irrepressibly chipper.
Okay, Lassiter, stop wallowing in it. Stop telling yourself you really must be a great guy to be broken up over your loss. Wait. What loss? Pam Maxson had said it: You can't lose what you don't have. And while you're at it, obliterate the guilt. Self-flagellation is an insufferable ego trip all its own; undeserved guilt is just another form of indulgent self-pity.
A flash of lightning backlit the low, dark clouds that scudded overhead, and a burst of thunder filled the sky. A couple of scrub lizards, brown with blue patches, scurried into the bushes. Cold water dripped down my neck. 'Charlie, have I ever told you how much you mean to me?'
He looked up skeptically from under his soggy canvas hat. 'Gracious no, and don't start now.'
'Okay, it's up to you. I was just going to tell you that you'd have made somebody a fine father. Now, let's get out of the rain. Do you still keep cold Dutch beer in that cabin of yours?'
He nodded a yes.
'You have any stories to tell I haven't heard for a while?'
He smiled. 'Have I told you about the carnival dummy that turned out to be the mummified body of a homicide victim?'
'Don't remember that one,' I said.
We started up the muddy path to his cabin. A bright green tree frog with white pinstripes studied me a moment, concluded I wasn't a spider, and hopped away.
'Well, it's quite a story. The dummy was in the haunted house, hanging by the neck from a rope, covered with phosphorescent paint. In the dark it would glow purple when an ultraviolet light was switched on. Of course, the idea was to give the customers an old-fashioned funhouse scare. One day this college boy wants to show off for his girlfriend, so as they're going by he yanks on the dummy's shoe, tearing its leg off, and lo and behold, he's left holding the stub of a real tibia.'
'Got his money's worth,' I said, scraping my muddy shoes on Charlie's steps and holding the screen door for him. Inside, it was dark but dry.
Charlie was getting into it now, tales of murder and mayhem lifting his spirits. 'Well, the authorities were intrigued, as you can well imagine. So many unanswered questions. How did the man die? Who was he? How did the body get into a carnival?' He paused to tamp some tobacco into his pipe. The matches were soggy and it took three tries to light up. He looked at me apologetically. 'Jake, I'm afraid this story will take a while. It involves an Oklahoma train robber, a shoot-out with the police, embalming with arsenic, and it all starts back in-'
'Take your time,' I told my old friend. 'I got nowhere to go.'
