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“I can cast Woven Strength pretty quick when I have to I orn out fro to stopon I punched the Fore wall My hands were basically like stone It felt good

“For a , OK, fair fight, let’s see if the Foreet out of this by hi to help, sort of thing By the tied their minds about that it was too late for him And for them

“Well, look, I was angry I don’t think I coratuitous violence, but this ar, and he was a jerk, and I h a couple of doors, and he cried like a fucking baby You knohat they used to write on cannons? The last arguument of queens”

Eliot didn’t say anything For all the years of his life he’d spent with Janet, he’d never really known her, not deep down Soht, Gosh, I wonder what’s underneath all that anger, all that hard glossy arirl in there ants to coet happy But noondered if one, or if she’d ever been there at all What was under all that arer and armor, all the way down

Janet’s face hite, but her voice was still calm

“When the Fore All their secrets I didn’t even care anymore, I just wanted him to kno beaten he was That rock went deep under the desert—they’d cut shafts down through it—and underground it was all ice caves That’s where the water came from

“No h There wasn’t any Can you believe that? Those weapons were all they had—I think it o Forged fro They just passed thehter I locked the Foreured his buddies would find him eventually Maybe he’d die,doctor?”

Eliot urged his horse forward a bit, right up beside Janet’s, and as well as his horsemanship would allow he leaned over, put his arm around Janet, and kissed her on the cheek He felt her smile

“Before I left I took his spear away fro, so I broke it in half with ht in front of him, and I formed an axe-head on the end of each one, out of ice Not bad, right? I was going to say, ‘Consider yourself annexed, bitch!’ or so like that, but sometimes an exit line just feels de trop, you know?”

“Yeah,” Eliot said quietly “I know I really do”

“So anyway,” Janet said, “that’s how I got my new axes”

She spurred her horse down the trail toward Barion

CHAPTER 13

One day, about a week after Quentin got back from Antarctica, Lionel knocked on his door It o thirty in the afternoon

“Ten minutes” Lionel didn’t wait for hiear”

By the tiot there Lionel was already down the hall at the other suite

Mid-afternoon had become a dead time in the daily life cycle of their little crione over their parts in the plan one more time, as best they could in the confines of a hotel roo like the field conditions, which they still kneay too little about Stoppard didn’t seehteen hours a day, but the rest of the out of their s that didn’t really need tweaking Quentin had taken this as far as he could, and he was impatient Alice was out there somewhere

It was too cold to go outside, and if they did go outside they were at Newark International Airport, so they played cards or read or watched TV or did finger exercises or ran on the treadmills in the athletic center Betsy scribbled in a voluminous diary Sometimes they swam in the shallow hotel pool, which was enclosed in a darotto on the top floor and was so chlorinated that they felt slightly poisoned for half an hour after they got out Quentin was happy to have a break in the routine Maybe they were going off-site, for a dry run of the whole business

They met in the lobby, all except for Pushkar, as nowhere in sight Stoppard arrived carrying two hard plastic suitcases, one of which was obviously pretty heavy Quentin brought a duffel bag with everything he figured they’d need to break the bond, if it could possibly be broken, which was still an open question It wasn’t like they had one to practice on He had Mayakovsky’s coins in his pocket

Betsy came empty-handed

“Field trip!” she said “Thank God Now I can say it Are you ready? Plum snores There, I said it”

“I’lad it’s finally out there,” Plum said

“Do you think this is it?” Stoppard said “I mean, is this the job?”

“No” Betsy shook her head “Dress rehearsal Shakedown cruise”

“We’ll meet the others on-site,” Lionel said, and he led theot out, and Lionel got behind the wheel The rest of them climbed in the back

It was a good idea Quentin was all for improvisation when there was absolutely no other choice, but it would be nice to be as overprepared as possible Maybe the bird had even set up an incorporate bond for the north

The intercom clicked on

“Cardboard box,” Lionel said There was one, on the floor in a corner Quentin slit the tape with a key It turned out to be full of clothes: shiny black parkas and black jeans and watch caps “Find your sizes Get changed”

It was all very black-ops Stoppard rooted through the box excitedly till he found a parka that fit hiered it tenderly

“I am in love,” he said “I am in love with this coat”

Betsy had already whipped off her pants, revealing practical white underwear and a pair of very pale legs, and begun pulling on her jeans

“This tapered shit is so Jersey,” she said

“I think I’ll wait,” Plum said

The lied on farther north, through Yonkers and then veering east into Connecticut Quentin watched the world flow by: hulking overpasses, brick housing projects dense with too-s at the traffic, h of relief, trees In the perht of the tinted s it all looked as far off and alien as the contents of an aquarium

They stopped twice, once for gas and once at a long low brick building with a sign outside proudly identifying it as a rehab center, where Lionel took receipt of a long brown paper package froeted in his black coat, which he’d already put on even though it was too hot for it in the lilasses His hands kept straying to the controls for the disco lights