigged.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet, Toot,” Harry said. “atch this.” He reached into his breast pocket and came out with a slice of cinnamon apple wrapped in waxed paper. He broke off the end and tossed it on the floor. It was dry and hard and I thought it would bounce right past the mouse, but it reached out one paw, as carelessly as a man swatting at a fly to pass the time, and batted it flat. We all laughed in admiration and surprise, an outburst of sound that should have sent the mouse skittering, but it barely twitched. It picked up the piece of dried apple in its paws, gave it a couple of licks, then dropped it and looked up at us as if to say, Not bad, what else do you have?
Toot-Toot opened his cart, took out a sandwich, unwrapped it, and tore off a scrap of bologna.
“Don’t bother,” Dean said.
‘What do you mean?” Toot-Toot asked. “Ain’t a mouse alive’d pass up bologna if he could get it. You a crazy guy!”
But I knew Dean was right, and I could see by Harry’s face that he knew it, too. There were floaters and there were regulars. Somehow, that mouse seemed to know the difference. Nuts, but true.
Old Toot-Toot tossed the scrap of bologna down, and sure enough, the mouse wouldn’t have a thing to do with it; sniffed it once and then backed off a pace.
“I’ll be a goddamned son of a bitch,” Old Toot-Toot said, sounding offended.
I held out my hand. “Give it to me.”
“What – same sammitch?”
“Same one. I’ll pay for it.”
Toot-Toot handed it over. I lifted the top slice of bread, tore off another sliver of meat, and dropped it