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I went back to the motel What I wanted o to sleep, but I couldn’t see a way to pull that off I had tooquestions yet to ask I stepped into the office As usual, the desk was unmanned, but I could hear Ori on the telephone in the fa room I slipped under the counter and knocked politely on the door fraht ofreservations for a fa a sofa bed, a crib, and a cot with variations in the rooone with very little evidence of her effectiveness All she’d done, as far as I could see, was to clear off a few surfaces, leaving a residue of furniture oil in which dust was settling The counterpane on Ori’s hospital bed was now littered with junkwith that mysterious collection of coupons and fliers that seems to accumulate on end tables everywhere The wastebasket beside the bed was already spilling over Ori was idly sorting and discarding as she talked She concluded her business and set the telephone aside, fanning herself with a ed envelope

"Aw, Kinsey What a day it’s been I think I’ Lord only knohat Everybody I talk to has the twenty-four-hour flu I feel so achy all over and my head’s about to bust"

"I’m sorry to hear that," I said "Is Ann around?"

"She’s inspecting soet a new maid we have to check and double-check, ht Of course, the ain and you have to start from scratch Well, look at you What’d you do to your hand there, poke it through a winda screen?"

I glanced atfib I didn’t think I’d been hired to punch out the local doctor’s wife Bad form, and I was embarrassed now that I’d lost control ofinterest, and before I could answer, she was back to her own

She scratched at her arot this rash," she said, mystified "Can you see them little bumps? Itch? It’s like to drove me insane I never heard of any kind of flu like that, but I don’t knohat else it could be, do you?"

She held her arm up I peered dutifully, but all I could see were theat herself She was the kind of woue about her bowels, thinking perhaps that her flatulence had some power to fascinate How Ann Fowler survived in this atlanced at et upstairs"

"Well, I’ht down here and visit," Ori said "With Royce gone, andup, I don’t knohere et to know one another" She patted the side of the bed as if I ht be a lucky pup, allowed at last on the furniture

"I wish I could, Ori, but you know I have to-"

"Oh no, you don’t It’s after five o’clock and not even suppertime yet Why would you have to run off at this hour?"

My mind went blank I stared at her mutely, unable to think of any plausible excuse I have a friend named Leo who became phobic about old ladies after one wrapped a turd in waxed paper and put it in his trick-or-treat bag He elve at the ti Hal-loween for him, it ruined all his candy corn He never could trust old folks after that I’d always been fond of the elderly, but noas developing much the same distaste

Ann appeared in the doorway, a clipboard in hand She shot me a distracted look "Oh, hello, Kinsey How are you?"

Ori launched right in, not wanting to let anybody else establish a conversational beachhead She held her arain "Ann, honey, look at this here Kinsey says she’s never seen anything like this in her life"

Ann gave her mother a look "Could you just wait a minute, please"

Ori didn’t see to have to go to the bank first thing in theI paid Maxine out of petty cash and there’s hardly anything left"

"What happened to the fifty I gave you yesterday?"

"I just told you I paid Maxine with that" "You paid her fifty dollars? How long was she here?"

"Well, you needn’t take that tone She come at ten and didn’t leave till four and she never set down once except to eat her lunch"

"I bet she ate everything in sight"