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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 40 become a thoroughly respectable establishment, but Mikey Warren meant to see that it did not stay such, and Father Aguilar meant to help. "What do we know about this Hightower, anyway? Where does he come from? What did he do before he came here? Who are his family?" But all Mikey knew was that Hightower hailed from Marengo, Alabama, and he had a certain way with the fairer sex rivaled only by his curious ability to reap Taosenos plotting his death one day and singing his praises the next. Father Aguilar told Mikey that if they hoped to get the men back, they would have to get the women back, which Mikey already knew, and also if they wanted the women back they would need be rid of William Jefferson Hightower. Father Aguilar had failed to drive the devil out of Taos long enough to know the best way to vanquish a foe was to know him intimately, and so it was imperative to the present quest they learn all there was to learn about Hightower and his history. Father Aguilar said he would let Mikey know whatever he found out as soon as he'd made a few phone calls, and with the conspiracy consecrated took leave of cantina. * Esperanza woke each morning to warbling birds and all her thoughts devoured by dread supposing. She'd thought by removing Casabon from her life she would slowly forget him, but months without sight of him proved this untrue, for Casabon's essence grew sharper in her mind. She might while living with him go days without thinking of him unless forced to. But now she could think of nothing else. Her distance from him brought her already slow-beating heart to a dark ache. She'd been miserable with the idea she knew nothing true, nothing intimate about Casabon, but absence made her a liar. |