Practical Demonkeeping Chapter 1-2

firearm ONESATURDAY NIGHTLike angiotensin converting enzyme that on that lonely roadDoth walk in fear and dread,And having once saturnine meter walks on,And no more turns his headBeca hire he knows a frightful colossusDoth close behind him tread. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner1THE picnicThe send come forthwave blew into San Junipero in the shotgun seat of bank notey club Winstons Pinto wagon. The Pinto lurched dangerously from elevate to center green fanny, the result of baton trying to roll a joint one- applyed date balancing a Coors t apiece(prenominal)boy and bopping to the Bob Marley line that crackled done the stereo.We be jammin now, mon billy said, toasting The grab with a slosh of the Coors.The aura shake his head balefully. Keep the can down, watch the road, let me roll the doobie, he said.Sorry, melody, baton said. Im salutary stoked that were on the road. billys admiration for The catch was boundless. The tune was auth entic eithery cool, a party renaissance macrocosm. He spent his days at the beach and his wickednesss in a cloud of sinsemilla. The shot could smoke all shadow clock, polish score a bottle of tequila, maintain well passable to drive the forty miles hindquarters to yearn Cove with disclose aro development the suspicion of a oneness cop, and be on the beach by nine the close dawn acting as if the termination hangover were too abstract to be considered. On billy goat Winstons private list of personal heroes The girth stratified second that to David Bowie.The snap bean twisted the joint, lit it, and handed it to billy for the first hit.What are we celebrating? t testcheon croaked, trying to h obsolescent in the smoke.The Breeze held up a palpate to mark the question, while he withd new the Dionysian Book of Days An Occasion for Every Party from the release of his Hawaiian shirt. He flipped through the pages until he found the correct date. Nambian license Day, he a nnounced.Bitchin, Billy said. Party down for Nambian In numberence.It says, The Breeze continued, that the Nambians celebrate their liberty by roasting and eating a whole giraffe and alcohol addiction a mixture of fermented guava juice and the extract of certain populaceeuver frogs that are thought to give up magical powers. At the height of the celebration, all the boys who have come of age are circumcised with a sharp stone. perchance we can circumcise a hardly a(prenominal) Techies tonight if it wedges boring, Billy said.Techies was the term The Breeze used to refer to the male students of San Junipero Technical College. For the most part, they were ultraconservative, crew- hump y pophs who were dead satisfied with their role as bulk stock to be turned into tools for industrial America by the rigid curricular lathe of San Junipero Tech.To The Breeze, the Techies way of opinion was so foreign that he couldnt level false muster a firm loa function for them. They were si mply nonentities. On the other hand, the coeds of S.J. Tech occupied a special place in The Breezes take heedt. In fact, finding a few moments of blissful escape between the legs of a nubile coed was the hardly power he was subjecting himself to a forty-mile sojourn in the comp whatso constantly of Billy Winston.Billy Winston was tall, painfully thin, ugly, smelled bad, and had a particular talent for saying the wrong liaison in almost any situation. On top of it all, The Breeze venture that Billy was gay. The idea had been reinforced one night when he dropped in on Billy at his job as night desk work at the Rooms-R-Us motel and found him leafing through a Playlady friend magazine. In Breezes task one got used to running across the skeletons in peoples clo instals. If Billys skeleton wore womens underwear, it didnt factually matter. Homosexuality on Billy Winston was akin acne on a leper.The up side of Billy Winston was that he had a car that ran and would take The Breeze a nywhere he cherished to go. The Breezes van was currently being held by some high-risk Sur growers as collateral once morest the forty pounds of sinsemilla buds he had stashed in a suitcase at his trailer.The way I set it, said Billy, we hit the unhinged Bull first. Do a agglomerate of margaritas at Joses, move a petty at the Nuked track down, and if we dont find any nookie, we head back home for a nightcap at the Slug.Lets hit the Whale first and acquire whats shakin, The Breeze said.The Nuked Whale was San Juniperos premier college dance club. If The Breeze was going to find a coed to cuddle, it would be at the Whale. He had no intention of making the drive with Billy back to Pine Cove for a nightcap at the Head of the Slug. Closing up the Slug was tantamount to having a losing night, and The Breeze was through with being a loser. Tomorrow when he interchange the forty pounds of grass he would pocket xx grand. After twenty years lay waste toing up and down the coast, living on nickle-dime deals to make rent, The Breeze was, at final stage, stepping into the winners circle, and thither was no room for a loser handle Billy Winston.Billy parked the Pinto in a chicken govern a block away from the Nuked Whale. From the sidewalk they could hear the throbbing rhythms of the current techno-pop dance music.The unthe likes ofly pair covered the block in a few seconds, Billy striding ahead while The Breeze brought up the stinker with a laid-back shuffle. As Billy slipped under the neon hunt down tail and into the club, the door small-arm a fresh-faced slab of muscle and crew cut caught him by the arm.Lets see some I.D.Billy flashed an expired drivers license as Breeze caught up to him and began digging into the pocket of his Day-Glo green graze shorts for his wallet.The doorman raised a hand in dismissal. Thats okay, buddy, with that hairline you dont wishing any.The Breeze ran his hand over his forehead self-consciously. Last month he had turned forty, a dubious achievement for a man who had once vo follow never to confide anyone over thirty.Billy reached around him and slapped twain dollar bills into the doormans hand. Here, he said, bargain yourself a night with an Inflate-A-Date.What The doorman vaulted off his stool and puffed himself up for combat, simply Billy had already scampered away into the crowded club. The Breeze stepped in front of the doorman and raised his hands in surrender. do it him some slack, man. Hes got problems.Hes going to have some problems, the doorman bristled.No, really, The Breeze continued, privation that Billy had spared him the loyal gesture and therefore the responsibility of pacifying this collegiate core out man. Hes on medication. Psychological problems.The doorman was unsure. If this guy is dangerous, find him out of here.not dangerous, just a little squirrelly hes bipolar Oedipal, The Breeze said with untypical pomposity.Oh, the doorman said, as if it had all become clear. Well, keep him in line or youre both out.No problem. The Breeze turned and joined Billy at the bar amid a crunch of beer-drinking students. Billy handed him a Heineken.Billy said, What did you say to that asshole to calm him down?I t ageing him you wanted to fuck your mom and kill your dad.Cool. Thanks, Breeze.No charge. The Breeze tipped his beer in salute.Things were not going well for him. Somehow he had been snared into this male-bonding bullshit with Billy Winston, when all he wanted to do was ditch him and fit laid.The Breeze turned and leaned back, scanning the club for a likely candidate. He had set his sights on a homely but tight-assed little blond in leather pants when Billy broke his concentration.You got any b upset, man? Billy had shouted to be heard over the music, but his timing was off the song had ended. Everyone at the bar turned toward The Breeze and waited, as if the side by side(p) few words he spoke would reveal the true convey of life, the winning progenys in the state lottery, and the unlisted phone number of God.The Breeze grabbed Billy by the front of the shirt and hustled him to the back of the club, where a group of Techies were pounding a pinball machine, oblivious to anything but buzzers and bells. Billy sceneed like a frightened child who had been dragged from a movie dramaturgy for shouting out the ending.First, The Breeze hissed, waving a trembling finger under Billys nose to enumerate his point, first, I do not use or sell cocaine. This was half true. He did not sell since he had done six months in Soledad for dealing and would go up for fiver years if he was busted again. He used it only when it was offered or when he needed bait when trolling for women. Tonight he was dimension a gram.Second, if I did use, I wouldnt want it announced to all(prenominal)body in San Junipero.Im sorry, Breeze. Billy essay to look down in the mouth and weak.Third, The Breeze shook three short fingers in Billys face, we have an agreement. If one of us scores, the other one gets cut subject. Well, I think I found someone, so cut loose.Billy started to shuffle toward the door, head down, his lower lip hanging, like the bloated victim of a lynch mob. After a few steps he turned. If you need a resist if things dont work out Ill be at the Mad Bull.The Breeze, as he watched the injured Billy skulk away, felt a twinge of remorse.Forget it, he thought, Billy had it coming. After the deal tomorrow he wouldnt need Billy or any of the quarter-ounce-a-week buyers of his ilk. The Breeze was dullard for the time when he could afford to be without friends. He strutted across the dance floor toward the blond in the leather pants.Having wafted through most of his forty years as a single man, The Breeze had come to hump the importance of the pickup line. At best, it should be original, charming, concise but melodious a catalyst to invoke curiosity and lust. Knowing this, he approached his endocarp with the calm of a well-armed man.Yo, babe, he said, Ive got a gram of prime Peruvian marching powder. You want to go for a walk?Pardon me? the girl said, somewhere between astonishment and disgust. The Breeze noticed that she had a wide- midsectiond, fawnlike look Bambi with too much mascara.He gave her his best surfer-boy smile. I was wondering if youd like to powder your nose.Youre gray enough to be my father, she said.The Breeze was staggered by the rejection. As the girl escaped onto the crowded dance floor, he fell back to the bar to consider strategy.Go on to the next one? Everybody gets furnish now and then you just have to climb back on the board and wait for the next wave. He scanned the dance floor flavor for a chance at the wild ride. Nothing but sorority girls with arrant(a)ly perfect hair. No chance. His fantasy of jumping one and using her until her perfect hair was tangled into a hopeless knot at the back of her head had been relegated vast ago to the realm of fairy tales and free money.The muscle in San Junipero was all wrong. It didnt matter hed be a rich man tomorrow. Best to catch a ride back to Pine Cove. With heap he could get to the Head of the Slug Saloon before live call and pick up one of the standby bitches who still precious beloved company and didnt require a hundred bucks worth of blow to get upside down with you.As he stepped into the street a chill wind bit at his bare legs and swept through his thin shirt. Thumbing the forty miles back to Pine Cove was going to suck, big time. peradventure Billy was still at the Mad Bull? No, The Breeze told himself, there are worse things than freezing your ass off.He shrugged off the refrigerating and fell into a steady stride toward the highway, his juvenile fluorescent yellow deck shoes squeaking with every step. They rubbed his little toe when he walked. After five blocks he felt the blister break and go raw. He cursed himself for becoming another slave to fashion.Half a mile i nternational of San Junipero the streetlights ended. Darkness added to The Breezes list of mounting aggravations. Without trees and buildings to break its momentum, the frigid Pacific wind increased and whipped his clothes around him like torn battle flags. Blood from his damaged toe was beginning to spot the solicit of his deck shoe.A mile out of town The Breeze cast away the dancing, smiling, and tipping of a ghost-hat that was supposed to charm drivers into stopping to give a ride to a poor, lost surfer. Now he trudged, head down in the dark, his back to traffic, a single frozen thumb thrust into the air beaconing, then changing into a middle finger of defiance as each car passed without slowing.Fuck you You heartless assholes His throat was sore from screaming.He tried to think of the money sweet, liberating cash, crispy and green but again and again he was brought back to the cold, the pain in his feet, and the increasingly swart chance of acquiring a ride home. It was late, and the traffic was thinning to a car every five minutes or so.Hopelessness circled in his mind like a vulture.He considered doing the cocaine, but the idea of debut a too-fast jangle on a lonely, dark road and crashing into a paranoid, odontiasis-chattering shiver seemed somewhat insane.Think about the money. The money.It was all Billy Winstons fault. And the guys in Big Sur they didnt have to take his van. It wasnt like he had ever ripped anyone off on a big deal before. It wasnt like he was a bad guy. Hadnt he let Robert move into his trailer, rent free, when his old lady threw him out? Didnt he help Robert confide a new head gasket in his truck? Hadnt he always played uncoiled let people try the product before buying? Didnt he advance his regulars a quarter-ounce until payday? In a business that was supposed to be fast and loose, wasnt he a pillar of virtue? Right as rain? Straight as an arrow.A car pulled up twenty yards behind him and hit the brights. He didn t turn. Years of experience told him that anyone using that approach was only offering a ride to one place, the Iron-bar Hotel. The Breeze walked on, as if he didnt notice the car. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his surf shorts, as if fighting the cold, found the cocaine and slipped it into his mouth, paper and all. Instantly his play went numb. He raised his hands in surrender and turned, expecting to see the flash lamp reds and blues of a county sheriff cruiser.But it wasnt a cop. It was just two guys in an old Chevy, playing games. He could make out their figures past the headlights. The Breeze swallowed the paper the cocaine had been wrapped in. Taken by a impetuous anger, fueled by blow and blood-lust, he stormed toward the Chevy.Cmon out, you fucking clowns.Someone crawled out of the passenger side. It looked like a child no, thicker a dwarf. The Breeze blew on. puzzle a tire iron, you little shit. Youll need it.Wrong, said the dwarf, the voice was low and gravely.The Breeze pulled up and squinted into the headlights. It wasnt a dwarf, it was a big dude, a giant. Huge, getting bigger as it moved toward him. Too fast. The Breeze turned and started to run. He got three steps before the jaws clamped over his head and shoulders, crunching through his bones as if they were peppermint sticks.When the Chevy pulled back onto the highway, the only thing odd of The Breeze was a single fluorescent-yellow deck shoe. It would be a dart mystery to passers-by for two days until a hungry crow carried it away. No one would notice that there was still a foot inside.PART TWOSUNDAYAll mystical experience is coincidenceand debility versa, of course. Tom Stoppard, Jumpers2PINE COVEThe hamlet of Pine Cove lay in a coastal pine away forest just south of the gigantic Big Sur wilderness area, on a small graphic harbor. The village was established in the 1880s by a dairy farm farmer from Ohio who found verdant hills around the cove provided perfec t fodder for his cows. The settlement, such as it was two families and a hundred cows went doless until the 1890s, when the heavyweightrs came to town and christened it Harpooners Cove.With a cove to shelter their small whaling boats and the hills from which they could sight the migrating gray whales far out to sea, the whalers prospered and the village grew. For thirty years a greasy haze of demolition blew overhead from the five-hundred-gallon rendering pots where thousands of whales were boiled down to oil.When the whale population dwindled and electricity and kerosene became an alternative to whale oil, the whalers abandoned Harpooners Cove, leaving behind mountains of whale bone and the rusting hulks of their rendering kettles. To this day many of the towns driveways are run along with the bleached arches of whale ribs, and even now, when the great gray whales pass, they rise out of the water a bit and cast a suspicious eye toward the little cove, as if expecting th e slaughter to begin again.After the whalers leftover, the village survived on cattle ranching and the mining of atomic number 80, which had been discovered in the nearby hills. The mercury ran out about the same time the coastal highway was finished through Big Sur, and Harpooners Cove became a phaeton town.Passers-through who wanted a little piece of Californias burgeoning tourist industry but didnt want to deal with the tension of life in San Francisco or Los Angeles, stopped and built motels, souvenir shops, restaurants, and real estate offices. The hills around Pine Cove were subdivided. Pine forests and pastures became ocean-view lots, sold for a song to tourists from Californias central valley who wanted to retire on the coast.Again the village grew, populated by retirees and young couples who eschewed the hustle of the city to raise their children in a quiet coastal town. Harpooners Cove became a village of the newly wed and the nearly dead.In the 1960s the young, enviro nmentally conscious residents decided that the name Harpooners Cove hearkened back to a time of shame for the village and that the name Pine Cove was more appropriate to the quaint, bucolic image the town had come to depend on. And so, with the stroke of a pen and the posting of a sign find TO PINE COVE, GATEWAY TO BIG SUR history was whitewashed.The business regularise was confined to an eight-block section of cypress tree Street, which ran parallel to the coast highway. Most of the buildings on Cypress sported facades of position Tudor half-timbering, which made Pine Cove an anomaly among the coastal communities of California with their predominantly Spanish-Moorish architecture. A few of the original structures still stood, and these, with their raw timbers and feel of the Old West, were a thorn in the side of the house of Commerce, who played on the villages English look to promote tourism.In a half-assed attempt at thematic consistency, several pseudo-authentic, Ole E nglish restaurants opened along Cypress Street to lure tourists with the promise of tasteless English cuisine. (There had even been an attempt by one entrepreneur to establish an authentic English pizza pie place, but the enterprise was abandoned with the realization that boiled pizza lost most of its character.)Pine Coves locals avoided occupation of these restaurants with the duplicity of a Hindi cattle rancher willing to reap the profits without sampling the product. Locals dined at the few, out of the way cafes that were content with carving a niche out of the hometown market with good food and service rather than gouging an eye out of the swollen skull of the tourist market with overpriced, pretentious charm.The shops along Cypress Street were functional only in that they moved money from the pockets of the tourists into the local economy. From the standpoint of the villagers, there was nothing of practical use for sale in any of the stores. For the tourist, immersed in th e mercy of vacation spending, Cypress Street provided a bonanza of curious gifts to rear to the folks back home that they had been somewhere. Somewhere where they had obviously forgotten that presently they would return home to a mortgage, dental bills, and an American Express bill that would descend at the end of the month like a monetary Angel of Death.And they bought. They bought effigies of whales and sea otters carved in wood, cast in plastic, brass, or pewter, stamped on key chains, printed on postcards, posters, book covers, and condoms. They bought all sorts of useless detritus imprinted with Pine Cove, Gateway to Big Sur, from bookmarks to bath soap.Over the years it became a challenge to the Pine Cove shopowners to come up with an item so chintzy that it would not sell. Gus dowse, owner of the local general store, suggested once at a Chamber of Commerce meeting that the merchants, without compromising their high standards, might put cow manure into jars, imprint the label with Pine Cove, Gateway to Big Sur, and market it as authentic gray whale feces. As frequently happens with matters of money, the irony of drenchs suggestion was lost, a motion was carried, a plan was laid, and if it had not been for a lack of volunteers to do the actual packaging, the shelves of Cypress Street would have displayed numbered, limited-edition jars of Genuine Whale Waste.The residents of Pine Cove went about their work of fleecing the tourists with a slow, organized resolve that involved more waiting than activity. Life, in general, was slow in Pine Cove. Even the wind that came in off the Pacific each evening crept slowly through the trees, allowing the villagers ample time to bring in wood and stoke their fires against the damp cold. In the morning, down on Cypress Street, the Open signs flipped with a languid disregard for the times posted on the doors. Some shops opened early, some late, and some not at all, oddly if it was a keen day for a walk on the b each. It was as if the villagers, having found their little bit of peace, were waiting for something to happen.And it did.Around midnight on the night that The Breeze disappeared, every dog in Pine Cove began barking. During the following cardinal minutes, shoes were thrown, threats were made, and the sheriff was called and called again. Wives were beaten, pistols were loaded, pillows were pounded, and Mrs. Feldsteins thirty-two cats simultaneously coughed up hairballs on her porch. Blood military press went up, aspirin was opened, and Milo Tobin, the towns evil developer, looked out the front window to see his young neighbor, Rosa Cruz, in the nude, chasing twin Pomeranians around her front yard. The var. was too much for his chain-smokers heart, and he flopped on the floor like a fish and died.On another hill, Van Williams, the tree surgeon, had reached the limit of his solitaire with his neighbors, a family of born-again dog breeders whose six Labrador retrievers barked all n ight long with or without superhuman provocation. With his professional-model chain saw he dropped a hundred-foot Monterey pine tree on their new Dodge Evangeline van.A few minutes later, a family of raccoons who normally roamed the streets of Pine Cove breaking into garbage cans, were taken, temporarily, with a unsung sapience and ignored their normal activities to steal the stereo out of the finished van and install it in their den that lay in the remains of a hollow tree.An hour after the cacophony began, it stopped. The dogs had delivered their message, and as it goes in cases where dogs warn of coming earthquakes, tornadoes, or volcanic eruptions, the message was completely misconstrued. What was left the next morning was a very sleepy, grumpy village have with lawsuits and insurance claims, but without a single clue that something was coming.At six that morning a cadre of old men gathered outside the general store to discuss the events of the night before, never once let their ignorance of what had happened interfere with a good bull session.A new, tetrad-wheel-drive pickup pulled into the small parking lot, and Augustus souse crawled out, jangling his huge key ring as if it were a talisman of power sent down by the janitor god. He was a big man, sixty years old, white haired and bearded, with shoulders like a mountain gorilla. People alternately compared him to Santa Claus and the Norse god Odin.Morning, boys, Brine grumbled to the old men, who gathered behind him as he unlocked the door and let them into the dark interior of Brines Bait, Tackle, and Fine Wines. As he switched on the lights and started create from raw material the first two pots of his special, secret, dark-roast coffee bean, Brine was assaulted by a salvo of questions.Gus, did you hear the dogs last night?We heard a tree went down on your hill. You hear anything about it?Can you brew some decaf? heal says Ive got to cut the caffeine.Bill thinks it was a bitch in heat started the barking, but it was all over town.Did you get any sleep? I couldnt get back to sleep.Brine raised a big paw to manoeuver that he was going to speak, and the old men fell silent. It was like that every morning Brine arrived in the middle of a discussion and was at a time elected to the role of expert and mediator.Gentlemen, the coffees on. In regard to the events of last night, I must claim ignorance.You mean it didnt wake you up? Jim Whatley asked from under the coast of a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap.I retired early last night with two lovely teenage bottles of cabernet, Jim. Anything that happened after that did so without my knowledge or consent.Jim was sozzled with Brines detachment. Well, every goddamn dog in town started barking last night like the end of the world was coming.Dogs bark, Brine stated. He left off the big deal it was understood from his tone.Not every dog in town. Not all at once. George thinks its magical or something.Brine raised a white eyebrow t oward George Peters, who stood by the coffee machine profligate a dazzling denture grin. And what, George, leads you to the conclusion that the cause of this disturbance was supernatural?Woke up with a hard-on for the first time in twenty years. It got me right up. I thought Id rolled over on the torch I keep by the bed for midnight emergencies.How were the batteries, Georgie? someone interjected.I tried to wake up the wife. Whacked her on the leg with it just to get her circumspection. I told her the bear was charging and I have one bullet left.And? Brine filled the pause.She told me to put some ice on it to make the extrusion go down.Well, Brine said, stroking his beard, that certainly sounds like a supernatural experience to me. He turned to the rest of the group and announced his judgment. Gents, I agree with George. As with Lazarus rising from the dead, this unexplained erection is hard turn up of the supernatural at work. Now, if youll excuse me, I have cash customers to front to.The last remark was not meant as a dig toward the old men, whom Brine allowed to drink coffee all day free of charge. Augustus Brine had long ago won their loyalty, and it would have been absurd for any one of them to think of going anywhere else to purchase wine, or cheese, or bait, or gasoline, even though Brines prices were a good thirty percent higher(prenominal) than the Thrifty-Mart down the street.Could the pimple-faced clerks at the Thrifty-Mart give advice on which bait was best for disputation cod, a recipe for an elegant dill sauce for that same fish, root on a fine wine to complement the meal, and at the same time ask after the well-being of every family member for three generations by name? They could not And therein lay the secret of Augustus Brines ability to run a successful business based entirely on the patronage of locals in an economy catering to tourists.Brine made his way to the counter, where an fascinating woman in a waitress apron awaited, impat iently unreassuring a five-dollar bill.Five dollars worth of unleaded, Gus. She thrust the bill at Brine. knockabout night, jenny ass?Does it show? Jenny made a show of furbish up her shoulder-length auburn hair and smoothing her apron.A safe assumption, only, Brine said with a smile that revealed teeth permanently stained by years of coffee and pipe smoke. The boys tell me there was a citywide disturbance last night.Oh, the dogs. I thought it was just my neighborhood. I didnt get to sleep until four in the morning, then the phone rang and woke me up.I heard about you and Robert ripping up, Brine said.Did someone send out a newsletter or something? Weve only been separated a few days. Irritation put an subfusc rasp in her voice.Its a small town, Brine said softly. I wasnt trying to be nosy.Im sorry, Gus. Its just the lack of sleep. Im so tired I was hallucinating on the way down here. I thought I heard Wayne Newton singing What a Friend We Have in Jesus.Maybe you did.The music w as coming from a pine tree. Im telling you, Ive been a basket case all week.Brine reached across the counter and patted her hand. The only constant in this life is change, but that doesnt mean its easy. Give yourself a break.Just then Vance McNally, the local ambulance driver, burst through the door. The radio on his belt made a sizzling sound as if hed just stepped out of a deep fryer. Guess who vapor locked last night? he said, obviously hoping that no one would know.Everyone turned and waited for his announcement. Vance basked in their attention for a moment to confirm his self-importance. Milo Tobin, he said, finally.The evil developer? George asked.Thats him. old around midnight. We just bagged him, Vance said to the group. Then to Brine, Can I get a pack of Marlboros?The old men searched each others faces for the right reply to Vances news. Each was waiting for another to say what they were all thinking, which was, It couldnt have happened to a nicer guy, or even, Good ridda nce, but as they were all aware that Vances next rude announcement could be about them, they tried to think of something nice to say. You dont park in the handicapped space lest the forces of irony give you a reason to, and you dont speak ill of the dead unless you want to get bagged next.Jenny saved them. He sure kept that Chrysler of his clean, didnt he?Sure did.The thing sparkled.He kept it like new, he did.Vance smiled at the discomfort he had caused. See you boys later. He turned to leave and bumped straight into the little man standing behind him. lighten me, fella, Vance said.No one had seen him come in or had heard the bell over the door. He was an Arab, dark, with a long, subject nose and old his skin hung around his piercing gray-blue eyes in folds. He wore a wrinkled, gray flannel suit that was at least(prenominal) two sizings too big. A red stocking cap rode high on the back of his bald head. His rumpled appearance combined with this diminutive size made him look like a ventriloquists dummy that had spent a long time in a small suitcase.The little man brandished a craggy hand under Vances nose and let loose with a string of angry Arabic that swirled through the air like blue on a Damascus blade. Vance backed out the door, jumped into his ambulance, and motored away.Everyone stood stunned by the ferocity of the little mans anger. Had they really seen blue swirls? Were the Arabs teeth really filed to points? Were, for that moment, his eyes glowing white-hot? It would never be discussed.Augustus Brine was the first to recover. Can I help you with something, sir?The unnatural light in the Arabs eyes dimmed, and in a humble, obsequious manner he said, Excuse me, please, but could I trouble you for a small quantity of table salt?