The Colorado Kid

“Piss and Vinegar,” Dave suggested.

“If you like,” Vince said evenly. “Sure, ayuh, if you like. Devane goes off with those two stupid cops, O’Sha

“Ti

“This part’s rather creepy,” Stephanie said. She found she could see the man in there, for some reason not in a coffin (although he must surely have been provided with some sort of cheap box) but simply laid on a stone slab with a sheet over him. An unclaimed package in a post office of the dead.

“Ayuh, ’tis, a bit,” Vince said levelly. “Do you want me to push on?”

“If you stop now, I’ll kill you,” she said.

He nodded, not smiling now but pleased with her just the same. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did.

“He boarded the summer and half the fall in there. Then, when November come around and the body was still u

“I do,” Stephanie said quietly. And she did. This time she didn’t sense the telepathy between the two old men, but perhaps it was there, because Dave took up the tale (such tale as there was) with no prompting from theIslander ’s senior editor.

“Devane finished out his tour with O’Sha

Stephanie’s mind, which was a good one (both of the men knew this), at once flashed upon the pack of cigarettes that had fallen onto the sand of Hammock Beach when the dead man fell over. Joh

“The taxstamp!” she nearly shrieked.“There’s a state taxstamp on the bottom of every pack!”

They both applauded her, gently but sincerely.