Trish said, “You should go have a talk.”
Demencio reminded her that he couldn’t understand very much Sinclair said. “It’s like his tongue come off the hinges.”
“Well, Mister Dominick Amador doesn’t seem to have any trouble communicating.” Tnsh stood at the front window, parting the drapes to get a view of the shrine.
Demencio jumped up. “Sonofabitch!”
He hurried outside and chased Dominick from the property. In retreat the stigmata man hastily discarded his new crutches, slick with Crisco, which Demencio snatched up and beat to pieces against a concrete utility pole. Demencio meant the outburst to serve as a warning. He scanned the distant ficus hedge into which Dominick Amador had disappeared, and hoped the pesky con artist was watching.
To Sinclair he admonished: “That guy’s bad news.”
Sinclair sat Buddha-style among the apostolic turtles. The white sheet he wore was bunched and soiled, crisscrossed with diminutive muddy tracks.
Demencio said, “What’d that asshole want? Did he ask you to work with him?”
Sinclair’s expression was quizzical and remote, an accurate reflection of his state of mind.
“Did he show you his hands?” Demencio demanded.
“Yes. His feet, too,” Sinclair said.
“Ha! Now here’s a bulletin: He did that to himself. Bloody holes and all. That Dominick, he’s one twisted sonofabitch.”
Demencio felt he could speak freely, since the tourists were gone. “He bothers you again, let me know,” he said.
“Oh, I’m fine,” said Sinclair, which was the truth. Never had he felt such spiritual peace. Watching the clouds was as good as floating: cool and weightless, free from earthly burdens. Except for lemonade breaks, he’d scarcely moved a muscle all day. Meanwhile the turtles had explored him—up one arm, down one leg, back and forth across his chest. The march of miniature toenails tickled and soothed Sinclair. One of the cooters—was it Simon?—had made it up the steep slope of Sinclair’s skull and settled on his vast unlined forehead, where it sunned itself contentedly for hours. The sensation had put Sinclair into a Zen-like trance; he lolled among the tiny creatures like a Gulliver, without the ropes. The crushing guilt of sending Tom Krome to his death evaporated like a gray mist. The Register’s frenetic newsroom and the job that Sinclair had once taken so seriously receded into the vaguest of recollections, appearing to him in cacophonous and incoherent flashes. Every so often, all the headlines he’d ever composed would scroll through his consciousness one after another, like a demonic Dow Jones ticker, causing Sinclair to yodel alliteratively. He understood these eruptions to mean he was forever finished with daily journalism, a revelation that contributed in no small way to his serenity.
Demencio dropped to a crouch, to secure better eye contact with the dreamy turtle boy. “Can I get you anything—soda? Half a sandwich?”
“Nuh-uh,” Sinclair said.
“You wanna stay for supper? Trish is doing one of her angel foods for dessert.”
“Sure,” said Sinclair. He was too drowsy for the walk to Roddy and Joan’s house.
“Sleep over, if you like. There’s a daybed in the spare room,” Demencio offered, “and plenty of clean sheets to wear, in case you wanna hang around tomorrow.”
Sinclair had given no thought whatsoever to the future, but for the moment he couldn’t imagine parting with the holy cooters.
Demencio said, “Plus I got a surprise for you.”
“Ah.”
“But you gotta promise not to faint or nothin’, OK?”
Demencio ran into the house and came out lugging the aquarium, which he placed at Sinclair’s feet. In breathless reverence Sinclair gazed at the freshly painted turtles; he reached out, tenuously fingering the air, like a child trying to touch a hologram.
Demencio said, “Here you go. Enjoy!”
When he tipped the tank on one side, thirty-three newly sanctified cooters swarmed forth to join the others in the moat. Sinclair joyfully scooped up several and held them aloft. He tossed back his chin and began to croon, “Muugghhh meeechy marta-a-mamma,” a subconscious rendition of the classic mugger meets match against martial-arts mom.
Demencio edged away from the ranting turtle boy and returned to the house. Trish was in the kitchen with the cake mix. “Did you ask about the T-shirts? Will he give us permission?”