Itook one more step and then stopped, hearing the harsh sound of myrespiration as I drew each breath down my throat and then pushed it backout over the dry floor of my tongue. I pickedthem up and started to put them on, only because I didn't want to swimback to shore with them in my hand. I didn't bother checking the ninety-second entry onthe page; the phone book wasn't the key to the magnetic crosspatchesafter all. Buddy Jellison was just the same, all right--same dirty cooks' whitesand splotchy white apron, same black hair under a paper cap stained witheither beef-blood or strawberry juice.
I've been out running errands, I said. Joe and the bosun went and drank the cognac in the gal ey with the cook who was an old timer who'd been in the Klondike gold rush. I didn't remember her doing so, and it seemed to me thatI would have, but Jo used to claim that when I got in the zone it was nogood to tell me anything; stuff went in one ear and out the other. Theydidn't know which team he belonged on--the Locals or the Aways.
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