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Show 78 Hunt hung up. He thought of Leah. What would she be doing? Laying a fire, maybe. Feeding the birds. Helping Todd remove a fish from his hook. That night he had a Polynesian dinner and drank mai tais. He played and lost a thousand. It took him two and a half hours. Even the conditioned air seemed too slow. "I need a break," he said. "Sure." The dealer fanned his cards. "Mr. Hunt!" Freeman greeted him suddenly, now in person. They shook hands. Hunt excused himself. He roamed Las Vegas Boulevard, his mind roughing out paintings he might someday do, anatomy after close-felt anatomy. Did Victoria Speer have any concept of what the feel for any given figure called for? In knowledge? Caring? Hunt felt dizzy; the night smelled like overheated coils. He saw a man in the parking lot at The Dunes, screaming at himself: "Idiot! Idiot!" Hunt went and drank at The Sands. The girl beside him ordered three run martinis. She held an icepack to her face. "Do you have a car?" she asked Hunt. "I'm only here on a junket," Hunt said and left. He crossed back again to The Castaways and lost another three hundred dollars. That filled the day's obligatory time. But then he played on his own and won over nine hundred back. He tipped the dealer, shifted tables, won again. He tried to reconstruct why he'd come; he didn't really seem to have a hold of it any more. Freeman appeared. "Can I jejt anything for you?" he inquired. "Cigars? Brandy?" Hunt accepted cognac and went outside and |