Chapter Five
I goggled, watching the little clown stare at me, watching him smoke his cigar, recalling my vision and remembering the pencil-toting cartoon fish smoking the black stogie. I wondered what, if anything, the two had to do with one another? But what could they have to do with one another? This guy was neither a fish nor a cartoon but as equally unlikely. He looked like a kid in a clown costume with the voice (and diction) of a longshoreman. Between the darkness, the shadows, and the white grease paint on his face, his age was impossible to guess. He had blue tears painted on his cheeks, a red rubber nose, and a phony smile drawn over top of a real mouth twisted with a sneer. “I asked you a question,” he growled. “Are you a fuckin' smart a*s?”
Make that a real dirty mouth twist
