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"Hoell do you have to know somebody to sit next to theo with me? Never o"

"Really?"

"Why not? Of course I ht look pretty dowdy Next to all those flashy hookers"

"Oh, I don't think so"

"No?"

"No, I don't think so at all"

I tipped up her chin and tasted her htly salted with gray Gray to match her eyes

She said, "I was afraid this would happen And then I was afraid it wouldn't"

"And now?"

"Now I'm just afraid"

"Do you want me to leave?"

"Do I want you to leave? No, I don't want you to leave I want you to kiss ain"

I kissed her She put her arms around h our clothing

"Ah, darling," she said

Afterward, lying in her bed and listening to my own heartbeat, I had a h I had taken the cover off a bottomless well I reached over and laid a hand on her flank, and the physical contact cut the thread of my ?"

She laughed "Nothing very ro to say"

"Do you have to tell her?"

"I don't have to do anything, but I will tell her 'Oh, by the way, I hopped into bed with a guy who's eight days sober' "

"That's a mortal sin, huh?"

"Let's just say it's a no-no"

"What'll she give you? Six Our Fathers?"

She laughed again She had a good laugh, full and hearty I'd always liked it

"She'll say, 'Well, at least you didn't drink That's the i' And she'll say, 'I hope you enjoyed it' "

"Did you?"

"Enjoy it?"

"Yeah"

"Hell, no I was faking orgasm"

"Both times, huh?"

"You betcha" She drew close to me, put her hand on my chest "You'll stay over, won't you?"

"What would your sponsor say?"

"Probably that Ifor a sheep as a la?"

"Gottayour sponsor?"

She shook her head She'd put a robe on and now she was paging through a small address book She dialed a nu, were you? Look, this is out of left field, but does the word Ricone ht be a dirty word or so Uh-huh" Then she listened for acrossword puzzles in Sicilian, that's all On nights when I can't sleep Listen, you can only spend soBook"

She finished the conversation, hung up and said, "Well, it was a thought I figured if it was a dialect or an obscenity it ht not be in the dictionary"

"What obscenity did you think it ht happen to cross your "

"I know, I can feel it That'll teach oes unpunished"

"That's what they say Martin Albert Ricone and Charles Otis Jones? Are those the names he used?"

"Owen Charles Owen Jones"

"And you think itEven if he's a lunatic, anything that elaborate would have to "

"Like Fort Wayne and Fort Smith?"

"Like that, nificant than that Ricone's such an unusual naht of that There are plenty of Ricos in the phone book Or maybe he's from Puerto Rico"

"Why not? Everybody else is Maybe he's a Cagney fan"

"Cagney?"

"In the death scene 'Mother of ht that was Edward G Robinson"

"Maybe it was I was always drunk when I watched the 'Late Show' and all those Warner Brothers gangsters tend to uys 'Mother of mercy, is this the- ' "