“Your mother knew we were friends, and so she let me in to see you.”
“She’ll hear from me when I do get up. She ought to know better.”
“Oh, come, come, Spotty. Of course she reckoned I’d sympathize with you if you were sick. Have you heard about what happened to Barker’s dog?”
The body of the boy beneath the quilts twitched the least bit.
“Ain’t heard nothing,” he growled. “Don’t want to hear anything now.”
“Somebody shot Silver Tongue, and Berlin is pretty hot over it. You know how much I like Barker. It would do me good to find out who killed his dog.”
One of Davis’ hands crept up to the edge of the quilt, which he pulled down a bit, turning a foxy eye toward the visitor; but, immediately on meeting Rod’s gaze, he sank his head back beneath those quilts, like a turtle pulling into its shell.
“I don’t care,” he mumbled under the covers; “I don’t care about nothing now.”
“He thinks I shot Silver Tongue,” said Rod, as if it was something of a joke; “but I didn’t get the chance.”
No sound from Spotty.