"Is somebody home?"
"No. He leaves it on. So people think somebody's home." Russ got out his key. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, holding it. "Don't tell anybody about this."
"About what?"
"Any of it. Him. The scorekeeping. Any of it." Russ's jaw was tight. "I mean it, Nowicki. I'll kill you."
"Okay."
"I mean it."
"I said okay." Wally looked up at the flickering window. "My mom keeps the porch light on. Since my dad. She just leaves it on all night. Busia says it's a waste of electricity. My mom says she doesn't care. Nobody talks about it." He shrugged. "I won't tell anybody."
Russ stood there at the bottom of the stairs with the snow coming down on him. He looked like he wanted to say something, and his mouth opened, and closed. Then he went up the stairs and let himself in, and the door shut, and Wally walked the rest of the way home to Ward Street with his neck freezing and didn't care, and when he got there the porch light was on.
He didn't get his scarf back until the following Saturday. Russ left it on Wally's perch in the Cellar, folded in a neat square, which was not a word Wally would ever have expected to use about anything Russ Kubiak had touched, and neither of them mentioned it.
In January Augie pinned a flyer to the corkboard by the shoe counter, between a notice about a lost set of car keys and an index card advertising a 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix, runs good, $900 or best offer.
MILWAUKEE YABA CITY JUNIOR DOUBLES, it said. BEL-AIR LANES, 76TH & OKLAHOMA. SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1985. BANTAM, PREP & JUNIOR DIVISIONS. HANDICAP. $8.00 PER TEAM.
"No," Russ said.
"I didn't say nothing yet," said Augie.
"You were gonna."