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Show 109 Jewel's eyes drop from Halls* face to feet. "Don't come over here," she warns. "Let's go . . . " Hall begins. "... What if we go - and have some lobster and some Pi not Chardinay? - A t the Barbary Coast. They have a roof place." "'A roof place'?" "Yes." But Hall can see, suddenly, that something is very funny, in a crazy way, to Jewel. Still, before whatever the moment is gets realized, there is the voice of a Security Guard booming from a catwalk near the monitor room, the vision of his hand ready on his gun: "Off the beams!" he orders. Jewel and Hall stare, above the glass. "You left Toledo," she says. "You walked away to your window," Hall says, "And just stared out." "But Toledo's not 'self-contained.'" "Great! Fine! Go home then! Revive your mums!" Jewel lets loose. She swings. And, in an awful moment, she is falling. Forward. But Hall reaches. Off balance. In an attempt to catch. Jewel is falling. Hall is falling. Hunt feels a scream, desire or fear, uncoiling the length of his viscera. But then Hall's and Jewel's hands clutch. Hall is holding Jewel. Hunt is holding Leah. Their feet brace violently against whatever beams and suddenly everything is that exquisite terror and instinct that is never planned. Two hundred feet above any floor, two people lock bodies, two people buttress one another: poles of some tenuous room: frail, equilibrated, crude architecture. "Off those fucking beams!" the guard thunders. But it takes more than a threat to uncouple them. "What is it?" Leah, now awake, holds her shaking Hunt. "What? -Darling!" |