“A million and a half bucks? For that dump?”
“I know, it’s crazy. I mean, you put some good work into this place, you could get two mil easy. More, even.”
“I don’t really have the . . . liquidity, I gotta be honest with you.”
Jeff nodded. “We could do a deal, maybe. Like, my company does the work and I get a cut of the sale. Work out something that’s good for both of us.” He took out a pack of Marlboros and a Zippo. “Mind?”
“You kidding? Anything to get that cat piss smell out of my nostrils.”
Jeff chuckled as he lit a cigarette. “Luckily I don’t smell it.”
“Upstairs in my dad’s office, that’s where it’s bad. Plus, we’ve got critters living inside the walls.”
Jeff exhaled twin plumes of smoke. “So what do you think?”
Rick was quiet for a long moment. He thought, What the hell. This could be fairly painless. “When could you start?”
“Anytime. Like now.”
“Business slow?”
“Always slows down in the winter. I mean, I’ve got a couple of big jobs lined up starting March or April. . . .”
“It’s an interesting idea. If we can work it out, I mean.”
“Well, so think about it. Meanwhile, let me check out what that smell is upstairs. I got a pretty good idea I know.”
Jeff followed Rick up the stairs. “Jeez,” he said, toeing the condom wrapper. “Can’t even clean up their own shit.”
When they got to the study, Jeff said, “So that was the crash I heard.” He snorted. “Oh yeah, I smell it now. That’s nasty. Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
He galumphed down the staircase. Rick was picking up the larger pieces of glass when Jeff appeared in the doorway, a shop broom and dustpan in one hand and a crowbar in the other.
“Thought you could use this.” He handed Rick the broom and dustpan. Then, waggling the crowbar, he said, “If you’re serious about doing work on the place, I can open up the wall and see what the problem is.”
Rick shrugged. “Go for it, why not.”
Jeff walked carefully to the middle of the room, weaving around and through the broken glass. Then he stood, head cocked, listening. A moment later, the rustling started up again. Jeff followed the sound to the back wall, then stood still for a few seconds more. He opened the closet door, heavy and paneled, with an ornamented brass knob. He noticed the dangling string, the pull cord, and tugged it to switch on the bare bulb mounted on the canted ceiling.
Jeff nodded, smiled. “They’re in the crawl space. Squirrels, I betcha. They get in through roof vents or they chew holes in the soffit. Evil little buggers.”
He hoisted the crowbar and slammed its hooked end into the back wall of the closet. A chunk of the wall came away with a screech. It wasn’t plaster and lath, Rick saw, but a flat piece of plywood, ten or twelve inches across, a couple of feet long.
“Here she comes,” Jeff said. “Easy.”
Jeff stepped aside as the long board toppled to the closet floor in a cloud of plaster. A tall hole had opened in the back wall of the closet, too narrow to get through, but enough to glimpse the dim interior. There was a scree sound and a quick pitter-patter, like rain on the ceiling, the mad scrambling of small creatures.
“Squirrels,” Jeff announced. “Knew it.” He coughed. “Whoa. Gross.”
Rick stepped closer to get a look.
“Hate squirrels,” Jeff said. “Nothing more than furry-tailed rats.”
Then he jammed the crowbar into the wall once more and ripped out the adjoining board. It squealed as it came out, nails screeching against wood, and clattered to the floor.
“No plasterboard here,” Jeff said. “Strange. Like they just painted over this plywood.”
“What is it, a nest?” Rick asked. “I don’t want the goddamned squirrels running around inside the house.”
“Nah, if there’s a nest, it’s probably on the other side of the house. This right here is their latrine.”
“Latrine?”
“Squirrels don’t soil their own nests usually.”
“Think they’re still in there?” Rick asked.
“Maybe, maybe not. If they’ve got babies in the nest, they’re not leaving.”
“So now what?”
“Trap ’em, that’s the best way. Or chase ’em out of here. Then seal up the holes with hardware cloth or steel mesh.”
Rick could now see into the crawl space a little more clearly. In the faint, dappled light—from a lot of little holes in the roof, he guessed—a pile of some sort was silhouetted, a heap a few feet tall.