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.There isn't any understanding.You might come back in here some day and have achat, if you have some interesting conversation.I get bored a lot in here.Ispent fourteen years in a car out on the roads.It gets tiresome in here.""Before I go, it was kind of a shock to have Noyes trying very hard to killme, or both of us.""It knocked Nicky way off balance when Hub took off.He went away for a littlewhile and came back with merchandise.We knew he was dealing, and we got apretty good customer list.It's easier to keep your finger on a network youknow than to try to unravel the next one that starts up.He got to hitting hisown goods.Dr.Sam Stuart knows more about it than I do.He's worried all tohell lately.Something the kids are taking.We had a thirteen-year-old girlsit on a gravel pile last month and swallow gravel, a chunk at a time, untilshe had four pounds of rock in her belly.Weird.God only knows who'll takeover where Nicky leaves off.Maybe the others we got will just start handlingmore.""Meyer is waiting out there.""Oh, sure.Send him in.It will only be a few minutes for him.I'll expect tosee you around?"I nodded.Meaning clear.See me around or he would come and get me.I went outand sent Meyer in.I sat and waited.A sturdy woman typed slowly.I could justhear the dispatcher.A gigantic deputy came in slowly and said to the woman,"What's it about?""You know what it's about.""Not the damn charts again.Don't tell me it's the charts.""You're sixteen over again, Rudy.""But, damn it all, I'm not fat!""He says you got to be no more than two twenty-five.Weren't you in highschool with Nick Noyes?""Junior and senior.Four years of him.""He's dead.""No shit, Marie! OD'd?""Hit by a tourist Cadillac while crossing the street.""You've got to be kidding."Meyer came out, and the deputy went in to take his chewing for beingoverweight.We went out and suddenly realized we had no transportation.Afterwe phoned a taxi and stood waiting, Meyer said, "What took you so long inthere?""He thought I was being cute about something, so he went around and around,coming in at me from new angles.He finally decided I was some kind ofout-of-town law, so I told him why we're here.""So he said go back to Lauderdale?""Almost.Not quite.Without saying so, he sort of appointed me officialcat's-paw.""How nice for you!""I didn't tell him what we've got so far.""Which is next door to nothing at all.What we know changes nothing.""It locates Lawless as of the next morning, ashore and alive.""Which he is conceding anyway, Travis," Meyer said, opening the cab door.Page 74 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlWe stopped at the Galley to make certain that it was really too late to getanything to eat, but it wasn't.Dave Bellamy said he was delighted to takecare of old customers.Good ol' Dave.He supervised the preparation of a pair of extra-dry Boodlesgin martinis.Meyer looked beat.He beamed at the drink when it was placed infront of him.And, as on other occasions when the martini is badly needed, hequoted Bernard De Voto on that subject: "The rat stops gnawing in the wood,the dungeon walls withdraw, the weight is lifted.Your pulse steadies and thesun has found your heart.The day was not bad, the season has not been bad,and there is sense and even promise in going on.Prosit.""Saved a life.Maybe," I said."And almost lost one or two.But didn't," he said."About that picnictomorrow.""Maybe that lithesome person hates picnics.""She's living a picnic out there.I saw a deli next to the supermarket atBaygate Plaza Mall.I can get one of those big wicker hamper things, and a bigcooler.I'll set up a picnic like she never saw before, from shrimp tochampagne.""What you're talking about is a Care package.""What do you mean?""When you start hauling great quantities of food to a female person, it meansyou really care.It always has.I think it is some primal instinct.The hunterbringing spoils to the cave.""Hmmm.Meyer, would it offend your sense of fitness if I called Gretel agirl?""Instead of a person or a woman or some such? You want to be patronizing andchauvinistic, eh? Look down upon her?""Cut it out, Meyer.I can go with all that approach right up to a point.Whenit doesn't mean much one way or another.You know.But here we have one of thetruly great, all-time, record-breaking, incomparable girls.And I want to callher a girl.""And take her a ton of food.Ah, me.Ah, so.And so it goes.Let's orderbefore I faint from hunger.You are a child of your times, McGee.And so am I.Call her what you will, but call me a waiter."FourteenTHERE ARE days you can't ever forget.It doesn't mean that anything reallystartling has to happen.It was a great glowing golden day in May.A Sundaynumbered twenty-two.There you are in the midst of life, and one of those dayscomes rolling at you, and it is just like one of the magical days ofchildhood, like the first Monday after school is out.We couldn't warn John Tuckerman and Gretel Howard we were coming.We had tohope they'd be glad to see us when we showed up an hour before noon.And theywere.Demonstrably glad.She knew how to accept gifts.None of this "Aw, youshouldn't have." She went through the hamper and the cooler, giving littleyelps of delight."Hey! How about this? Wow! Look here, Johnny! Hey, you crazyguys.A jar of red caviar! Have you gone nuts, bonkers, utterly strange?"I was glad that Meyer had realized it would be best not to bring any booze, orany beer.Tuckerman seemed slightly dazed.He wore a gentle smile.He rockedback and forth, heel to toe.You had to speak to him twice to get an answer."I said is the fishing any good?""Oh.Sure.I mean, I guess so.Haven't done much good.But they're out there,all right.They're out there."He looked much better.It took me a few moments to realize that not only hadhe shaved; his mustache and hair had been trimmed back a little.He seemed towant to be part of the festivities, but he could not quite keep track of thePage 75 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlchatter.We were not trying to dazzle him with repartee or profundities.Itwas just your normal picnic conversation, but it was as if he were a foreigneramong us, looking back and forth with a slightly baffled expression, able tospeak the language, only not all that well.One odd little incident happened
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