“No. Roosevelt passed the message to me.”
“Of course.”
“According to the cat, I was going to get a warning. If I didn’t stop
Nancying this, they’d kill my friends one by one until I did.” tv
“They’ll blow me away to warn you off!” V, “Their idea, not mine.”
“They can’t just kill You? They think they need kryptonite?”
“They revere me, Roosevelt says.”
“Well, who doesn’t?” Even after the monkeys, he remained dubious about
this issue of anthropomorphizing animal behavior.
But he sure had cranked down the volume of his sarcasm.
“Right after I left the Nostromo,” I said, “I was warned, just like the
cat said I would be.”
I told Bobby about Lewis Stevenson, and he said, “He was going to kill
Orson?”
From his guard post where he stared up at the pizza boxes on the
counter, Orson whined as if to confirm my account.
“so,” Bobby said, “You shot the sheriff.”
“He was the chief of police.”
“You shot the sheriff,” Bobby insisted.
A lot of years ago, he had been a radical Eric Clapton junkie, so I
knew why he liked it better this way. “All right. I shot the
sheriff-but I did not shoot the deputy.”
“I can’t let You out of my sight.”
He finished with the speedloaders and tucked them into the dump pouch
that Sasha had also purchased.
“Bitchin’ shirt,” I said.
Bobby was wearing a rare long-sleeve Hawaiian shirt featuring a
spectacular, colorful mural of a tropical festival: oranges, reds, and
greens.
He said, “Kamehameha Garment Company, from about 1950.”
Having dealt with the fire extinguishers, Sasha came into the kitchen
and switched on one of the two ovens to warm up the pizza.
To Bobby, I said, “Then I set the patrol car on fire to destroy the
evidence.”
“What’s on the pizza?” he asked Sasha.
“Pepperoni on one, sausage and onions on the other.”
“Bobby’s wearing a used shirt,” I told her.
“Antique,” Bobby amended.
“Anyway, after I blew up the patrol car, I went over to St.
Bernadette’s and let myself in.”
“Breaking and entering?”
“Unlocked window.”
“So it’s just criminal trespass,” he said.
As I finished loading the spare magazines for the Glock, I said, “Used
shirt, antique shirt-seems like the same thing to me.”
“One’s cheap,” Sasha explained, “and the other isn’t.”
“One’s art,” Bobby said. He held out the leather holder with the
speedloaders. “Here’s your dump pouch.”
Sasha took it from him and snapped it onto her belt.
I said, “Father Tom’s sister was an associate of my mother’s.”
Bobby said, “Mad-scientist-blow-up-the-world type?”
“No explosives are involved. But, yeah, and now she’s infected.”
“Infected.” He grimaced. “Do we really have to get into this?”
“Yeah. But it’s way complex. Genetics.”
“Big-brain stuff. Boring.”
“Not this time.”
Far out to sea, bright arteries of lightning pulsed in the sky and a
low throb of thunder followed.
Sasha had also purchased a cartridge belt designed for duck hunters and
skeet shooters, and Bobby began to stuff shotgun shells into the
leather loops.
“Father Tom’s infected, too,” I said, putting one of the spare
9-millimeter magazines in my shirt pocket.
“Are You infected?” Bobby asked.
“Maybe. My mom had to be. And Dad was.”
“How’s it passed?”
“Bodily fluids,” I said, standing the other two magazines behind a fat
red candle on the table, where they could not be seen from the
windows.
“And maybe other ways.”
Bobby looked at Sasha, who was transferring the pizzas to baking
sheets.
She shrugged and said, “If Chris is, then I am.”
“We’ve been holding hands for over a year,” I told Bobby.
“You want to heat your own pizza?” Sasha asked him.
“Nah. Too much trouble. Go ahead and infect me.”
I closed the box of ammo and put it on the floor. My pistol was still
in my jacket, which hung on the back of my chair.
As Sasha continued preparing the pizzas, I said, “Orson might not be
infected, exactly. I mean, he might be more like a carrier or
something.”
Passing a shotgun shell between his fingers and across his knuckles,
like a magician rolling a coin, Bobby said, “So when does the pus and