Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned Read Free Page A

interrogating a man in a basement apartment. The cops were ruthless and persistent. The man didn't have the vaguest notion what they wanted him for. The walls were closing in on the man. Then the phone rang.
    The scene disappeared somewhere in my head but the phone was still ringing. The alarm clock read 12:55. I got out of bed, walked over to my desk, and picked up the phone.
    "Hello, Sunshine."
    "Clyde?"
    "The one and only. Sorry I haven't called you. Do you want to have lunch with me tomorrow at the Blue Mill? Tomorrow's my birthday."
    "Happy birthday, Clyde."
    "Thanks, honey."
    "Clyde, why'd you do it?"
    "Do what?"
    "Why'd you put the dead fish in my safe-deposit box?"
    There was a silence on the line. It wasn't really a silence because I could hear the noise of the street all around her, and she stood in my mind like a beautiful spiritual tramp at a pay phone somewhere with cars and laughter and street orators, headlights and sirens all around her. In my imagination, she was the most seductive siren of them all. She'd make a great character in a novel, I thought. I'm not going to tell the cops she called, I thought.
    "Okay. I'll tell you why I did it if you promise not to be mad, sunshine."
    "All right. I promise."
    "I did it just for the halibut," she said.
    After she'd hung up, I went back to bed and, for the first time in what seemed like a thousand years, I think I went to sleep with a smile on my face.

three
    "So, what do you know, Walter Snow?" she said, making it rhyme, leaning back in the booth. We were at the Blue Mill on Barrow Street and the lunch crowd seemed pretty light. It looked like it might be a fairly intimate birthday party.
    "You look great, Clyde," I said. "But you sure don't look like the girl I met at the bank."
    "Of course not, honey. I lost the wig, lost the Holly Golightly sunglasses, and even lost the beauty mark on my cheek. Remember?"
    "Oh, I remember. I bet the security cameras at the bank remember, too."
    "Well, you know how it is. A girl can't be too careful these days."
    "I'll never tell the cops," I said. "You can count on me."
    "I do, Sunshine."
    It was incredible how fast I was becoming accustomed to the new Clyde. Or maybe it was the old Clyde. Anyway, the eyes still had it. They shone with an animal-like sense of excitement and a childlike spirit of mischief. If I had known better, I'd have said they were pulling me into her world. And she somehow looked smaller and more feminine now. Blond hair cut short with punkish pink highlights. That same indecipherable, seductively crooked smile. It was enough to make me want to follow her gorgeous ass into battle as if she were some jaded Joan of Arc. It was almost enough to make me want to write.
    "The fish was fun, though, wasn't it?" she said. "You knew it wasn't my grandmother's heirloom silverware, didn't you?"
    "Sort of," I said. "Maybe I was just mesmerized by your beauty mark. I kind of miss it."
    "Don't worry. I'm liable to bring it back at any time. I wonder where Fox is. He's supposed to be baking and bringing my birthday cake."
    "Your friend Fox knows how to bake a birthday cake?"
    "He's a man of many talents," said Clyde. "While we're waiting, what do you say to a little after-dinner drink?"
    "Fine. What would you like?"
    "Tequila," said Clyde. "In fact, tres tequilas."
    " Tres tequilas?"
    "That's right, Sunshine. Guaranteed to keep away the blues at birthday time!"
    Three tequilas in the middle of the afternoon was not a policy usually prescribed by the people who frequently attended AA meetings. If those kind of people ever downed three tequilas, they might well wind up doing something really crazy. Like putting a dead fish in a bank vault. I signaled the waiter and explained the order, which was now six tequilas because after some thought I decided I wasn't going to let Clyde drink alone on her birthday. As the waiter walked away, I saw Clyde studying me. It was a surprisingly pleasant sensation.
    "This may be a rude