"No, never! Aaugh, yes, yes, I gave him everything!"

Then (this is the same picture), the plywood door explodes and I come flying in with two Bruce Lee kung-fu chains whirling around in my hands like airplane propellers.

"… the house?"

"Thomas!"

I started and saw that the two women were waiting for an answer from me. Saxony squinted daggers and sneaked in a killer pinch under my arm.

"I'm sorry. What were you saying?"

"He is a writer, isn't he? Head floating around in the clouds… just like Marshall. Did you know that Anna took away his car keys a couple of years before he died? He bumped into more trees with that old station wagon. Dreaming, he was. Just plain old dreaming."

Everyone had at least ten Marshall France stories to tell. Marshall behind the wheel, Marshall at the cash register, Marshall and his hatred for tomatoes. It was a biographer's paradise, but I had begun to wonder why they had paid so much attention to him, and why there was so much contact among them. I kept thinking about Faulkner in Oxford, Mississippi. From what I had read, everybody in that town knew him and was proud that he lived there, but it wasn't any big deal to them – he was just their well-known writer. But the way people talked about Marshall France, you would have thought that he was either a miniature God in a kind of down-home way, or at the very least the brother that they were closest to in the family.

We decided to skip the library and finish our walk into town instead, partly because I didn't feel like looking at any books that morning, and partly because there were a few places that I hadn't visited for a few days.

The Abbey Guided Tour began with the bus station with its flaking white park benches outside and bus schedules posted right above them so that you almost had to sit in someone's lap to find out when the St. Louis express came through. A fat, pretty woman sat behind the tiny Plexiglas window and sold you your ticket. How many movies began with dusty bus stops like this in the middle of nowhere? A Greyhound comes slowly down Main Street and stops at Nick and Bonnie's Cafй or the Taylor bus depot. Above the windshield where the glass is tinted green, the sign says that this one is going to Houston or Los Angeles. But along the way it's stopped in Taylor, Kansas (read Galen, Missouri), and you want to know why. The front door hisses open and out steps Spencer Tracy or John Garfield. He's either got a battered suitcase in his hand and he looks like a bum, or else he's dressed in fit-to-kill city clothes. But either way, there is no reason in the world for him to be way out here…

Favorite place number two was a macabre store a couple of steps down from the bus dlepot. Inside, hundreds of spooky white plaster statues: Apollo, Venus, Michelangelo's David, Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, jockeys holding hitching rings in one outstretched hand. Christmas wreaths waited in ghostlike rows for people to buy them. The man who owned the place was an Italian who did all the work in the back of the store and who rarely appeared when you came in to look around. I had seen only two or three of his pieces in people's houses or out on their lawns in all of the time that I had been in Galen, but I assumed that he made enough money from them to survive. What was so ominous about it was the total whiteness of everything. When you entered the store, it was like stepping into clouds, only here they were John F. Kennedy and crucified-Christ clouds. Saxony hated the place and always went to the drugstore instead to see if any new paperback books had come in. I had vowed to myself that before we left, I would buy something from the guy just because I spent so much time wandering around in his joint. Not that there was ever anyone else in there.

"Hey, Mr. Abbey! I was hopin' that you'd be in soon. I got somethin' for you that I done special. Wait here."

The owner disappeared into his workroom and came out a few seconds later with a wonderful small statue of the Queen of Oil. Unlike the others, this one had been painted to match the colors of the book illustration.

"Fantastic! It's wonderful. How did you – ?"

"Naah, naah, don't thank me. It was strictly a commission job. Anna came in here about a week ago and told me to make it up for you. You want to thank anyone, thank her."

Very cleverly, I slipped the statue into my pocket and decided for the time being that I'd hide it from Sax. I wasn't in the mood for a heavy discussion. I had a couple of minutes before I had to meet her at the drugstore, so I popped into a phone booth and rang up Anna's number.

"France." Her voice sounded like a sledgehammer on an anvil.

"Hello, Anna? This is Thomas Abbey. How are you?"

"Hi, Thomas. I'm fine. What's happening with you? How is the book going?"

"Good, okay. I finished the first draft of the chapter and I think it turned out all right."

"Congratulations! Mr. Tom Terrific! You're way ahead of schedule. Are there many surprises?" In an instant her tone of voice switched from hard to coy.

"Yes… I don't know. I guess so. Listen, I just went to Marrone's, and he gave me your present. I love it. What a great idea. I'm very touched."

"And what did Saxony think of it?" Her voice moved again, back to shifty.

"Um, well, I didn't show her yet, to tell you the truth."

"I didn't know if you would. But why don't you go ahead and tell her that it is a present to both of you. Tell her that it's a little something for having finished the chapter. She wouldn't get mad at you for that, would she?"

"Why would I do that? You gave it to me, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did, but please don't misunderstand." Her voice stopped and hung there out in space, indicating nothing.

"Yes, but look, if you gave it to me as a present, I wouldn't think of sharing it." I realized that I sounded offended.

"But you wouldn't really be sharing it. You and I would know…"

We actually went on and had an argument about it. The upshot was that I was disappointed, to be totally honest. Maybe getting it had created all kinds of Anna-and-me fantasies in my head. Then hearing her brush it off so lightly was a cold shower over everything. Anyway, she said that Petals had an appointment at the veterinarian for shots, so the rest of the conversation was short. At the end she repeated that she would be glad to help if we needed anything more, and then she was gone. I hung up but didn't take my hand off the black receiver once it was hooked back in its cradle. What the hell was I doing? I had just that morning been thinking about how nicely my life was going, then two hours later I was slamming phones down because I couldn't fool around with Anna France.

I left the booth and trotted over to the drugstore.

"Hey, Sax, what's up? What are you doing?"

"Thomas! Eek, you're not supposed to see any of this."

The man behind the counter stood in front of her and smiled beatifically at me. He had a couple of mascara containers in his hand.

"Since when did you start wearing mascara, Sax?"

"I'm just trying it, don't get excited."

I wanted to tell her that I liked her eyes the way they were, but I didn't want to sound like a character out of My Little Margie in front of the druggist. He had a little white name tag on his jacket: Melvin Parker. He reminded me of one of those Mormon missionaries that come to your door preaching the gospel.

Behind us something banged and I turned around to see Richard Lee finish off a quart bottle of Coke in one loud glug.

"Hiya, Mel. Hiya, Abbey. Hello there." The last was for Saxony. He said it so gallantly that I expected him to tip his baseball cap. I felt a little ping of jealousy.

"Mel, come over here a minute, will ya?"

The druggist walked over to "Prescriptions" and Lee joined him there. Mel reached under the counter and brought out a gigantic red-and-white box of unlubricated Trojan condoms. Lee hadn't said a word to him about what he wanted.