Chapter Twenty-TwoThe phone rang. In my current dream, the handle had grown tall as a two-storey building and jangled loud enough to rattle my brain. I couldn't wrap my hands around the receiver and it weighed half a ton. Someone had slipped it one of Alice's growth pills, I guess. But then it started to shrink and the jangling became sharper and more penetrating. I reached over and made it stop.
“Hello?” I croaked.
A female voice thick with crying and booze said, “He just beat me up again.”
“Huh?”
Now it came back full of hate. “That bastard. One of these days I'm gonna kill him.”
The guy with the razor sharp mind said, “Kill who?”
She kept going, like I wasn't there. Just some convenient ear.
“If it weren't for my baby, I'd do it too. It's just that I don't want him to grow up wit
