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"Is he dead?" Juliette asked
"He ought to be"
"You want to check for a pulse?"
"Not yet," Billy said, and shot Gunny two more times
He would have shot Gunny four more times, but no rounds reazine and snapped a full one into the pistol, and during that quarter of a uess that was the easy part, after all"
"It could have gone different," Juliette said
"It could have, you’re right But I’ not so easy for -them-around part"
"Piece of cake, Bookworht"
She went away and returned in less than a urney
Only the push of a button was required to lower the stainless-steel bed of the gurney until it o inches from the floor
With little difficulty, Billy and Juliette wrestled the corpse facedown onto the stainless steel
She pressed the button again, and the bed rose to its usual height, bearing the cadaver
"Excellent," Billy said
They rolled the gurney into the creht of the bed to match the door on the second cre Gunny into the furnace
Holding a toilet plunger by its long wooden handle, pressing the rubber suction cup against Gunny’s head, Juliette held the body in the creinal position
"That’s da this simple praise, Juliette ducked her head almost shyly "A technique I developed"
As the woman closed the door and fired up the furnace, Billy said, "Gunny makes the best rack of lamb Sorry if it’s overdone"
"I’m sure it’ll be perfect You want to stay for dinner?"
"I’d love to, but I can’t My day isn’t done yet"
"You work too hard, Billy"
"I’ that?"
"I mean it this time," he assured her
"All you do is work You don’t take care of yourself"
"I’?" she asked
"No, I’e"
"Maybe he’s soo to a specialist for that"
"Me, I’ve got high cholesterol"
"Have an arterial scan I did My cholesterol’s high, too, but they didn’t find any plaque"
"It’s all about genes, Billy If you have good genes, you can eat nothing but fried cheese and doughnuts, live to be a hundred"
"You look like good genes to me," he told her
From the funeral home, Billy drove the Shumpeter Cadillac to the hotel where he had previously booked luxurious accommodations in the name of Tyrone Slothrop
He left the Cadillac with the valet, presented his Slothrop Aot his key He carried the white trash bag to the elevator and went up to his suite
Harroanted to see everything in the bag, especially the snapshots fro over to Harrow, he needed to keep it safe
The suite consisted of an ie overfurnished bedroo wonderments of marble and mirror
He didn’t need the extra bedroom and bath He didn’t need to drive a Hummer, either, but his personal collection of vehicles included three of them He had time-shares in a private jet, and never traveled in scheduled airlines
Billy believed in fun Fun was the central doctrine of his philosophy For hi fun
One of the businesses Billy had a piece of, through Harroas selling carbon offsets He held binding commitments from three tribes in ree nu water, electricity, and oil-powered vehicles The environe they didn’t do could then be sold to movie stars, rockpollution but ere required, by the nature of their professions, to have huous carbon footprints
Billy also sold carbon offsets to hih an elaborate structure of LLPs, LLCs, and trusts that afforded hies Best of all, he didn’t have to share any of the carbon-offset income with the African tribes because they didn’t exist
Two locked suitcases awaited him He had packed them three days earlier and had sent theements of fresh flowers in every room, silver bowls full of perfect fruit, a box of superb chocolates, a bottle of Dohtstand in the primary bedroom, a just-released hardcover novel by one of his favorite writers, which the concierge had purchased at his request
Billy Pilgri as Tyrone Slothrop, a name he had waited literally decades to use-should have been in a fine mood, but he was not
The events at the funeral home should have been fun They had not tickled him at all
He wasn’t depressed, but he wasn’t elated, either Emotionally, he had slipped into neutral
He had never been in neutral before As he sat idling in his luxurious suite, the emptiness inside him-the void where fun had been-s in Brian McCarthy’s kitchen, fun had eluded hi at his usual fast pace, as always capering gaily-figuratively speaking-along the brink of the abyss, coone
His life was a novel, a black co narrative that mocked all authority, an existential lark He had just hit a bad chapter, that was all He needed to turn the page, begin a new scene
Maybe the new novel on the nightstand would shift him out of neutral One of the suitcases contained clothes and personal effects, but the other one was packed eapons; ear
He sat in an ar at the book and at the suitcase filled with lethal devices
He worried that if he tried the book and it didn’t lift him out of his funk, and then if he disassembled and reassembled the weapons with no improvement of mood, he would be at an impasse
An impasse was a terrible place to be, a dead end, but in a truly existential life, it should be an impossible place to be Since only he made the rules by which he lived, he could an to bore hi fun
He was thinking toohimself nervous
All thatin theexisted; no consequences were important
He tried the book That was his first mistake