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He wanted to go ho there would help hio hoe Once ho bench with the blocks of oak, and the world could go to Hell

Except this tio to Hell with it He could not take Barbara home with him, and if he left her alone and in jeopardy, he would have trashed his only excuse for living

Events had thrust him into action, into the rush of life, yet he felt isolated and beyond desperation

For too long he’d done no proper sowing and now had no harvest His friends were all acquaintances Though life is community, he had no community

In fact, his situation orse than isolation The friends ere no more than acquaintances were now not even acquaintances as much as they were suspects He had carpentered for hi away from the curb, Billy drove with no destination in mind, as far as he are Like a bird, he rode the currents of the night, intent only upon staying aloft and not falling into absolute despair before soin in one brief visit to her house than he had troubled hiether And though he liked Ivy, he found her more mysterious now than when he had known so much less about her

He did not think that she could have any connection to the freak co these murders But his experience with his own mother and father reminded him that he could not be sure of anyone

Harry Avarkian was a kind man and a fine attorney--but also one of three trustees overseeing seven million dollars, a temptation that could not be discounted Before Barbara, Billy had been to Harry’s house only once Barbara socialized hione to Harry’s for dinner half a dozen times in a year--but since the coma, Billy had not visited Harry anywhere but at his office

He knew Harry Avarkian But he didn’t know him

Billy’s mind circled to Dr Ferrier Which was crazy Pro people

Except Dr Ferrier wanted Billy to cooperate with hi tube in her stomach Let her die Let her starve to death in her co to decide for another--for someone in no obvious pain--that her quality of life was insufficient to warrant the expenditure of resources on her behalf, how easy was it to er?

Ridiculous Yet he didn’t know Ferrier a fraction as well as he had known his father; and in violation of all Billy thought he had known, his father had swung that polished-steel lug wrench with solee John Palmer He was a man whose love of poas clear for all to see, but whose internal landscape rematic as an alien planet The more Billy considered the people he knew, the ht be a perfect stranger, the itated to no purpose

He told himself to care and not to care, to be still In order to possess what you do not possess, you o by way of dispossession And what you do not know is the only thing you know

Driving and yet giving himself to that inner stillness, he came in a short while, without conscious intention, to the truck stop He parked where he had parked before, in front of the diner

His left hand ached When he fisted and opened it, he could feel that it had begun to swell The Vicodin had worn off He didn’t knohether or not he should take another, but he should get soht of another candy bar curdled his appetite He needed a caffeine jolt, but he wantedthe pistol and the revolver under the front seat, in spite of the broken-outthat left the vehicle unsecured, he went inside At 3:40 in the , he had his choice of empty booths Four truckers sat on stools at the counter, drinking coffee and eating pie They were attended by a beefy waitress with the neck of an NFL fullback and the face of an angel In her masses of hair, dyed shoe-polish black, she wore yellow butterfly bows

Billy sat at the counter

Chapter 67

According to the tag on her uniform, the waitress’s name was Jasmine She called Billy "honey," and served the black coffee and lemon pie that he ordered

Jasmine and the truckers were in a lively conversation when Billy settled on a stool aes, he learned that one of the men was named Curly, another Arvin No one addressed the third old tooth in the front of hisabout the lost continent of Atlantis Arvin proposed that the destruction of that fabled civilization had coenetic engineering and had bred monsters that destroyed the and DNA research, soon after which Curly mentioned the fact that at Princeton or Harvard, or Yale, at one of those hellholes or another, scientists were trying to create a pig with a human brain

"I’m not sure that’s so new," Jasmine said "Over the years, let s"

"What would be the purpose of a hu?" Arvin wondered

"Just because it’s there," said Y

"It’s where?"

"Like a mountain is just there," You clarified "So soot tojust because maybe they can"

"What ould it do?" Gold Tooth asked

"I don’t think they mean for it to have a job," Curly said

"They ’s for sure," Jaso nuts"

"What activists?" Arvin asked

"One kind of activist or another," she said "Once you’ve got pigs with human brains, that’s the end of anyone allowed to eat ham or bacon"

"I don’t see why," said Curly "The has that haven’t been hu," Jas has and ask them home for sleepovers?"

"That’ll never happen," You said

"Never," Arvin agreed

"What’ll happen," Jasenes, they’ll do so stupid and kill us all"

Not one of the four truckers disagreed Neither did Billy Gold Tooth still felt the scientists had in"They don’t spendlike this just for the fun of it, not those people"

"Oh, they do," Jas to them It isn’t theirs"

"It’s taxpayer money," said Curly "Yours and mine"

Billy offered a comment or two, but he mostly listened, familiar with these conversational rhythms, and curiously warmed by them

The coffee was rich The pie tasted wonderfully leue

He was surprised by how cal

"You want to talk about a total waste of money," said Gold Tooth, "look at this dahway"

"What--you onna burn when they no sooner finish it?" Arvin asked

"Oh, but it’s art," Jasmine archly reminded them

"I don’t see how it’s art," You said "Doesn’t what’s art have to last?"

"The guy’s going to s of it," Curly told theles"