He motioned toward the water can.
“Yeah, do it again. I didn’t want to say this, but I’m a little sicky too. You know? I’ll go back up front if you want me to.” She drank again.
“It’s all right,” he said.
“Hold my hand, will you, Jim? You know that was the best meal I ever had in my life. I want to keep it down.”
“It was the knock on the head. They sapped me too, and I damn near chucked myself.”
“And my ass is sore. Why should my ass be sore?”
“Search me.”
“Anyway, I want to puke, but I know if I do, in twenty minutes I’ll be so hungry I’ll be sucking my fingers.”
“They cheated,” Stubb told her.
“What does that mean, Jim?”
“All of us got what we wanted, and we couldn’t handle it. Except you—you could have handled it, if only they hadn’t sapped you. It’s no fun, getting it on the head.”
“Everybody got what they were after?”
“Yeah.”
“Madame Serpentina?”
“She won’t talk much, but I think a rap with God. Except it turned out he wasn’t the real McCoy, and she bought it.”
“Oh, wow!”
Stubb braced himself against the motion of the plane. “You’re always asking me what I mean, so what the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Most of us wouldn’t even want it. I always figured I’d have to talk to Him when I, you know, went upstairs. I haven’t been looking forward to it much.”
“You’ll charm the pants off God.”
“Jim, I don’t think he wears any.”
“Then you’ve got it knocked. Anyway, what about Mary Magdalene? He went for her big. I bet you’re nicer than she was.”
“Who’s that?”
“A girl like you.”
“You’re stringing me.”
“No, I’m not.”
“How would you know anyway? You go to church?”
“When I was a kid, my folks made me go to parochial school. We used to talk about it—just us kids. We thought that was really a thrill, because there weren’t so many X-rated movies around then.”
“When was that, Jim?”
“Let’s see. Twenty, twenty-five years ago, I guess.”
“Not you. God and Mary Whatshername.”
“Oh, them. Two thousand years.”
“That long, and people are still talking.”
“God gets a lot of press.”
“Uh huh. What about Ozzie? Did he get what he was after too?”
“Women. Showgirls, he called them. He was in a joint, and they got him to stand up and announce, and to tell a couple of jokes. Then he went backstage and the girls crowded all around him. He made it sound like there were about a hundred, but I doubt it. They took his clothes off. I don’t think he could get it up.”
“You don’t think?”
“He wasn’t too clear about it. I think he ran away—onto the stage again.”
“Sounds like fun. I wish I’d seen it.”
“Me too.”
“I’m not going to ask about you.”
“Thanks.”
Candy belched and giggled. “I guess I’m feeling a little better. Only it seems like the floor’s still tilted.”
“It is,” Stubb told her. “We’re still climbing.”
