"What do you mean, you know Shelley well?" Clendon asked.
"Adolfo's daughter was a client of mine," Shelley said.
"She had a terrible terrible thing," Adolfo said. "Anore-- Anoricketts-- she had what they call an eating disorder."
"She looked good to me," Clendon said.
"She's much better," Shelley said.
"Shelley is an excellent psychologist," Adolfo said. "But I have just one question. How did Asp know we were at the airport?"
"I think Mrs. Velazquez told him," Clendon said.
Adolfo turned all the way around and glared at Clendon.
"Do not insult the pilot while he is flying you to safety, sir," Adolfo said.
"You didn't know?" Shelley asked.
"Know what?" Adolfo said.
"That your wife was having an affair with Asp and helping him try to find the Eskimo shoes."
"How is it you know this?"
"It starts with a strand of hair from a blond wig," Clendon said. "Found on the pistol used to shoot Brooks."
Adolfo turned half way around again. His eyes bulged and he flexed his jaw muscles.
"You must prove what you say."
"I saw them together in Westwood."
"Adolfo, who else could've called Asp," Shelley said, "except you or Lyman."
Adolfo began cursing in Spanish.
"I will fly straight back here and shoot them both," he said.
The silvery blackness of the ocean came under them while lights sparkled to the east, jewels laid on a black shroud. They looked back to see the land receding away, where all across the country, the people slept.
* * *
Clendon was running up the stairs in the steel-girded skyscraper again. The wind howled and the stairs never ended. There was gunfire in the distance. His face hurt and he ached for breath. He was carrying heavy buckets full of hundred dollar bills, but his buckets were leaking fast. The money was draining out like liquid through holes in the bottom of the buckets. Shelley ran beside him, wearing a billowing red robe. The stairs went on endlessly.
Shelley didn't look right. Her face had changed. Her eyes were darker, not silver blue. Her lips were thicker, her cheeks puffier, and her nose had a new, tiny curve. Clendon was wearing a heavy, robed shroud and his head was covered with a hood. Shelley reached for him and pulled the hood back. Clendon looked into the bucket and saw a mirror made of shiny, black crude oil which brightly reflected a strange new face back to him.
# # #
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www.relicsofcivilization.typepad.com
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