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As if the conversations were the only true residents of a prison, the inmates merely transient voices mouthing words first spoken long before.
“Here there be monsters.” He’d asked his father what it meant, and his father had said, Some lines you can’t uncross, Gib. It means be sure.
It was common courtesy. A birthday was a birthday, and that meant it got celebrated on the day of birth. None of this waiting for the weekend nonsense. That was weak-kneed hippie talk. Everyone has a job to get to, now take your damn shot.
The rain felt good, and he smiled at what he’d learned from Merrick’s behavior. Without question, Merrick had traded something valuable to his government, and in exchange the Americans had permitted him to plead out to a lighter sentence and keep some of his assets. It had to be Poisonfeather.
Looking at twenty years in prison, Merrick had sold out his source in China’s government to the CIA. And the CIA had made Merrick’s mole their own.
This was Fa’s way back. If he learned the identity of Poisonfeather, not even Zhi could prevent Fa’s return to grace. Merrick would give him Poisonfeather’s name. Not now, of course. First, Fa had to guide Merrick into a more agreeable frame of mind. Once Merrick was starving, he would dance.
existing had long since passed into history, and its century-long contraction had left a swath of shuttered, abandoned buildings to mark high tide.
Peer through the swirl of anger and see the pain that anger protected.
threat painted as reassurance and framed with a smile.
The average man tipped to show his appreciation; the exceptional man overtipped to remind the world of its insignificance.
The best lies traveled in the shadow of the truth, changing only the bare minimum to achieve that end.
“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
All around, boxes stacked like haphazard skyscrapers formed a cardboard skyline that reminded Lea of the New York of her childhood.
but the kitchen sinks might as well have been in New York.
From a safe distance, tragedy was life’s most irresistible spectacle.
