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Farrell had no chance to take advantage of the moment; he was half-stu
Beside him Pierce/Harlow, sand-pale with shock and rage, knuckled blindly at his mouth, sputtering blood. “Bit my tongue,” he mumbled. “Christ, I bit my tongue.”
“I did that once,” Farrell said sympathetically. “It’s a real bear, isn’t it? Try to put your head back a bit.” Without turning, he began walking his hand shyly toward the knife lying forgotten on Pierce/Harlow’s lap. But his peripheral vision was also sleeping in this morning; when he struck a second time, Pierce/Harlow made a sound that was all inhale, snatched up the switchblade, and missed medical immortality by cringing inches, getting the seat cover instead. Farrell swung Madame Schuma
“Well, shit,” Farrell said sadly. “Wouldn’t you know?”
Pierce/Harlow crouched on the seat, elbows flapping absurdly as he tried to brace himself against everything, including Farrell. “Pull over or I’ll cut you. Right here, I’ll do it.” He was almost crying, and color was puddling grotesquely under his cheekbones.
A Wi
Madame Schuma
“I think you should have taken that computer job,” Farrell said. They were tearing back down Gonzales, nearing the freeway. Pierce/Harlow disentangled himself, wiped his bleeding mouth, and got the knife pointed the right way. “I’ll cut you,” he said hopelessly. “I swear to God.”
Farrell slowed down slightly, gesturing toward the approaching overpass. “You see that pillar coming up, with the sign? Yes? Well, I was just wondering, do you think you can throw your knife out the window before I hit it?” He smiled a shut-mouth crescent smile, which he hoped suggested a syphilitic picking up weather reports from Alpha Centauri on his bridgework, and added in a serene singsong, “Her tires are all bald, her brakes suck, and you are about to become sticky stuff on the seat.”
The knife actually bounced off the pillar as Farrell swerved away from it, the wheel slugging and whipping like a game fish in his hands, the back tires keening coldly. With the rearview mirror gone, the old green convertible was a sudden clubbing blow out of nowhere, yawing wildly under the window, fighting for traction, sliding sideways into the bus like an asteroid being slowly raped by the pitiless mass of a larger planet. There was a moment for Farrell in which nothing existed but the underwater languor of the driver’s face, rippling and folding silently with terror beneath his great oil-drum helmet, the heavy golden chains and ornaments cascading down the rather pink body of the woman beside him, the rosette of rust around a door handle, and the broadsword in the hand of the young black man in the back seat, who seemed to be casually fending Madame Schuma
Farrell exhaled. He became aware that Pierce/Harlow had been screaming for some time, piled haphazardly on the floor, rocking convulsively. Farrell cut the engine and said, “Knock it off, there’s a cop car.” He was shivering himself and wondered distantly if he were going to throw up.
There was no patrol car coming, but Pierce/Harlow did stop wailing, as abruptly as a child might, with a gulp and a sleeve rubbed across his face. “You’re insane. I mean, you are really insane.” His voice was a snuffly, aggrieved hiccup.
“Keep it in mind,” Farrell said heavily. “You try to get out and find your knife and I’ll run you over.” Pierce/Harlow jerked his hand back from the door and stared at him. Farrell ignored him, letting his vision swim and his body shake itself still. Then he started Madame Schuma
“Where are you going?” Pierce/Harlow demanded. “If you think you’re taking me to the police—”
“I’m too damn beat,” Farrell said. “My first morning here in ten years, I’m not about to spend it in a station house with you. Just stay cool and I’ll drop you off at a hospital. You can get that tongue looked at.”
Pierce/Harlow hesitated, then sank back, touching his mouth and looking at his fingers. He said accusingly, “I’m probably going to need stitches.”
Farrell was driving in low gear, listening intently to new scraping sounds under the bus. “With any luck. I’m counting on rabies shots, myself.”
“I don’t have any health insurance,” Pierce/Harlow said. Farrell decided that he couldn’t reasonably be expected to reply and turned sharply left on Paige Street, suddenly recalling the clinic somewhere around there and the soft, rainy night much like this one when he had dragged Clawhammer Perry Brown into Emergency, crying with the certainty that he could feel Perry’s body chilling every moment on his shoulder. Ski