Excerpt from The Agony of Bun O'Keefe by Heather Smith, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Maybe."

It got real quiet as we walked, and I filled the empty space around me the way I usually did—with words. "There are about five thousand Jimmy Quinlans on the streets of Montreal, maybe even more in Toronto and Vancouver. No one dares guess the exact number of derelict human beings in Canada."

He looked at me funny again.

"It's from a documentary."

"And you memorized it?"

"The voice too."

"You should get out more."

"Why?"

"Fresh air is good for you."

"Why?"

"It makes you feel more alive."

As far as I could tell you could be no more "more alive" than you could be "more dead."

I breathed in the cold, salty air. It caught at my throat and made me cough.

"Are you sick?"

"No. Why?"

"You have a cough."

"No, I don't."

We kept walking.

"I wish I could un-read that."

He looked around. "Un-read what?"

"The poster on the pole we just passed."

"What did it say?"

"'An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Readings.'"

"What's wrong with that?"

"'The Tell-Tale Heart' came home in a box. I wish I'd never read it. I'll never sleep tonight now."

"How come?"

"Somebody murders somebody else and dismembers the body."

"Maybe you should stick to books about yawns."

"I'm tired. How much longer?"

"Not long."

We walked uphill through a dark park. I heard whispers and grunting and laughter.

"Do you have wooden floorboards in your temporary accommodations?"

He thought a moment. "Yes. Why?"

In "The Tell-Tale Heart," the body was hidden under the floor and the murderer was convinced he could hear his victim's heartbeat through the planks.

"Just wondering."

Under the streetlights ahead, a strip of row houses, each a different color.

"We're here."

We entered the sixth one down, yellow with a blue door.

Six, yellow, blue.

Six, yellow, blue.

Six, yellow, blue.

I had no reason to believe I wouldn't be invited back so I memorized it.

The door opened to a steep staircase. When we got to the top, Busker Boy said, "You okay?" and I said, "Why wouldn't I be?" To our left, there was a sparsely decorated living room overlooking the street. To the right, a kitchen. Busker Boy pointed straight ahead. "Can you handle one more flight?" I said, "Why wouldn't I?" I counted the steps in my head. At fourteen he said, "You sound pretty wheezy." I said, "That's just how I breathe."

At the top there was a landing. Around the landing, five doors. Four were closed, one was open. Busker Boy pointed to the open one. "Bathroom."

There was a door with a treble clef on it. Seemed fitting. Except for the sparkles. "Is that yours?"

"No. Mine's over here."

He moved to the door at the back of the house. There was another small staircase to the right of it. "Attic. Don't ever go up there." He turned the knob and said come in. So I did.

It was a small room, containing only a bed, a dresser and a side table. He grabbed a comforter and pillow out of the closet and put them on the floor.

"You can have the bed."

My (his) flannel shirt was long. A good nightshirt, I thought. I peeled off my jeans, put my glasses on the bedside table and crawled under the covers.

Busker Boy threw his jean jacket on the dresser. "Warm enough?"

"No."

He took a leather jacket out of the closet and laid it over me. "Wear this tomorrow."

He took the elastic out of his hair and peeled off his black T-shirt. A bear-claw necklace hung around his neck.

He folded the comforter in half and got in between the layers.

Excerpted from The Agony of Bun O'Keefe by Heather Smith. Copyright © 2017 by Heather Smith. Excerpted by permission of Penguin Random House Canada. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.