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plugged the leak itself. Just like that stuff Danny had put in his radiator that time it got a hole and shot
steam straight out the front. He d bought a couple of little tubes of it, and Shirley had swiped one,
pouring the little gray granules out on her dresser later when she was alone. She thought then that the next
time she started bleeding, she d swallow the whole tube, but she d lost her nerve when the time came.
Besides, if that radiator stuff really was a cure, they wouldn t be able to keep it on the shelves.
Lou was flexing his fist and turning his arm over. It didn t hurt too bad, he thought. Maybe it would be
okay tomorrow. Kal returned with the battery inside a cardboard box, and took it to the place behind the
sink where he could hook it up to the charger. He was getting too damn old to carry such heavy things.
He sat down next to Lou and looked around. Here they all were.
Where s Dan gone to?
He s still at work.
He s always working. He ll never get married again so long as he s a reporter, Kal said.
Maybe he doesn t want to get married, said Shirley.
Mrs. Lund gathered up the gauze and scissors. And what would you know about it?
Because he told me. He said he d wait to get married until I was old enough, because I m his girl!
Aww, bugs is what you are, Lou said.
Mrs. Lund exchanged a look with Kal. It was heartbreaking to hear the child talk like that, when she
knew very well & But you had to be happy with what you had, and here they were all together, so she
smiled and smoothed her apron front as she got up from the table.
There s peach crumble left from dinner, she said. Anybody interested?
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Chapter
22
Danny Constantine and Dooley
Willson were down in the
morgue in the basement of City
Hall. Twice in one day, Danny
thought, trying not to smell the
air as he breathed it. The room
wasn t cool. There were a couple
of pole fans stirring the
rotten-chicken smell around. He
and Willson stood by as Percy
Satin, the acting coroner, worked
on the body of Wall-Eye Larsen.
Percy did it slowly, fighting his exhaustion. He d been up for three nights in a row, and was about to go
home when Willson had shown up with the tramp s corpse. I don t need this, he thought. He wasn t a
medical examiner. He d got the job on the basis of his immunity from Hun, and because he d worked a
couple of summers at his uncle s funeral home. But now he was in charge of what had become the
biggest department in the city government. Tonight he was going on coffee and an occasional sniff of
cocaine from the dispensary.
Man, Percy said, look at that. Whoever had him cleaned him right out. Cut through the pleura, folded
it back, and scooped him out. Heart, lungs, part of the windpipe, too. Percy stepped back to give
Willson and Danny a good look. Wall-Eye Larsen s chest wall was folded back like the doors of a
cuckoo clock.
What s that pink stuff? Willson asked.
Don t know. It ain t embalming fluid. He was pumped full of it, whatever it was. You can see it
coagulated here on what s left of the pericardium.
He was sewn up when I saw him this afternoon, Danny said.
Percy took a look. Hey, you re right. There s still some sutures here.
Why would they sew him up and open him again?
For a post-mortem? No reason at all, Percy said, rubbing his eyes with his forearm.
You sure he was sewn up? Willson asked.
I got pictures, Sergeant. And before, when Gray showed him to me, he said he d had an intern
practicing his sutures on the corpse.
Okay, okay, Willson said with annoyance. Do people do that, Percy?
Beats me. If I have to sew em up I use common string. But, hey, come here. Come on, he ain t gonna
bite you. Look at the area of the incision in this picture. See how the tissue s inflamed and swollen?
Percy poked the cut edge with a probe. A straw-colored fluid ran out. That s an abscess, he said.
So?
It s evidence of adhesion between the cut edges. Meaning, my brothers, that this gentleman had begun
to heal after he d been sutured.
What you saying, Percy? Willson said.
I think this man had surgery performed on him, and at least twenty-four to thirty-six hours
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