The Blue Hour by T. Jefferson Parker

Author:T. Jefferson Parker [Parker, T. Jefferson]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780786889693
Amazon: 1423355695
Publisher: Hyperion
Published: 2000-04-02T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

A quick shower and clean clothes, plus Merci wanted Hess to know that she liked him now, so she tossed the old fast food and stopped for some new. She overbought, then wondered if a guy on chemo and radiation ate much of anything. Fries and shakes, hamburgers, tacos, onion rings, the works.

She was surprised to find his apartment neat and clean, the opposite of Mike's place in Anaheim. She suspected it was a furnished rental unit until Hess told her so and removed all doubt. They sat in the living room at either end of a blue plastic couch, with the white bags strewn on the coffee table in front of them. Hess left the TV on. The windows were open and the shades up and Merci could see a pale prairie of sand topped by a black ocean topped by a blacker sky alive with stars. Voices wavered up from the sidewalk, laughter, the hiss of roller skates. Then the distant thump of waves followed by a sound like a soft drink poured over ice.

She leaned forward and ate.

"So, where were we?" she asked.

"Evil, I think."

"1 never think about evil. I just think you should be punished for what you do. Wow, these hamburgers are good."

She looked across and saw that Hess was eating, too.

"They really are."

"Do you eat healthy?"

"I have since the operation. Before, anything went."

"How come you aren't fat? Alcohol is really high in calories, you know."

"Metabolism."

"Yeah, and thirty years of cigarettes."

"Fifty-five."

"You really are old."

He chuckled but that was all.

"I've got a terrible diet," she confessed. "I actually like cooking, but not for just me. So it's stuff like this half the time, decent stuff the other half."

"You work it off, though."

"I'm in the gym all the time. Damn, don't we sound like a couple of real Californians now, talking about what we eat and what we do with our muscles? I spend my vacation every year in Maine. Kittery, Maine. Dad took me out there when I was little so I still go. Anyway, they don't live like we do back there. You start talking lifestyle and they roll their eyes."

"I always hated that word."

"Me too. And anything with cyber in it I promised myself I'd never use it, now I just did."

"Same with virtual."

"Yeah. Virtual sucks. It's all just bullshit to get you thinking you're missing something new. So you'll go buy things. Makes me want to puke. Vanilla or chocolate on the shake?"

"Chocolate."

"Good. I got two of them."

"And no vanilla."

"Not a one." Merci heard herself giggle, then giggled at the sound of it. "I thought that was funny when Izma asked me if I wanted ice water, then, when I bit, he said he didn't have any ice or any water. That's one large creepy dude, Hess."

"He was holding a frozen cat when I busted him. When he opened the door, I mean."

"What did he do with it?"

"He dropped it. It sounded like a rock on the floor."

"Damn, what a hoot."

"I was scared.

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