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"So maybe this is where she needs to be," I said
One of the double doors opened and a nurse peered out She wore jeans and a T-shirt No cap, but she did wear a nursing pin and a na that I couldn’t read froe I’d only seen before in olds, but her smile was quick and pleasant
"Mr Wenner? Would you like to follow lance atLeo said five iven the shape she’s in I could buy you a cup of coffee or a drink as soon as I’ht That’s nice I’ll be out here"
He nodded and moved off with the nurse For one brief moment, as they passed into the ward, I could hear Kitty delivering soinative sort Then the door closed and the key turned resoundingly in the lock No one on 3 South was going to sleep tonight I picked up the National Geographic raphs of a blowhole in Yosemite
Fifteen minutes later, Derek and I were seated in a motel bar half a block away fro establishment that looks as if it’s crept to its present location from some other part of town Thethe relatives of the ill and infirm who come to St Terry’s for treatment froht, in violation of God knohat city codes, as it is shborhood Of course, the area by now has been infiltrated by s, clinics, convalescent homes, pharmacies, and various other suppliers to the health-care industry, including a mortuary two blocks away to service folk when all else fails Maybe the city planning commission decided, at sohty-six-proof alcohol available along with the other kind
The interior is narrow and dark, with a diorama of a banana plantation that extends behind the bar in the space that usually supports a long ed as though on a se, scale-model banana palo about the business of harvesting fruit in a series of vignettes All of the workers appear to be Mexican, including the tiny carved woman who arrives with a water barrel and a dipper just as the noon whistle blows One s its tail
Derek and I sat at the bar for a while, scarcely speaking, ere so taken by the scene Even the bartender, who must have seen it hundreds of times, paused to watch while the mechanical mule pulled a load of bananas around the bend and another cart took its place Not surprisingly, the house specialties run to cuba libres and banana daiquiris, but no one cares if you order solass of white wine thatpurse I’d watched the bartender pour it fro that ran about three bucks at any Stop N’ Go The label was fro and I pondered the possibility that they’d peed on the crop to retaliate for unfair labor practices
"What do you think about this business with Bobby?" I said to Derek when I finally got my mouth unpuckered
"His claim about a murder attempt? God, I don’t know It sounds pretty farfetched to ure out why anybody’d do such a thing"
"What aboutwho benefits financially if Bobby dies I asked Glen the saan to stroke his double chin The excess weight made him Jook as if he had one norer one The joere just leftover flesh hanging out the sides "It’d be a fairly conspicuous motive, I should think," he said He wore the skeptical look of a erated effect for the audience twenty-five rows back
"Yeah, well forcing hie was conspicuous7 too Of course, if he’d died in the wreck, nobody would have known the difference," I said "Cars go off the pass every six months or so anyway because people take the curves too fast, so it could have been passed off as a single-car accident There e to the rear bumper where the other driver made contact, but by the time they’d hauled Bobby’s car up the mountain, I don’t think anybody would have suspected what really occurred I take it there weren’t any witnesses"