CHAPTER THREE
Tess stood at the window box where she could flick ashes from her chain smoked cigarettes and keep a keen eye on the street at the same time, and she saw what she could only describe, in her limited vocabulary, to be two "hippies" coming up the stairs to her house on Charles Avenue. "O.k., everybody," she hollered into the waiting room, "tie down the battels, secure the ash trays, and make sure nothing that's loose is worth anything. We got f*****g hippies coming this way." She put her cigarette out in the window box and mumbled to herself: "Poor w*********h. Ought to lock 'em all up."
But when the doorbell rang she was as sweet as could be: "Would you two gentlemen be looking for someone or somebody?"
"We understand," said one of the bearded men, "that you run a pretty go
