at the train station in the middle of the night.”
25
“Yeah. I met some girl and she said she wanted to come 26
back out to see me, said she’d be on that train but damned S 27
if she was.” I lied smoothly and without a skip.
R 28
3rd Pass Pages
ManInMyBasemnt_HCtext3P.qxd 10/24/03 8:16 PM Page 136
Walter Mosley
1
“Who is she?”
2
“Abby Peters,” I said, pulling the name out of thin air.
3
“White girl?”
4
I said nothing then. If he wanted to wonder about 5
something, I thought it would be best to have him think-6
ing about a girl who didn’t exist.
7
“Clarance said that you looked upset,” Ricky said.
8
“Upset?”
9
“Well actually he said crazy. He said that you had a 10
crazy look in your eye.” Ricky cocked his head to the side 11
in order to see up into my eyes. He was searching for in-12
sanity.
13
“How are you, Cat?”
14
He made a painful face. “Bethany dropped me.”
15
“When?”
16
“Almost two months but I still miss her.” The honest 17
hurt in his voice and eyes told me that he had no suspi-18
cions about who Bethany was with now. “It hurts way 19
down. You know, that girl could get somethin’ cookin’ in 20
me. I was thinkin’ about startin’ some kinda serious busi-21
ness, about makin’ a life for myself, for us. You know?”
22
“You always got life, Cat. Or else you don’t have it.
23
There is nothing else.” It sounded right when I said it.
24
Now it’s just a meaningless line of words.
25
“
