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“Too much detail while you’re eating?” Erin asked. “I’ll stop. The clotting comes a little later; there are a couple of other proteins involved. Suffice it to say, there is an artery-plugging clot; this would stem the tide of your friend’s bleeding, and save his life. Cutting off your hand won’t kill you.”
But Da
“Okay, Erin,” Da
The doctor was eating ravenously; she had to chew and swallow for a few seconds while Da
“Aspirin,” Da
“Painkillers, both of them,” Ketchum had called them, casually. “I wouldn’t be caught dead without aspirin and some kind of weapon,” he’d said.
“Aspirin blocks certain parts of the process that activates the platelets,” Dr. Reilly was saying. “If you wanted to get technical, you could say that aspirin prevents blood from clotting-only two aspirin tablets in your friend’s system, and very possibly the clotting wouldn’t kick in quickly enough to save him. And if he really wanted to die, he could wash the aspirin down with some booze; through a completely different mechanism, alcohol also prevents platelet activation and aggregation. There would be a real synergy between the alcohol and the aspirin, rendering the platelets impotent-they wouldn’t stick to one another. No clot, in other words. Your hand-deprived friend would die.”
Erin finally stopped talking when she saw that Da
DANNY HAD RUN HOME from Kiss of the Wolf that November night. He’d wanted to call Ketchum right away, but privately. It was a cold night in Toronto. That late in the fall, it would have already snowed a bunch of times in Coos County, New Hampshire.
Ketchum didn’t fax much anymore. He didn’t call Da
He decided to fax Ketchum some evidently transparent bullshit-to the effect that Da
I DON’T NEED ANYBODY CHECKING UP ON ME!
Ketchum had faxed back, before Da
It was December of that same year, 2001, before Da
Nor did Da
All too soon, it was that time of year Daniel Baciagalupo had learned to dread-just a few days before Christmas 2001, coming up on what would be the first a
“To see me? In the kitchen?” Da
“A tall, strong-looking person,” Patrice intoned, with an air of foreboding. “Doesn’t look like a big reader-might not be what you call a fan.”
“But why the kitchen door?” Da
“She said she didn’t think she was well-enough dressed to come in the front door,” Patrice told the writer.
“She?” Da
“I had to look twice to be sure,” Patrice said, with a shrug. “But she’s definitely a she.”
In that Crown’s Lane alleyway behind the restaurant, one-eyed Pedro had spotted the tall woman; he’d graciously shown her to the service entrance to the kitchen. The former Ramsay Farnham had said to Six-Pack Pam: “Even if it’s not on the menu, they often have cassoulet at this time of year-I recommend it.”
“I ain’t lookin’ for a handout,” Six-Pack told him. “I’m lookin’ for a fella, name of Da
“Da
“I know that-I’m just a back-door kinda person,” Pam said. “It’s a fuckin’ fancy-lookin’ place.”
The former Ramsay Farnham appeared momentarily disdainful; he must have suffered a flashback to his previous life. “It’s not that fancy,” he said. In addition to whatever snobbishness was in his genes, Ramsay still resented his favorite restaurant’s change of name; though no one had ever seen it, Kiss of the Wolf would always be a porn film to one-eyed Pedro.
There were other homeless people in the alleyway; Six-Pack could see them, but they kept their distance from her. It was perhaps fair to say that one-eyed Pedro was only a half-homeless person. The others in the alley were wary of Pam. Six-Pack’s rough north-woods attire notwithstanding, she didn’t look like a homeless person.
Even one-eyed Pedro could see the difference. He knocked at the service entrance to Kiss of the Wolf, and Joyce-one of the female sous chefs-opened the door. Before Joyce could greet him, Pedro pushed Six-Pack ahead of him into the kitchen.
“She’s looking for Da
“I know Da
Kristine ran to get Patrice, while Joyce and Silvestro welcomed Six-Pack inside. By the time Patrice brought Da
“Is Ketchum with you?” the writer asked her, but Da
“Don’t get me started, Da
That’s what Six-Pack had. They ate together at Da