“I have a plane.”
“We could have dessert.”
“I have a five forty-five to catch.”
“You could catch me.”
Blame it on the stranger. Blame it on the creep. Blame it on Miss Fanny de Ville and Montana Cowboys. Blame it on the tufted banquette. Your honour, the banquette made me say it.
Alexi and Vivienne walked across the bridge; he took her hand. She was okay with that for a few seconds. Then her carapace tightened around her. Her lung lesions tightened her alveoli; she was having trouble breathing. To Stadhouderskade to Tesselschadestraat to Roemer Visscherstraat, the Owl. The hotel sat deadpan as a Vermeer. Deadpan as a little street.
Nobody knows anything about love.
They went up in the elevator-built-for-two together, turned right, walked about ten steps to a stub of a hallway, whe
