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Show 82 in imitation of the man. He became detached. He requested cigars. "Press it! Press it!" he roared, an almost hysterical glee within. But the money kept multiplying. When he left the table, the man he'd mimicked left beside him. He slipped an arm around Hunt, pulled him close: "We felt it; didn't we, Buddy! We felt it!" Hunt couldn't sleep. He'd pulled his curtains. But the outline of Victoria Speer spread a light that kept reawakening him. He was afraid. He was afraid to fill it in and jiot to fill it in. Half of him wanted to call her, work for however-many hours straight and finish. Half of him wanted to destroy what he'd begun. But he was afraid the face, the expression - like Leah's eyes, sometimes, penetrating a window -- never would submit. Hunt rose at six and drove to Boulder Dam. The site was staggering. Hunt was not ready: The enormous concrete horseshoe holding back the water; then the gap. On his way, Hunt had crossed the dawn into yucca and cactus. There'd been light. He had rolled his car window down and had found a tenderness in the morning; patience, age. But now it all funnelled into a hum. Hunt stood alone on the bridge and listened. He took the tour. It dropped him 500 feet in an elevator, down, like Jonah into the whale, and, sinking, he felt like food, half a calorie. He felt choked. Then, later, up and out again, he felt his insides burning for air. What was wrong? Why had he been only managing dead oranges? Painting dun-colored tools? He envisioned Victoria falling from the brink of the enormous dam. She had the skeleton of a bird, yet plummeted. Had no one thought to |
