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Da
“You’ve got to stick your nose in the worst of it, and imagine everything, Da
“Well, writers should know it’s sometimes hard work to die, Da
Shit, I should have known then what Ketchum meant, the writer was thinking on that day when Lupita was madly cleaning all around him. (Yes, he should have.)
CHAPTER 17. KETCHUM EXCEPTED
DANNY DID HAVE SOME GLIMMER OF UNDERSTANDING IN regard to what Ketchum was up to-this had happened around the time of American Thanksgiving, in November 2001. The writer was having di
The doctor’s name was Erin Reilly. She was almost Da
Erin had become the friend in his Toronto life that Armando DeSimone had been to Da
Erin Reilly was a real reader, and when Da
That night, in Kiss of the Wolf, Da
Erin was a gangling, heron-like woman with closely cut gray hair and steely hazel eyes. She was intensely absorbed in her work, and in whatever novel or novels she was reading-to a flaw, Da
“This … friend who has a recurrent desire to cut off his left hand,” Dr. Reilly slowly said. “Is it you, Da
“Neither. It’s an old friend,” Da
Da
“Tell me everything, Erin,” he’d told her. “Spare me no detail.” (The writer was always saying this to her.) Erin smiled and took a tiny sip of her wine. She was in the habit of ordering an expensive bottle of white wine; she never drank more than a glass or two, donating the remainder of the bottle to Patrice, who then sold it by the glass. For his part, Patrice every so often paid for Erin’s wine. Patrice Arnaud was Dr. Reilly’s patient, too.
“Well, Da
“I don’t know,” Da
“Well, then, he may get what he wants,” Erin said. “You see, the arteries are very elastic. After they were cut, they would retract back into the arm, where the surrounding tissues would compress them, at least to a degree. The muscles in the arterial walls would immediately contract, narrowing the diameter of the arteries and slowing the blood loss. Our bodies are resourceful at trying to stay alive; your friend would have many mechanisms coming into play, all making an effort to save him from bleeding to death.” Here Erin paused again. “What’s wrong?” she asked Da
Daniel Baciagalupo was still thinking about whether or not Ketchum wanted to kill himself; over all those years with the incessant talk about the left hand, it hadn’t occurred to the writer that Ketchum might have been harboring more serious intentions.
“Are you feeling sick, or something?” Dr. Reilly asked Da
“No, it’s not that,” Da
“The platelets would save him,” Erin answered. “Platelets are tiny blood particles, which aren’t even large enough to be real cells; they’re actually flakes that fall off a cell and then circulate in the bloodstream. Under normal circumstances, platelets are tiny, smooth-walled, non-adherent flecks. But when your friend cuts off his hand, he exposes the endothelium, or i
“Like a clot?” Da