| did, wouldn’t Harold have found it? We both noticed the loose stone. So let’s say he finds it. Even if the guy who lived there before the flu had filled it up with little secrets—the amount he cheated on his taxes, his sex fantasies about his daughter, I don’t know what all—those secrets wouldn’t have been Harold’s secrets. Do you see that?” “Yes, but—” “Don’t interrupt while Inspector Underwood is elucidating, you giddy slip of a girl. So if the secrets weren’t Harold’s secrets, why would he have put the ledger back under the stone? Because they were his secrets. That was Harold’s journal.” “Do you think it’s still there?” “Maybe. I think we’d better look and see.” “Now?” “Tomorrow. He’ll be out with the Burial Committee, and Nadine has been helping out at the power station afternoons.” “All right,” she said. “Do you think I should tell Stu about this?” “Why don’t we wait? There’s no sense stirring things up unless we’re sure it’s something important. The book might be gone. It might be nothing but a list of things to do. It might be full of perfectly innocent things. Or Harold’s master political plan. Or it might be in code.” “I hadn’t thought of that. What will we do if there is … something important?” “Then I guess we’ll have to bring it up before the Free Zone Committee. Another reason to get it done quickly. We’re meeting on the second. The committee will handle it.” “Will |
of blood and tissue and teeth. “Shot!” Poke screamed, dropping the . and flailing backward. His flailing hands raked potato chips and taco chips and Cheez Doodles onto the splintery wooden floor. “Shot me, Lloyd! Look out! Shot me! Shot me!” He hit the screen door and it slammed open and Poke sat down hard on the porch outside, pulling one of the aged door hinges loose. Lloyd, stunned, fired more in reflex than in self-defense. The Schmeisser’s roar filled the room. Cans flew. Bottles crashed, spilling catsup, pickles, olives. The glass front of the Pepsi cooler jingled inward. Bottles of Dr. Pepper and Jolt and Orange Crush exploded like clay pigeons. Foam ran everywhere. The man in the cowboy clothes, cool, calm, and collected, fired his piece again. Lloyd felt rather than heard the bullet as it droned by nearly close enough to part hair. He raked the Schmeisser across the room, from left to right. The man in the SHELL cap dropped behind the counter with such suddenness that an observer might have thought a trapdoor had been sprung on him. A gumball machine disintegrated. Red, blue, and green chews rolled everywhere. The glass bottles on the counter exploded. One of them had contained pickled eggs; another, pickled pigs’ feet. Immediately the room was filled with the sharp odor of vinegar. The Schmeisser put three bullet holes in the cowboy’s khaki shirt and most of his innards exited from the back to splatter all over Spuds MacKenzie. The cowboy |
