LITMIR.BIZ

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putting the usual bit of sarcasm in his voice.

      "If it pleases you ..." she replied, shrugging.

      It was a long time since Luke Mc January's met the man who had hired him. He had never phoned him and as far as he knew he could even have died due to some typical old age ailment, like a heart attack or pneumonia. But for all that time someone had worked hard to ensure that his Visa wouldn't be blocked and this comforted him. Luke turned on the direction indicator to enter a gas station and the attendant took his eyes off the book to look him annoyed, for the last half hour it was the fourth time he began to read the third last page of the novel and it was the fourth time someone interrupted him ... and three times out of four they had only asked for information. He thought angrily that even on that day he would not be able to finish reading his book, so he closed it and threw it on the table with a blatant gesture, then took a sip of lemonade and walked with a listless step towards the car.

      "Fill it up, please," Luke said, handing him the key of his Dodge Nitro's tank, then got out to stretch his legs a little.

      "Fine," replied the attendant, opening the flap of the tank in a brisk manner.

      "Is there a restroom I may use?" Luke asked him. The other pointed to a door next to the entrance to the store with a nod of his head and watched him walk away as he pumped diesel into the car. Tall and thin, dressed in a pair of tight black leather trousers and a raincoat also in very fine black leather, Luke reminded the attendant of the protagonist of the novel he was vainly trying to finish reading. But the fact that man went around dressed like that, made him think that maybe he was a little tossed in the head. "This is the classic type that will never wear gym clothes," he said to himself. When Luke returned to the car the attendant was cleaning his windshield, a supply of a hundred dollars could always soften him up a bit.

      "You've traveled a lot, huh?"

      "What made you understand that ?"

      "You've made a beautiful massacre of gnats."

      "Indeed."

      "Are you here for the Lobster's Festival?"

      "Lobster's Festival?" Luke said curiously.

      "Yes, it is an event that takes place every year at the marina and on the main streets of Rockland, it's a gigantic festival of the lobster. It doesn't have anything exceptional, but if you aren't busy yet I suggest you not to miss it, at least it is very original."

      "It smells good, it seems more a summer festival ..." Luke considered.

      "In fact, the event usually takes place in the first days of August, but this year the Hurricane Sandra has put the sticks in the wheel to the organizers and so the festival will begin in a few days."

      "Actually, I'm traveling for pleasure, so if you tell me it's really worth it, I might even decide to stay until then. After all, this place seems quiet and welcoming to me," Mc January explained to him, handing him a one-hundred-dollar bill, then he sat down in the driver's seat.

      "I wouldn't call it very quiet lately," replied the attendant looking out the window to hand the rest over.

      "... What do you mean?"

      "Just in the last two days so many things have happened ..." he said, cursing himself immediately afterward. That sentence could have opened another conversation and he had no desire to chat, he just wanted to sit back and finish reading those last three damn pages. "Anyway, if you decide to stay, you'll see it for yourself, I don't want to ruin it," he said shortly. He had been sufficiently polite, had enough conversation and now was anxious to send him away to return to his book.

      He turned to go and lower the windshield wipers so that he could leave, but for a long moment, he stared bewildered at the picture of the woman hanging from the lowered sun visor. Luke noticed it and hastened to pull it up, then the two peered at each other for an infinite moment.

      It was the typical dead moment when one would like to ask a question, but at the same time he fears a question from the other, so neither of them makes the first move to not open things up.

      "Can you recommend a good Motel?" Luke asked to break the awkward silence.

      "Go ahead for five or six miles and you'll see the Spring sign. It's clean and well equipped, the food is good and its prices are honest."

      "Well, thanks for everything. See you soon," Luke greeted him, shifting the gear. The attendant answered with an awkward hand gesture.

      "... I know that I am a pain in the ass, a cynic and that I have a bad temper and I recognize that if you have organized all this to make me a joke I probably deserved it" the Coroner mumbled, "but I guarantee you that it is not funny at all. To get the reports and come here as soon as possible I had to raise hell, I antagonized the staff of the whole laboratory of analysis," he added, while Helen stared in shock at the empty beds she had taken from the cold room.

      On the metal floors, there were only a few hairs and a few shreds of skin left, and she wasn't even sure that they had belonged to the bodies of those two or even to those who had occupied those beds before them.

      "Come on, where did you hide the bodies?" Stevenson asked, pulling out all the compartments from the cold room one after the other, but he found them all empty. "Have you already sent them to their relatives?" He went on, rummaging through the desk drawers, looking for documents attesting to the transfer. Helen gave him an expressionless look, then put her hands to her face, bowing her head and then Stevenson calmed down.

      "Do you realize that two bodies have disappeared here?" He asked good-naturedly. "What are you going to do?" He insisted after a few moments, but Helen remained barricaded behind a wall of silence. Then the Coroner sat down at his desk and pulled his packaged sandwich out of his leather briefcase, always keeping one of it for every eventuality because he became even more ravenous when he was nervous. He began to unwrap it and the noise of the tin foil attracted the attention of Helen, who finally uncovered her eyes and surprised him with his hands fixed on the sandwich and his open mouth ready to bite it. He froze.

      "I ... I ... oh, dam nit!" he exclaimed. He threw the sandwich angrily into the garbage can, picked up his belongings and walked down the corridor to leave. At the front door, he met James, who was returning from his visit to Bob.

      "Hey Stevie, where are you going so fast?" he greeted him.

      "Go to hell!" Replied the Coroner pulling straight on his way.

       It took Luke Mc January less than a minute to realize that the chirping lady who ran the Spring, a beautiful woman in her fifties named Sally, was the gas station attendant's wife. He booked the room until the end of the Lobster's Festival and exchanged a few chats with the lady, studied the map of the area hanging in the small hall to put the focal points well in his mind and finally went inside of the room. He found it small but welcoming, the door was half armored and the windows had double glazing; furthermore, he was satisfied that the furniture included the two things he needed the most, a desk and a bar fridge. He opened it to check the contents and found that in the freezer compartment there were even ready-made ice cubes, then he took from the travel bag his inseparable shaker and the ingredients necessary to prepare his habitual drink, the devastating and horrible mixture he had named "L.M.J.". Between a sip and the other, he unpacked the few bags he had with him and arranged them with meticulous care in the wardrobe and in the chest of drawers. Once the unpacking operations were completed, he put his precious briefcase under the bed and sat at the desk to update his logbook. When he finished he closed the notebook and looked at the phone, because like every time he arrived in a new place he was tempted to make a few calls, but like every time he told himself too much time had passed since he showed up, and give up the idea. He lay down on the bed to finish his L.M.J. and thought back pleased about the reaction the gas attendant had when he saw the photograph hanging from the sun visor: that was the umpteenth confirmation to his theory that the old trick of arousing curiosity in the interlocutor always works and that, moreover, it is much healthier than going around asking direct questions. He had learned it at his own experience that time when, by asking too much, he had hit someone's susceptibility and received very annoying answers. Instead, he had just thrown his

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