Part Two After Donatti let him out, Morrison walked for over two hours in a complete daze. It was another fine day, but he didn't notice. The monstrousness of Donatti's smiling face blotted out all else. 'You see,' he had said, 'a pragmatic problem d...
Part One Morrison was waiting for someone who was hung up in the air traffic jam over Kennedy International when he saw a familiar face at the end of the bar and walked down. 'Jimmy? Jimmy McCann?' It was. A little heavier than when Morrison had seen...
Narrated by Frank Muller It's trying to get under the raft, Deke said grimly. What's this shit, Pancho? Randy lookedhe looked very carefully. He saw the thing nuzzling the side of the raft, flattening to a shape like half a pizza. For a moment it see...
Narrated by Frank Muller It was forty miles from Horlicks University in Pittsburgh to Cascade Lake, and although dark comes early to that part of the world in October and although they didn't get going until six o'clock, there was still a little ligh...
Quote: The girl detective looked at her reflection in the mirror. This was a different girl. This was a girl who would chew gum. -- DORA KNEZ, in conversation The girl detective's mother is missing. The girl detective's mother has been missing for a...
Maybe you should just get it over with and get married. Really? Yeah. I mean, you guys probably think living together like this is the best of both worlds, but Zoe tried to sound like an older sister; an older sister was supposed to be the parent you...
You had to get out of them occasionally, those Illinois towns with the funny names: Paris, Oblong, Normal. Once, when the Dow Jones dipped two hundred points, a local paper boasted the banner headline NORMAL MAN MARRIES OBLONG WOMAN. They knew what w...
J.P. gets real quiet again. I mean, he's hardly breathing. I toss my cigarette into the coal bucket and look hard at J.P., who scoots farther down in his chair. J.P. pulls up his collar. What the hell's going on, I wonder. Frank Martin uncrosses his...
WE ARE ON the front porch at Frank Martin's drying-out facility. Like the rest of us at Frank Martin's, J.P. is first and foremost a drunk. But he's also a chimney sweep. It's his first time here, and he's scared. I've been here once before. What's t...
Narrated by John Glover It was time to do it. Talking was done. I let myself think of Marcia one last time, her light-brown hair, her wide grey eyes, her lovely body, and then put her out of my mind for good. No more looking down, either. It would ha...
THE LEDGE 'Go on,' Cressner said again. 'Look in the bag.' We were in his penthouse apartment, forty-three stories up. The carpet was deep-cut pile, burnt orange. In the middle, between the Basque sling chair where Cressner sat and the genuine leathe...
Im coming now, said Bunch, to the most important thing of all. The reason why Ive really come here today. You see, the Eccleses made a great fuss about having his coat. We took it off when the doctor was seeing him. It was an old, shabby sort of coat...
I The vicars wife came round the corner of the vicarage with her arms full of chrysanthemums. A good deal of rich garden soil was attached to her strong brogue shoes and a few fragments of earth were adhering to her nose, but of that fact she was per...
Varden paused, and put away a good mouthful of whisky. Well? cried several breathless voices. Well, said Varden, Im not ashamed to say I went out of that house like an old buck-rabbit that hears the man with the gun. There was a car standing just out...
The Egotists Club is one of the most genial places in London. It is a place to which you may go when you want to tell that odd dream you had last night, or to announce what a good dentist you have discovered. You can write letters there if you like,...
