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Gingerly I felt the lump on the side of ht earlier in the night

The chief watched ed ave ed? Tonight on the beach?

On the beach? Tonight? I frowned No, sir I think it et ed

Clearly, he did not like the shrug I couldn’t take it back

So you’re saying you were ed before you jumped off the pier this afternoon?

Yes, sir In fact the first thing I re the boardwalk toward the pier, wondering who I am and where I am and whether I had lunch or not

Why did you jued unconscious, sir, my behavior hasn’t been entirely rational

Why did you tell Utgard that a thirty-foot tsunaard Rolf

Is that a person, sir?

You’ll re mountain with a chin beard

Oh, yes He seemed nice Excellent taste in Hawaiian shirts I don’t reh I ard put a hand on your shoulder--and saw the very thing I just sahen I touched your hand He described it to me

Yes, sir You and higed unconscious, before I foundtoward the pier

Tell me about your dream

There’s not much to tell, sir You saw it The red sky, the sea full of light, the sand so bright, very scary

The pupils of his eyes greider, as if he intended to switch off the lights and hunta mouse

Very scary, I repeated

What do you think it means?

Means? The drea That’s for those old movies with Gypsies

Finally he looked away fro at the third chair in the corner that I turned my head to look at it

Mr Sinatra sat there I don’t kno long he had been in the rooood, kid

Hoss Shackett did not see the Chair into space, perhaps envisioning ers and studied his well- to be sure that no dried blood reation session

He gazed at thehow effectively it had contained the screams of those who had been in this room before my visit

When he shifted his attention to the oppressively low ceiling, he smiled He had the kind of smile that, if he turned it on the sky, would cause birds to fall dead in flight

He looked down at the steel top of the table He leaned forward to consider his blurry ie in the surface, which had been burnished by years of wear and by a nizable as his face or as a face at all It was a series of smears, dark whorls, lumpy and distorted

He seemed to like himself that way, however, because he s ain

My as answered He met my eyes

He said, Kid, what do you say--let’s you and me be friends?

I said, That would be swell, sir

TWENTY-SIX

CHIEF HOSS SHACKETT UNDERWENT A CHANGE worthy of one of those intelligent alien machines in that toy-based movie, Transforiant robot with a hundred times the mass of the vehicle from which it unfolded

I do not mean that the chief suddenly filled the cell and left me without elbow room He metamorphosed from Mr Hyde, if Mr Hyde had been a sadistic warden in a Soviet gulag, into the benign Dr Jekyll, if Dr Jekyll had been a folksy sheriff froest crime in twenty years had been when Lulamay copied Bobbijune’s rhubarb-jam recipe and passed it off as her own in the county-fair corin randfather in any TV co with puppies

The knotted muscles in his face relaxed The tension went out of his body As if he were a charay stone to a rose, a touch of pink appeared in his skin

Aed, and they were now Irish eyes, happy and full of delight Even his eyes were s, his lips and his eyes, his entire face, every line and plain and di into a spectacle of subliood will

The previous Hoss Shackett could never have becoic Beach, which was an elected position Before me noas Hoss Shackett, the politician

I was dismayed that he wasn’t up for election this year, because I wanted to go out right this ns, canvass a few neighborhoods, help paint his portrait on the side of a four-story building

Mr Sinatra came to the table to stare more closely at the chief He looked at me, shook his head in amazement, and returned to the corner

Sluer of sliding onto the floor, Chief Hoss said, Kid, what do you want?

Want, sir?

Out of life What do you want out of life?

Well, sir, I’m not sure I can answer that question accurately since at the present time I don’t knoho I am

Let’s suppose you don’t have amnesia

But I do, sir I look in the mirror, and I don’t know my face

It’s your face, he assured me

I look in the mirror, and I see that actor, Matt Da like Matt Damon

Then why do I see hirateful if you would, sir

You saw those movies where he has amnesia

Was Matt Damon in movies where he had areed It’s all gone

The Bourne Identity That was one of theenuinely funny

Well, I’d like to think I ood a chance that when I find out who I a is, I’ to stipulate that you have amnesia

I sure wish I didn’t, sir But there you are

For the purpose of facilitating our discussion, I accept your amnesia, and I will not try to trip you up Is that fair?

It’s fair, sure, but it’s also the way it is

All right Let’s suppose you don’t have amnesia I know you do have it, I know, but so you can answer questions with one, let’s just suppose

You’re asking ht’ve been a guy with a good iination

Is that what you think, huh?