| She was still holding her cigarette
and she puffed nervously at it
Monica paid no attentionShe stroked Gandalf's
sideThe dog screamed again when she did - it was
a scream - and Monica covered her eyes with the
heels of her handsShe began to shake her headFevereau reached out for the girl, but
changed her mindShe took two steps back, leaned
43
against the high side of her Hummer, and looked up
at the skyGoldstein knelt beside her daughter"Honey,
oh honey please don't
Gandalf lay in the street, in a pool of his
spreading blood, howlingAnd now I could also
remember the sound the crane had madeNot the
meep-meep-meep it was supposed to make (its backup
warning had been broken), but the juddering
stutter of its louis vuitton diaper bags diesel engine and the sound of its
treads eating up the earth
"Get her inside, Ava," I said"Get her in the
houseGoldstein got an arm around her daughter's
shoulders and urged her up
"Not without Gandalf!" Monica was eleven, and
mature for her age, but in those moments she had
regressed to three"Not without my doggy!" Her
sash, the last three inches now sodden with blood,
thwapped against the side of her skirt and a long
line of blood spattered down her calf
44
"Monica, go in and call the vet," I told her"Say
Gandalf's been hit by a carSay he has to come
right awayI'll stay with your dog while you do
Monica looked at me with eyes that were more than
grief-stricken, more than shocked
I knew that look wellI'd omega aqua terra watch seen it often in my own
mirror"Do you promise? Big swear? Mother's
name?"
"Big swear, mother's name
She went with her mother, casting one more look
back over her shoulder and uttering one more
bereft wail before starting up the steps to her
houseI knelt beside Gandalf, holding onto the
Hummer's fender and going down as I always did,
painfully and listing severely to the left, trying
to keep my right knee from bending any more than
it absolutely had toStill, I voiced my own
little cry of pain, and I wondered if I'd be able
to get up again without helpIt might not be
forthcoming from MrsFevereau; she walked over to
the lefthand side of the street with her legs
stiff and wide apart, then bent at the waist as rolex vintage women's watch if
bowing to royalty, and vomited in the gutterShe
45
held the hand with the cigarette in it off to one
side as she did it
I turned my attention to GandalfHe had been
struck in the hindquartersHis spine was crushed
Blood and shit oozed sluggishly from between his
broken rear legsHis eyes turned up to me and in
them I saw a horrible expression of hopeHis
tongue crept out and licked my inner left wrist
His tongue was dry as carpet, and coldGandalf
was going to die, but maybe not soon enough
Monica would come out again soon, and I didn't
want him alive to lick her wrist when she did
I understood what I had to doThere was no one to
see me do itMonica and her mother were insideFevereau's back was still turnedIf gucci bag black others
on this little stub of street had come to their
windows (or out on their lawns), the Hummer
blocked their view of me sitting beside the dog
with my bad right leg awkwardly outstretchedI
had a few moments, but only a few, and if I
stopped to think about what I was doing, my chance
would be lost
So I took Gandalf's upper body in my arms and
without a pause I'm back at the Sutton Avenue site,
46
where The Freemantle Company is getting ready to
build a forty-story bank buildingI'm in my
pickup truckReba McEntire's on the radio,
singing "Fancy I suddenly realize the crane's
too loud even though I haven't heard any backup
beeper and when I look to my right the part of the
world that should be in that window is omega usa |