Entertain soft funnyMy cousin Rikki? I say. What good do you think that’ll do? “Ferdinand Sponer,” the young man answered apologetically. However, since no damage had been done, the policeman waved them on. “Be more careful in future,” he said, and walked back to his post, while the other driver, swearing profusely, got back in his car. Sponer, however, turned round to his glamorous passenger, “I’m awfully sorry!” The flowers Joshua had brought home from the man at the Mission Street BART station stood in a colorful Tiffany-style vase on the radiator. The day-old newspaper they’d come wrapped in had been thrown out, apparently, and now there was no way to tell the flowers apart from those purchased at an expensive boutique. “Two nights ago,” Lila confessed, “he dragged me into that room and told me to spit on the god. When I refused he slapped me, then he opened his britches and made water in front of the god, taunting it, saying ‘how do you like my offering, you ugly old thing?’ That’s why he died. I wentto the old grandmother in Ursa’s shed for a charm-” Duncan now saw the bundle of feathers stuffed up her sleeve “or it might have kil’t me too.” I didn’t find Hickey up on the pier but I did find my shoes. They were neatly set out at the edge. Abandoned shoes on the end of a pier are never a good omen. I stooped to reach for them and a cannon ball collided with the inside of my skull. “Riots!” Duncan did not realize he had given voice to his reaction to the lead article until he saw Webb, then Murdo, approaching, rubbing their eyes. “There’s been riots over the tax!” he exclaimed as they reached him. “In Boston, Newport, even Annapolis.” You don’t know the first thing about it, says Mom, laughing vulgarly. She lifted the mirror once more and looked at her mouth.“And what do you expect me to answer?” she asked. “Won’t you tell me,” she asked finally, “what’s happened? Not because… because I want to pry into your affairs. But because I’m so scared for you!” No worse than usual, I reply. “We were drugged at Townsend’s Store.” As Duncan spoke the words the man turned toward the group who huddled further down the aisle. “We told her to flee north if anything happened.” I nod and feel that I have to yield to this force from my abdomen, stand up, grab the door handle on the pickup with one hand, to give me a grip on something in existence, and vomit with the wind over the horse block. “Well,” I said, “I saw Roxanne.” “It’s okay,” I said. “I know him quite well and I know how to take care of myself.” The door came open and a short and wide white woman stepped out onto the gray step. She was wearing a green robe over a T-shirt and jeans. ‘Have you gone up thirteen floors on that hotel?’ I asked Hickey when I found him in the Portakabin. I needn’t have bothered pitching it as a question. Hickey had gone up thirteen floors on the hotel. Any fool with an eye in his head could see that. “I want you to write down your phone number on my place mat. I have no idea if I’ll call you but at least I’ll know how. Okay?” “Who are you?” the girl asked, though since she was Spanish, she actually put it in the Spanish manner: “Whom do I have the honour of addressing?” ‘So what are the charges?’ I finally asked when he began making noises about taking his leave. The doctors wanted to keep me in overnight for observation. The guard could hardly slap on the cuffs there and then.. |