I managed to see Sandy up on the stage. She waswinking at me. Then she was gone and Tony Eves was facing me."Hi, sweets. What's your name?"I unfroze a...d felt a foot shorter, and strange sensations allover my body before Tony's question sank in. "I'm Nick Dowd." Iheld up my hand. His swamped it as he took it to his mouth andkissed it. I was dumbfounded by my long, red-painted nails."Can I get you a drink, Nikki?"I looked at my hand, and his questions confused me. Nikki?Sweets? "I need to get out. Curiously, my Detroit born-and-raised companion had never eaten here. She was impressed, and found that Shield’s compared favorably to the chain store delivery pizza she had experienced.Having eaten our fill, we carried the remains of the meal out to my car. I parked in my accustomed spot, we stashed the left overs in my frig, and settled in on my sofa. I sidled next to her, and insinuated my arm over her shoulder, preparatory to drawing her close, and beginning my (or so I thought) smooth. All La Mode Fashion Consultants knew of Eclectic Slide and had signed an agreement to maintain strict secrecy regarding the business. The choice was always open to them if they chose to become a “Slide” Counselor up to the age of fifty. There was a demand for mature counselors to administer to older clients who made that preference known.After Father Francis McGlaughlin took young Molly Rafferty to Dr. Delassandro to have her “cyst” removed after being impregnated by a priest he sensed an. She looked him squarely in the eye, "Kyle, I was with you okay until this last part, but I know, as sure as I know my name, that there is more to this story. You didn't just 'help' them. Tell me the rest of it."Reluctantly, Kyle told her more of the details. "Well, two of the men were badly hurt. They had broken bones, they were bleeding, and they couldn't swim on their own. One by one, I towed them through the water to what was left of our boat and pulled them up onto it. The third man had.