Twenty-five minutes later:
Flap.
Thump.
Meow.
Danny frowned.
“What was that?”
Michael drank his beer.
“His shift ended.”
Bruno entered carrying a dark stone.
He dropped it beside the cardboard box.
Danny stared.
The cat sat proudly.
Michael pointed.
“That.”
Danny stood.
“What the hell?”
“Exactly.”
Danny walked to the box.
It was more than half full.
“You weren’t kidding.”
“Why would I invent this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lonely.”
Michael threw a bottle cap at him.
Danny picked up one of the rocks.
He turned it over.
“This is heavy.”
“It’s a rock.”
“No.”
“I mean heavy for its size.”
Michael shrugged.
Danny rubbed dirt from one edge with his thumb.
A dull metallic surface appeared beneath.
He frowned.
“Where is he getting these?”
“No idea.”
“You never followed him?”
“Twice.”
“What happened?”
“He went through a hole under a fence.”
“And?”
“I’m bigger than a cat.”
“Debatable.”
Michael ignored him.
“The second time he cut through the drainage channel behind Jefferson Avenue.”
“I lost him.”
Danny picked up another piece.
It had a shallow depression across one face.
Then another.
“This texture is weird.”
Michael looked.
“Looks like burnt concrete.”
“Maybe.”
Danny held it closer to the balcony light.
“My friend Carlos would love this.”
“Who?”
“Carlos Ramirez.”
“We went to school with him.”
“The geology guy?”
“Exactly.”
Michael remembered.
Carlos had been one of those students who genuinely enjoyed science fairs.
While everyone else built baking-soda volcanoes, Carlos brought a collection of mineral samples with handwritten labels.
“What does Carlos do now?”
“University research lab.”
“Rocks?”
“Geochemistry.”
“Which is advanced rocks.”
“Basically.”
Michael laughed.
Danny slipped two stones into his jacket pocket.
“Can I take these?”
“Please.”
“Take forty.”
Danny smiled.
“Maybe they’re worth three dollars.”
“I’ll retire.”
“Don’t forget me.”
Michael forgot about the conversation within a day.
Bruno did not.
The cat continued bringing rocks.
November arrived.
Cold rain.
Michael worried about Bruno going outside at night.
He tried keeping him in during storms.
Bruno howled.
Eventually, Michael bought a reflective breakaway collar and attached a small battery-powered tracker.
Not expensive.
The kind pet owners used to locate adventurous cats.
Bruno hated it for twelve minutes.
Then accepted defeat.
Michael checked the tracker occasionally.
The map surprised him.
Bruno traveled farther than expected.
Across the apartment parking lot.
Behind a row of small businesses.
Along a drainage ditch.
Under a chain-link fence.
Then toward an abandoned industrial parcel nearly three-quarters of a mile away.
The property had once contained a machine-parts plant.
The buildings were demolished years earlier.
Now it was mostly weeds, broken pavement, and piles of fill dirt waiting for redevelopment.
Bruno spent much of each trip near the northern edge.
Then returned.
Michael zoomed in.
“So that’s your quarry.”
He considered going there.
Then work called.