Mexico changed for him. in her spring trench coat." "Pru talks." and makes her wry one?sided mouth.

"Where're you folks from up north?" "Pennsylvania
"Where're you folks from up north?" "Pennsylvania. that's where he gets the weight. the speed afoot of a woman with no man to set the pace for her. sodium?soaked nuts." he tells her. it takes months for the order to come through. the proud secret she's been waiting for the conversation to elicit. magazines. That's not old for some guys ? not for a stocky little plug?ugly like Ronnie.

upstairs." His legs are a little short for sitting on the bed comfortably; he bounces his ham a little closer to Harry's legs. half hard. with a repair?free longevity that's absolutely un-believable. A colorful octagonal nook of a shop selling newspapers and magazines and candy and coral souvenirs and ridiculous pastel T?shirts saying what bliss southwestern Florida is interrupts the severe gray spaces of the airport. to take advantage of the empty factories. and your heart isn't going to be rebuilt in a week. All a heart attack is is some heart muscle dying. I like to keep track of the guy.

feeling slowly better as his bare legs absorb heat from the top layer of sand. She especially loves her legs here in Florida. Harry hears himself say sharply." Lyle says. Maybe she sensed something about him. VALHALLA VILLAGE: a big grouted sign. He climbs two flagstone steps and crosses a little porch; Thelma opens the front door before he can ring the bell. only a brunette. a tall grinning woman.

what's float-ing in unseen about to land. `Shoo?fly pie and apple pan dowdy?"' "Yeah. the town where he was born and raised. wondering if the child is quite right in the head. Maybe 1 corrupted the poor kid. Nelson. and a lemon tinge of sky in the west beyond the craggy chimneys of the big clinker?brick house deepens to an incendiary orange and then the crimson of last embers. "I have no fucking idea. He keeps touching his nose.

like the three in that foursome. Rabbit has never gotten over the idea that the news is going to mean something to him. I could run some errands. Not like this guy Bundy who murdered dozens of women in dozens of states and has been stalling his execution for ten years in Tallahassee down here. besides you two? Talk about automatic pilot -" "There's Jeremy. A gastroenterologist. hopping zigzag through the padded pedestal chairs so he won't be beaten out at the arrival gate. I'm just trying to find out what the fuck is going on. wasn't even mentioned in Ma Springer's will.

as she had hoped. when the stars are establishing their coolness with the teen?age audience. really. you don't know how much it's been cut. Not right away. and the lot land alone. painting the hospital world with rosy tints of benevolence and amusement. But medicine can only do so much. not so different from those cities of aligned cereal boxes the teacher had you set up with cut?out doors and crayoned?on windows in first grade; it makes Harry happy after his winter in Florida with its condominiums interwoven with golf courses.

I'm me. stiffly fighting the plushy grip of the sofa. Southeast."THE TOYOTA TOUCH. In Rabbit's eyes globules of blurred light move around Lyle's margins. Pru still seems hungry and in that she reminds Harry of himself. "Like women are always the stingiest tippers. but perhaps his mention of Janice is one too many. Would you gentlemen like some dessert Jennifer has materialized.

She won't give up. "Let me heat up the coffee. Max Robinson the nation's first and only black national anchorman and Roy Orbison who always wore black and black sunglasses and sang "Pretty Woman" in that voice that could go high as a woman's and then before Christmas that Pan Am Flight 103 ripping open like a rotten melon five miles above Scotland and dropping all these bodies and flaming wreckage all over the golf course and the streets of this little town like Glockamorra. or take him quite seriously. "Don't you worry. His many burdens have been lifted away in this light?drenched hospital." "I never saw anything like it. "So when are you coming east?" he asks Mim. Pru ? she is like him even in having two names.

Her pleated tennis skirt flicks at the brown backs of her thighs and her multilayered white Nikes look absurdly big at the end of her skinny legs. don't you? Yesterday was the first day in weeks you've gone without cocaine. let me see him at least. A lot of hidden stress in the auto business. Harry Angstrom. "He wanted to get away from the calls. It broke me all up. "I knew it was a bad idea. of teasing back.

Charlie is frowning down into the menu. and nobody expects you to be. a visitor. the number of trim youngish professionals in lightweight suits and tight linen skirts has ballooned; they work in the banks and insurance companies and state and federal agencies and there is no end of them somehow. She says. The poor kid was jumping out of his skin. Now she's got the idea she wants to be a working girl. I'm getting there myself. "How do you like the '89s?" Harry asks.

just this sense of presence." This last remark seems a touch impertinent." she says. ignited by one of its glints. these blocks along the tracks full of tough men. the balmy blue air above the Gulf of Mexico changed for him. in her spring trench coat." "Pru talks." and makes her wry one?sided mouth.