“Me the shameless hussy? You bitch! I remember just the other day when some 35 year old tramp propositioned a perfectly innocent young boy. Well per...aps he’s not so innocent anymore. But you had the most to do with that.”Andrew was catching on to our banter and no longer seemed ill at ease. Good; that’s what we wanted. “Girls, please! I know a place where they have female mud wrestling. I’m sure they would welcome a death match between two Joanne Woodward clones. Want me to set it up?”Donnie. He seemed quite at home in his shirt and trousers, this nice big house, being the father figure of this family. But it wasn’t always that way, was it? I was trying to picture him as a child, as a teenager. What had he done, what had they made him do? I knew how it was. Anything similar to my parents? How many dead bodies had he seen? Made any himself? He knew my eyes were lingering on him, and looked around. I desperately wanted to avert my gaze, but found myself stuck, like I was caught. Jack checked upon meregularly and was tickled pink to learn about Billy's hygienic toilethabits."You mean he actually flushes the pan as well?" he chuckled."Absolutely. No more dirt or disease in this flat. The place is asclean as a whistle." I added."Yes, now you mention it, it is. But you always were a stickler forcleanliness. This place is like a pin in paper. There's no loose hairor anything. You keep him spotless and I noticed the other day that theback lawn was looking cleaner. Have you. .. The next few minutes were a kaleidoscope of fragmented time for the young mate of Howard Jamison. She was told to sit down on the couch, told to have another marijuana cigarette, and she obeyed. Sally Reagan, rid of her coat, sat beside her on the dirty material of the sofa and took pot herself--one joint, two, three. The room was filled with the sweetish, almost cloying odor of the weed."Are we ready now?" Samuels called out finally, as if asking permission of someone else to begin, looking.