@@@@@But almost isn't good enoughMary wouldn't 355
@@@@@But almost isn't
good enoughMary wouldn't have stayed away from
my daughter if someone had told her Illy had
chicken p - Fuck!" My eyes had blurred, and a line
that should have been true wandered off into
falsehood
"Take it easy, Edgar," Wireman said
924
I glanced at the clockThe drawbridge
would go up at noon; it always didI blinked away
the tears and went back to my sketchMachinery
spun itself into existence from the point of the
Venus Black, and even now, with Ilse gone, the
fascination of seeing something real emerge from
nothing - like a shape drifting out of a fogbank -
stole over meAnd why not? When better? It was
refuge
"If she's got someone to attack us with and the
drawbridge is out of commission, she'll just send
them around to the Don Pedro Island footbridge,"
Wireman said
Without looking up from my drawing, I said: "Maybe
notA lot of people don't know about the Sunshine
Walkway, and I'm positive Perse doesn't
"Why?"
"Because it was built in the fifties, you told me
that, and she was sleeping then
He considered this a moment, then said, "You think
she can be beaten, don't you?"
"Yes, I doNot killed, maybe, but put back to
sleep
"Do you know how?"
925
Find the leak in the table and fix it, I almost
saidbut that made no senseThere are more of Libbit's pictures at
the other houseThe one at the south end of the
keyThey'll tell us where Perse is and tell me
what to do
"How do you know there are more?"
Because there have to be, I would have said, but
just then the noon horn wentA quarter of a mile
down the road, the drawbridge between Duma Key and
Casey Key - the only north link between us and the
coast - was going upI counted to twenty, putting
Mississippi between each number as I had when I
was a childThen I erased the biggest cog in my
drawingThere was a sensation when I did it - in
the missing arm, yes, but also centered between
and just above my eyes - of doing some lovely
piece of precision work
"Can we go now?" Wireman aske
