so at first. So I went. I went back in a cab just almost right away after I left you.” She decided to lie. “I’ll tell you the truth, with us just meeting and then breaking up like that, John, I didn’t really feel like going on the trip. All the holiday feeling went out of it. I’ve been feeling down since Christmas, for God’s sake. You really did like me, didn’t you, even if I’m so heavy?” She had forgotten it was a lie.
“Very much.”
“So anyway, I went to the hospital. And there was a lot of trouble there and I had a big talk with one of the doctors about it. And then the lights went out, and I stayed because of that, but after a while I left, and there was this man there—a visitor, you know—that I know and I’ve met him several times and he’s really pretty nice even if sometimes he can be pretty mean. It was dark and we couldn’t get a cab. I was so tired and awfully cold.”
“Certainly.”
“You don’t have a cigarette, do you? I’ve been out forever.”
“Right here.” He lit it for her on the dashboard lighter. They were in the front seat of a big car, though she had no notion how they got there. She toked the cigarette like a joint, drawing in the smoke and holding it with a sort of rapture.
Then letting it out with a gasp, “And there were rioters all around. This man is nice, but he’s pretty small and I was scared. Do you know what I kept thinking? I kept thinking about those old Westerns where the Indians try to kill all the people on the wagon train. It’s no different for us, except the Indians are inside with us now, so it doesn’t do any good to pull the wagons in a circle. That’s funny, huh?”
“That’s why we require a strong government,” Sweet said. “The savages all throughout society are only waiting for the lights to go out.”
Candy nodded. “Then things got complicated, and I found this woman somebody had bashed in the head. Her daughter-in-law was with her. I fixed her up as good as I could there in the dark, stopped the bleeding, tried to keep her warm and all that stuff. I’m afraid I probably got a little blood on my uniform.”
“That’s too bad,” Sweet said.
“And then the lights came back on, and I felt like the U.S. Cavalry was there. We got an ambulance for the woman, and this man and me—we were back together by then—went to a bar and had three or four drinks to unwind. Then I went back to the hotel and had a nightcap. Anyway, I thought it was a nightcap. And then I went out in the lobby and the bellhop was calling my name. That was the best part of the whole damn night, which I guess isn’t saying a whole lot, but it was.” She snuggled against him. “It was just awfully God-damned nice, and it still is.”
Sweet nodded. “I’m glad we shared that cab.”
“I’m glad you couldn’t catch your plane. Or me either. You’re married, I bet?”
“My wife and I are separated.”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, practically separated.”
Candy sighed. “That’s good.”
“That we’re almost ready to break up?”
“That you’re still married. I mean, after all these years …”
“Twenty-two.”
“See? I’m a girl—” Her stomach jumped. “Oh, my God, I hope I’m not getting hiccups. I’m a girl who has kind of had it rough sometimes, if you know what I mean.”
Sweet nodded.
“And one thing I’ve *
“Certainly.”
“It’s all take and no give with them. They don’t know how to treat a girl *
“It’s probably the best restaurant in the world,” Sweet told her.
“Won’ful.” She snuggled harder, one big breast pushing at the side of his right arm, her belly almost in his lap. “Now tell *
Egyptian Darkness
They might, perhaps, have been a princess and a magician hunted by the white trolls of deadly winter; and indeed the ancient Packard, lumbering and high-wheeled, seemed rather an enchanted carriage—perhaps a funeral carriage—than a car, as it trundled between banks of snow, leaving the hunched, white, black-windowed masses of the city’s buildings behind.
The largest of them seemed also the slowest in pursuit, their towering forms now hardly to be glimpsed against the night sky. Smaller structures still clawed at the Packard’s sides with signs half defaced with snow. Ahead lay empty fields where only a few farmhouses kept watch over the road. Ahead too, a 747 droned out of the low clouds, its landing lights blazing like fireworks.
Illingworth appeared to watch it with satisfaction, nodding to himself. “They are flying,” he said. “I had feared they would not be. The snow and so on.”
