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Jack Crow stood at the baggage claily at the bank of pay phones and rattling the change in his pocket
It was probably too late to call the people he had in ht, too late in his career And he didn’t ain What was that old joke? One of the three Big Lies? "Hi! I’m from the Government I’m here to help you!"
But still, nobody could find someone like the old crowd And God knows they were fair to me Just let me walk away fro the others gather the bags Annabelle and Davette stood chatting a up all sorts of looks froers Crow didn’t blae And coe She was really so odd
"Davette? Where are your bags?" he asked, innocently enough but absolutely everyone turned and looked at him and Davette blushed to her dress line and Annabelle trotted over to hiht What have I done now?
Well! If he’d just be quiet for a irl has had a falling-out with her faotten all the details yet but it was soirl is just desperate and she needs this story and I know she probably won’t get it printed, Jack! But that’s not the point! The point is: she’s lost and alone and away fro to stay with us for a while, doing her job as a reporter - I’m sure she’s a dandy little reporter, she’s so smart - and then we’ll worry about the rest of it later
Please? Please, Jack?
For irl, the sob story, the responsibility, Annabelle’s tone But what the hell was he going to do? Annabelle had yet to be wrong about someone, and besides, what could he do anyway? He hated it He just hated it
He looked down at her pleading eyes He was a foot taller and one hundred pounds heavier and one day, when he grew up, he was going to stand up to her
He just nodded and slunk his ass away toward the taxis
Shit
Davette, visibly tense, watched hiht?" she asked
"Of course it is, dear"
Davette relaxed soreed?"
Annabelle stopped and looked at the younger wo Davette’s cheek "Did you get the iht clerk at the Adolphus Hotel, Dallas’s rejuvenated don palace, had no better luck than Crow Annabelle was terribly sorry they hadn’t made reservations but it’s just that they always stayed at the Adolphus - it was like their second home and one hardly makes reservations at one’s hosuites and Davette had her single on the sa to death so they ordered down for Howbaked potatoes with everything on theus and a round of drinks, make that two rounds, and a half dozen bottles of Mondavi red No That’s eight steaks and six bottles of wine Whaddya think we are? Alcoholics? Right Thank you
Davette further endeared herself to everyone by falling asleep twice Once after her first drink and again at the table during the meal Annabelle clucked and had the irl had been both exhausted and starving and, No thank you veryJack Crow declared a holiday It didn’t apply to Carl Joplin, as going to be busy setting up his workshop and getting ready to make silver bullets and it didn’t apply to Annabelle, as going to be busy screa the day, but everyone else could play
And they did Jack and Cat and Ada way for the next couple of weeks The others joined theot silly on their own They went to o-cart tracks They bowled They golfed They played tennis, hard, every day to stay in shape They lunched, huge lunches lasting three hours and costing as many hundreds of dollars They ran up an enormous tab at the hotel (everyone still slept there), paid it, ran up another, paid that
In theready; the vehicles arrived froet a DWI He stood there, furious, while a twenty-year-old police across a ce picnic spots for the next afternoon Jack was forced to renew his old acquaintances don before he really wanted to think about such things The lieutenant he spoke to knew (unofficially) who he was and what he did and got him off but lectured him some more
Jack shut up and took it and leased a li
In the meanti with Annabelle once it was discovered she had only what she had been wearing Cat chased and caught several women, at least two of who
And Jack made his phone call to the nation’s capital
They were surprised to hear from him but not entirely distant They said they would see what they could do Teeks later they called hi up, checked the address in the yellow pages, nodded to hi the whole teeks they never once mentioned their jobs Nobody said the word: va
He shouldn’t have
The silver had arrived froh the local see The bishop was a newabout Team Crow or, for that matter, his parishioners Persuaded by his aide that anyone with enough clout to receive a package fro, he grudgingly consented to share his su feast with Crow & Co
It took less than fifteen minutes in his presence for Team Crow to know all the ihty He was better than his flock, ently pious, more how shall one put it? More aristocratic
The bishop was an idiot
He was also Carl Joplin’s meat Carl’s and Cat’s The two of the all the while to be unaware at how offended he was by their every gesture and semicrude remark They had descended to triple entendres when the bishop had absolutely had enough
He rose curtly and left the roo for the uniformed Father Adam to follow
Adam loved the Church He loved it deeply and fully, without reservation, both as an institution and as a vehicle for Al thes as existed on the planet Many times in even a career as short as his he had felt no, he had known he had seen, in the shining eyes of some simple servant of Ronored the man’s clipped demands for explanation and instead laid before hiht with him from the Vatican
With a snort and a sneer, the older an to read When he was finished, his face was pale
It orth seeing
Suddenly (al the bishop or his office could do for thelad to
Right Great They all shook hands and left
Ashis job, which was to fret over Jack Crow Everybody had his own relationship with their leader and each relationship was close but none as close as Cat’s and everyone knew it Cat found it strange that he received such attention, that his feelings of well, approval, he guessed, should be so important But they were
For now
Because one day, Cherry Cat was very sure, someone would stop by froe of Karma, and inform him that there had been a dreadful mistake We’re very sorry, Mr Catlin, the man would say, but you’re not supposed to be here By some clerical error, your soul was classified under Hero when it should have been under Intelligentsia Let’s face it, Mr Catlin, you are hardly the crusader type, now are you? You should have been a filht Cat But until that ti to stick Because he couldn’t iine any other way that a fellow like hi around these giants So he would stay until they dragged him away Just to be there Just to see it
He only hoped the Home Office wouldn’t prosecute
But in the meantime he watched Jack Crow and he’d noticed an odd look on his leader’s face all night He hadn’t joined in with their game of Piss Off the Bishop, hadn’t even see on, Cat knew And it was soht to be able to
Of course! Mexico! That story he told about that funny suy What was his name? Fre No Felix Like Felix the Cat Hain When do you suppose he’s going to get around to telling us? Maybe he could use a feed
At the moment there was no decent opportunity Jack had directed the limo to Greenville Avenue, the Ao to LA’s Marina del Rey, of the Singles’ Strip For six straight ht life Everyplace was a bar or a restaurant with a bar and all served steak and lobster and silly drinks with sillier naned to sound obscene when drunkenly pronounced and all were filled with nubile young ladies, a terrifying percentage of which had received herpes froh this place like International Harvester in the fall Woht build Even the tall ones and that was okay because so the, the name (the Antwar Saloon) For another, the clientele This was a bar bar No foo-foo drinks with little umbrellas for them This was a place for men,without showering after the office They didn’t seeet new custo strangers The waitress who took their order after they had filled up a corner booth seeh, and she did her job quickly and well, but Cat could tell she didn’t care if they returned or not or lived or died It was a nice place anyway So the roo on his features, and decided it was tian cheerily, "whatever happened to that Felix guy?"
"Yes," echoed Davette, who seeenuinely interested "I’d like to hear"
"So would I," said Adaain?"
Jack eyed CM briefly, surprise and dawning gratitude on his face He smiled and nodded to the question "Yep Twiceone "What happened?"
"Well, to answer that, I’ve first got to talk about Mr Peanut"
Carl frowned "What’s Carter got to do with it? He wasn’t president then"
"No," Jack agreed slowly "But the dae was done Who else told the world a bunch of unshaven purportedly religious punks could mob-storm an American embassy and capture and torture the diploet aith it?"
Carl frowned again "So what’s the point?"
Jack sipped and grinned "That is the point The whole world knee lacked the one thing absolutely required to stop outlaws: the resolve to get the dirty job done Without that, they knew if they pushed us hard enough and long enough, we’d back off
"So they decided to ents One, anyway, so there would be a chance for Congress to whoop and holler and then do nothing and the agents the and quit Not quit their jobs Just quit doing theets for people who didn’t care anymore about them than to say they did?"
"So what stopped it?" Adam wanted to know
Jack’s face was hard "It wasn’t stopped"
Ada"