Part 26 (1/2)
”Hi Bob,” said someone on the screen.
”Zango,” said LaVache, and took a big drink.
”Dead bird, here, A.C.,” Heat said to LaVache.
LaVache detached the clipboard and slid out a drawer in the plastic of his artificial leg and tossed a white new joint to Heat.
”You have a drawer?” said Lenore.
”I've had a drawer since high school,” said LaVache. ” I just wear long pants, at home, as a rule. Come on, you knew I had a drawer all the time.”
”No I didn't,” said Lenore.
”Crafty girl.”
There was a knock at the outside door.
”Entrez!” Cat yelled.
In came a tall thin guy with gla.s.ses and an adam's apple and a notebook and a baggie.
”Clint Wood,” Heat said from over the bottle, which he was blowing into like a jug, sounding a deep note.
”Guys,” said Clint Wood. ”Antichrist.”
”What can we do for you, big guy?” LaVache said, slapping the leg affectionately.
”Introductory Economics. Second quiz. Bonds.”
”Feed the leg,” said LaVache.
LaVache opened the drawer in his leg and Clint Wood put the baggie inside. LaVache slapped the drawer shut and patted it. ”Professor?”
”Fursich.”
”All you need to remember for Fursich is, when the interest rate goes up, the price of any bond already issued goes down.”
”Interest rate ... up, price ... bond ... down.” Clint Wood wrote it down.
”And when the rate goes down, the price goes up.”
”Down ... up.” Clint Wood looked up. ”That's it?”
”Trust me,” said LaVache.
”What a guy,” said the Breather. ”A little Hi Bob, Wood?”
Clint Wood shook his head regretfully. ”Can't. I got cla.s.s in like ten minutes. I gotta go memorize what the Antichrist told me.” He looked over at Lenore and smiled.
”Well, hey, good luck,” Cat said.
”Thank you very much for taking my message, if you were the person who took my message,” said Lenore.
”Oh, OK, you're the Antichrist's sister,” said Clint Wood, sizing Lenore up. ”Can't do enough for the Antichrist, no problem. Thanks again, guys.” He left.
”Hi Bob.”
”Oomph. ”
”This is a deadly one. There've been like twenty 'Hi Bobs' in this one.”
”What's the leg got there?”
”Looks to be three j-birds. Poorly rolled.”
”None of you guys have cla.s.ses?” Lenore asked. Ed McMahon came on the television.
”I have cla.s.ses,” LaVache said. ”I know I do, because it says on my schedule I do.” He cleaned under his fingernail with the corner of his clipboard clasp.
”He's going to go to a cla.s.s this semester, he told me,” Heat said to Lenore, doing a handstand in the middle of the floor, so that his s.h.i.+rt fell over his face. ”He's determined to go to at least one cla.s.s.”
”Well I'm disabled,” disabled,” LaVache said. ”They can't expect a disabled person to hobble to every faraway, top-of-the-hill cla.s.s of the semester.” LaVache said. ”They can't expect a disabled person to hobble to every faraway, top-of-the-hill cla.s.s of the semester.”
Lenore looked at LaVache. ”You don't work, here, do you?”
LaVache smiled at her. ”That was just work, what I did. I do lots of work.”
”He literally does the work of like forty or fifty guys, and even more girls,” said Heat. ”He does all our work, the big lug.”
”What about your own work?” Lenore said to LaVache.
”What can I tell you? I've got a leg to support, after all.”
”Dad thinks you work.”
”Surely you of all people didn't come all the way out here after seeing me only a few weeks ago to tell me what Dad thinks. Or to find out what I think and do and then scuttle back to Dad.”
”Not exactly,” Lenore said, s.h.i.+fting because her suitcase handle was digging into her bottom. ”There's stuff we need to talk about, that's sort of come up.” She looked around at Cat, Heat, and the Breather.
”Well goody. Stuff.” LaVache looked back at the television. ”We have a game of Hi Bob to finish, and then there's an episode of 'The Munsters' on Channel 22 I particularly want to see, and then we can go conversationally wild.”
”He'll be asleep by then, though, I predict,” the Breather whispered into Lenore's ear as his elbow brushed her chest.
”Hi Bob,” said Bill Dailey, the character Howard Borden, on the screen.
”Death, big time,” said LaVache, looking at Cat and the nearly full bottle of vodka on the floor in front of him. ”See you tomorrow, Cat.”
”A l'enfer, ” Cat muttered. He began sucking on the bottle. He had to stop almost immediately.
”You've got five minutes to finish that,” LaVache said to Cat.