Cheap synonymous adhesiveI couldn’t speak for a moment. My mind was racing. My thoughts were skipping grooves. ‘He said.’ I swallowed and started again. ‘He said that a bank has gone under in New York.’ “You have to go up there, baby,” I said. ‘Gone where?’ We could, of course, just as well do that as hang around here. Damn, those boys are freaky. You didn’t want to breast-feed me. You were a lousy mother — that’s why there was no milk. Does the man the leg belonged to know it’s haunting you? Then there came a tapping on the window. “My wife,” Montemayor said in broken German, “says this is Mortimer’s room and these,” he pointed at the things scattered about, “are his clothes. Which they are. I know them from Paris, where he was wearing them. Where is Mortimer? How come you’re here?” ‘Was that your idea of a joke?’ They all walked into the light of the hotel entrance and examined their fingers.“It’s all red!” one of the boys said. “Yes, reddish brown,” the porter added; and the woman, who was still clutching her cape and trying to scrape the dirt off, suddenly clicked her fingers and exclaimed, “Ugh! Looks just like blood.” In the late afternoon we took off down the hill again to survey our interests, two men of the world. The foreman was waiting for us outside the Portakabin.‘What the fuck is this?’ Hickey demanded, gesturing at the deserted site. The machinery was frozen mid-manoeuvre — loads suspended in the air, the arms of diggers reaching out — as if a spell to arrest time had been cast. Religious aspects of the baby Wasn’t anybody going to make the introductions? Apparently not. I cleared my throat. ‘Minister,’ I began. Without taking his eyes off the passport, Sponer began to undress. He opened the wallet. Inside was some Austrian money— not a lot, a couple of hundred-franc notes and a book of traveller’s cheques. “Oh, God,” I said. Meandering picturesquely between high tufts of grass. “London?” Conawago asked. He barely gave the Claremont site a second glance as we passed, which was most out of character, considering he’d been pretty much living down there according to Edel, though I reckoned he’d been spending his nights behind the Viking’s Staff Only door. He pressed a button in the console and my seat tilted back. He pressed another and the sunroof sealed shut. A third and the leather steering wheel rosein his hands. ‘Height adjustment,’ he noted with satisfaction, then produced a folded page from his shirt pocket. ‘Here. McGee’s office emailed that.’ It was the site map.. |