See if you can cipher the names under the table, Richard. Richard looked at Suttree or almost at him. Names? he said. Under the table. He tapped with his knuckle. Richard ran a yellow hand beneath the marble slab, up among the twobyfours in which it sat. It’s a gravestone, he said. What does it say? Richard smiled nervously, the paleblue clams in his eyesockets shifting under the useless lids, his ears tuned like a fox’s to the world as he hears it. He slid his palm beneath the table and fished a cigarette from his shirtpocket with the other hand. Eighteen and forty-eight, he said. Nineteen
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