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“C’est ce que je pensais,” I said. “Allons-allez.”
I walked back to the house, opened the can over the sink, and emptied it on the steps. Mon Tee Coon and his lady came running.
I thought about calling Clete and telling him that Mon Tee Coon had come home. But I didn’t. Clete was Clete, and no power on earth would ever change his mind about anything. I was also tired of trying to protect people like Axel Devereaux. Or maybe I was just tired of everything. Acceptance of death, or at least its presence, is that way sometimes and not the canker on the soul it’s made out to be.
I had never worn my father’s battered Stetson, and it felt strange. The rain had turned to mist and was blowing through the screens. For some reason, in my mind’s eye, I saw a mesa that resembled a tombstone, one that had been placed in the foreground of a wasteland that seemed to dip into infinity.
The phone rang on the kitchen counter. I looked at the caller ID and picked up. “What’s goin’ on, Baby Squanto?”
“Don’t call me those stupid names,” Alafair said. “Is everything all right there?”
“Of course.”
“It’s raining here. It never rains so hard this time of year. I’m looking out at the desert and thinking of you. I don’t know why.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? I have this terrible feeling.”
“You shouldn’t. Mon Tee Coon just came home.”
“That’s wonderful. But don’t come here.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Through my window, I can see a huge mesa in the rain. For some reason I felt you were coming here. Maybe because you worry about me.”
“Wrong.”
“I have to go. Flowerpots and earthen jars are breaking on the patio.”
“I’ll talk with you later, kid.”
“Dave, I have an awful feeling. It’s about death. I don’t know why I feel this way.”
“It’ll pass.”
“What will?”
“Fear of death.”
“My thoughts are about you. Not me.”
“I understand. But your worries are misplaced. Hello?”
The line had gone dead.
I sat down and stared through the window at the rain. A bolt of lightning split the gray sky and trembled on the iron flagpole in City Park, like an aberration in the elements that refused to die.
Chapter Twelve
ON SUNDAY, ALAFAIR called me from the airport in Dallas. She had taken a commercial flight and was on her way back home.
“You quit?” I said.
“No, Desmond and Lou had to take care of some union trouble in Los Angeles and New Orleans. I wasn’t getting anything done, so I decided to work from home.”
“Was that all right with them?”
