(sai? son?)
friend, he wouldn't have wanted to sleep with her, she with her wrinkles, she with her hair going gray at the roots, she with the spare tire which her designer clothes could not quite conceal. The very idea was ludicrous.
But yes. If he wanted her, she would.
She looked on the fridge and there, under one of the magnets that dotted it (WE ARE POSITHONICS, BUILDING THE FUTURE ONE CIRCUIT AT A TIME, this one said) was a brief note.
Ree-
You wanted me to relax, so I'm relaxing (dammit!).
I.e. gone fishin' with Sonny Emerson, t'other end of the lake, ayuh, ayuh. Will be back by 7 unless the bugs are too bad. If I bring you a bass, will you cook amp; clean?
D.
PS: Something going on at the store big enufto rate 3 police cars. WALK-INS, maybe???? ? If you hear, fill me in.
She'd told him she was going to the store this afternoon-eggs and milk that she'd of course never gotten-and he had nodded. Yes dear, yes dear. But his note held no hint of worry, no sense that he even remembered what she'd said. Well, what else did she expect? When it came to David, info entered ear A, info exited ear B. Welcome to Genius World.
She turned the note over, plucked a pen from a teacup filled with them, hesitated, then wrote:
David,
Something has happened, and I have to be gone for awhile. 2 days at least, I think maybe 3 or 4. Please don't worry about me and don't call anyone. ESPECIALLY NOT POLICE. It's a stray cat thin?
Would he understand that? She thought he would if he remembered how they'd met. At die Santa Monica ASPCA, that had been, ainong the stacked rows of kennels in back: love blooms as the mongrels yap. It sounded like James Joyce to her, by God. He had brought in a stray dog he'd found on a suburban street near the apartment where he was staying with half a dozen egghead friends. She'd been looking for a kitten to liven up what was an essentially friendless life. He'd had all his hair then. As for her, she'd thought women who dyed theirs mildly amusing. Time was a thief, and one of the first things it took was your sense of humor.
She hesitated, then added Love you,
Ree Was that true any longer? Well, let it stand, either way.
Crossing out what you'd written in ink always looked ugly. She put the note back on the fridge with the same magnet to hold it in place.
She got the keys to the Mercedes out of the basket by the door, then remembered the rowboat, still tied up at the little stub of dock behind the store. It would be all right there. But then she thought of something else, someuiing the boy had told her. He doesn't know about money.
She went into the pantry, where they always kept a slim roll of fifties (there were places out here in the boondocks where she would be willing to swear they'd never even heard of MasterCard) and took three. She started away, shrugged, went back, and took the other three, as well. Why not? She was living dangerously today.
On her way out, she paused again to look at the note. And then, for absolutely no reason she could understand, she took the Positronics magnet away and replaced it with an orange slice. Then she left.
Never mind the future. For the time being, she had enough to keep her occupied in the present.
NINE
The emergency bucka was gone, bearing the writer to die nearest hospital or infirmary, Roland assumed. Peace officers had come just as it left, and they spent perhaps half an hour talking with Bryan Smith. The gunslinger could hear the palaver from where he was, just over the first rise. The bluebacks' questions were clear and calm, Smith's answers litde more than mumbles.
Roland saw no reason to stop working. If the blues came back here and found him, he would deal with them. Just incapacitate them, unless they made that impossible; gods knew there had been enough killing. But he would bury his dead, one way or another.
He would bury his dead.
The lovely green-gold light of the clearing deepened. Mosquitoes found him but he did not stop what he was doing in order to slap them, merely let them drink their fill and then lumber off, heavy with dieir freight of blood. He heard engines starting as he finished hand-digging the grave, die smooth roar of two cars and the more uneven sound of Smith's vanmobile.
He had heard the voices of only two peace officers, which meant that, unless there had been a third blueback with nothing to say, they were allowing Smith to drive away by himself.