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5841541
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He was back at me like a cat, and he swung a hard chunk of wood from one of the smashed chairs. I caught the first one on the shoulder and I cleverly caught the next one right over the left ear. It broke a big white bell in my head, and he side-stepped, grunting for breath, and let me go down. I landed on my side, and he punted me in the belly like Groza trying for one from the mid-field stripe. I had that fractional part of consciousness l..
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John D. MacDonald |
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6648a77
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Cathy introduced us. Christine stood there inside her smooth skin, warm and indolent, mildly speculative.
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John D. MacDonald |
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3f22524
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Sly and reckless, compulsive and bold. The goat-god, with hoof and smile and hairy ears, satyr at the helm of the Play Pen. Love him, understand him, forgive him, lead him shyly to Freud, or Jesus. Or else take the contemporarily untenable position that evil, undiluted by any hint of childhood trauma, does exist in the world, exists for its own precise sake, the pustular bequest from the beast, as inexplicable as Belsen.
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John D. MacDonald |
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393e249
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Would you rather I found you a place of your own right away?" "It doesn't matter." "Which would you rather do?" The effort of decision brought her out of her torpor. She made fists and her lips tightened. "I guess I have to be with you."
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John D. MacDonald |
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bfef85c
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He tottered in. In a few moments he came out, hair piece in place. But the haggardness of his face made it look more spurious than before.
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John D. MacDonald |
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8ebecd1
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My ward had arisen. She had slept so hard her eyes looked puffy, but she had acquainted herself with the equipment in my stainless steel galley, and she wore a pretty cotton dress, which hung just a little loosely on her, and she had taken two generous steaks out of the locker and set them out to thaw. She seemed a little more aware of the situation, shyly aware that she might be a nuisance.
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John D. MacDonald |
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f93be59
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For once her new placidity was impaired.
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John D. MacDonald |
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c1b7f7a
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Waste of what?" "Of you! It seems degrading. Forgive me for saying that. I've seen those African movies. The lion makes a kill and then clever animals come in and grab something and run. You're so bright, Trav, and so intuitive about people. And you have ... the gift of tenderness. And sympathy. You could be almost anything." "Of course!" I said, springing to my feet and beginning to pace back and forth through the lounge. "Why didn't I thi..
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John D. MacDonald |
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8a49c1a
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After I had chased the ghastliness of Fancha out of my mind, I settled down to some planning. A trip out to Leavenworth had a deceptive plausibility.
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John D. MacDonald |
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c8c4485
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I could have listed maybe fifty possible reactions without coming close to the one I got. Her eyes dulled and her narrow nostrils flared wide and her mouth fell into sickness. She lost her posture and stood in an ugly way.
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John D. MacDonald |
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4fca534
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I had to make a guess about what would be right and what would be wrong for her. I had to take a risk. I based the risk on what I know of loneliness, of the need of closeness in loneliness. I stroked her, totally impersonal, the way you soothe a terrified animal. At first she would leap and buck at the slightest touch. After a while there was only a tremor when I touched her, and finally that too was gone. She hiccuped and at last fell down..
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John D. MacDonald |
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f3496ee
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At last there came the reward for patience, her tremendous inhalation broken into six separate fragments, her whole body listening to itself then, finding, being certain, and then taking with hunger. Later she lay curled languid against my chest, her heart and breathing slow. "Wasn't too soon," she said, a blurred drone. "No, it wasn't." "Sweet," she said. "Ver' sweet." And she nestled down into the sleep of total exhaustion."
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John D. MacDonald |
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e5db63d
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The breakfast was rather silent, but not with strain.
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John D. MacDonald |
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95c1a2b
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She was back in three minutes just to tell me that she couldn't guarantee she wouldn't get a little nutty from time to time, but she felt she was past the pill period, and then she headed back toward the beach, a lissome broad in her mirrored sunglasses, walking on good legs, and she was far younger than her years, yet old as the sea she approached.
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John D. MacDonald |
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f31aed0
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Once, as she was getting sleepy, she looked somberly at me and said, "I guess there are a lot of people like me. We react too soon or too late or not at all. We're jumpy people, and we don't seem to belong here. We're victims, maybe. The Junior Allens are so sure of themselves and so sure of us. They know how to use us, how to take us further than we wish before we know what to do about it." She frowned. "And they seem to know by instinct e..
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John D. MacDonald |
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3a21667
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He stared at me. "Strange you should do all this for her." "Pity, I guess." "One of the worst traps of all, McGee."
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John D. MacDonald |
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687c0f9
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You feel that a door will open and you will be summoned, and horrid things will happen to you before they let you go. You can not mark these houses with any homely flavor of living. When they are emptied after occupancy, they have the look of places where the blood has recently been washed away.
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John D. MacDonald |
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91df6ae
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She was a tall and slender woman, possibly in her early thirties. Her skin had the extraordinary fineness of grain, and the translucence you see in small children and fashion models. In her fine long hands, delicacy of wrists, floating texture of dark hair, and in the mobility of the long narrow sensitive structuring of her face there was the look of something almost too well made, too highly bred, too finely drawn for all the natural crudi..
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John D. MacDonald |
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0798a75
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Who are you? What do you want? Who are you?" Her voice was light and fast and intense and her mouth trembled. She seemed to be on the narrow edge of emotional disaster, holding herself in check with the greatest effort. And about her was a rich and heavy scent of brandy, and an unsteadiness, the eyes too swift and not exactly in focus."
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John D. MacDonald |
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53f9a8f
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She came back pinked, sun-dazed and slow moving, with spume-salted hair and a sandy butt, displaying upon a narrow palm, with a child's innocence, a small and perfect white shell, saying in a voice still drugged with sun and heat, "It's like the first perfect thing I ever saw, or the first shell. It's a little white suit of armor with the animal dead and gone. What does it mean when things look so clear and so meaningful? Silly little thing..
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John D. MacDonald |
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2b496ce
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From A Deadly Shade of Gold, a Travis McGee title: "The only thing in the world worth a damn is the strange, touching, pathetic, awesome nobility of the individual human spirit." From the stand-alone thriller Where Is Janice Gantry?: "Somebody has to be tireless, or the fast-buck operators would asphalt the entire coast, fill every bay, and slay every living thing incapable of carrying a wallet." These two angles show up everywhere in his n..
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John D. MacDonald |
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f03d478
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A few years ago she would have been breathtakingly ripe, and even now, in night light, with drinks and laughter, there would be all the illusions of freshness and youth and desirability. But in this cruelty of sunlight, in this, her twentieth year, she was a record of everything she had let them do to her. Too many trips to too many storerooms had worn the bloom away. The freshness had been romped out, in sweat and excess. The body reflects..
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John D. MacDonald |
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6144527
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Suddenly Junior Allen swung aboard, leaped, landed lightly. He was immaculate in white sport shirt, white slacks, pale blue yachting cap. I guessed he was nearing forty. I had not been prepared for him to look so powerful and so fit. He was broad, with shoulders so packed and corded with muscle they gave him a slightly simian posture, the impression enhanced by the extra-long weight and heft of brown tattooed arms, and the short legs, sligh..
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John D. MacDonald |
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de716e3
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Junior Allen grinned and grinned and grinned. But some instinct made him wary of me. I would look toward him and see those little blue eyes studying me over that wide smile. He was a big old tom watching benignly as the mice cavorted. He didn't want another cat at the party. There wasn't enough for two.
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John D. MacDonald |
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a4b23bf
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These are the little losers in the bunny derby, but they lose on a different route than the Mariannes, or the ones you see in the supermarket on the nights when they double the green stamps, coming in junk cars, plodding the bright aisles, snarling at their cross sleepy kids.
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John D. MacDonald |
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744d96c
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Can she be sure of that?" Her laugh was ugly. "Eyewitnesses are usually pretty positive. It happened back in June. Kids are so idealistic. How can I explain to her that it really didn't mean very much, that it was an old friend, sort of sentimental, unplanned, old-times-sake sort of thing. I don't make a habit of that sort of thing. But ever since I heard the door open and turned my head and saw her there, pale as death before she slammed t..
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John D. MacDonald |
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475d11f
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Are you a good human being, Gerry? I mean good in the sense that if you put everything in the scales, they'd tip that way?" It startled her. "I don't know. I haven't thought of myself that way. I think I like the lush life a little too much. That's why I married George. I'm vain. I like men to admire me. I've got a coarse streak that comes out at the wrong times. But I do try to live up to ... some kind of a better image of myself. And I tr..
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John D. MacDonald |
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0c2bd47
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I just don't know. Maybe I'm good, but that goddamn scale would hesitate a long time before tilting that way.
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John D. MacDonald |
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fc5f3d8
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The sun was visible from Florida, but it hadn't gotten to me.
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John D. MacDonald |
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eb89930
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He was in a gigantic circular bed, with a pink canopy over it. In all the luxuriant femininity of that big bedroom, George looked shrunken and misplaced, like a dead worm in a birthday cake.
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John D. MacDonald |
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0a4528d
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settled for a blooming redhead from Waco, Takes-us, name of Molly Bea Archer, carefully cut her out of the pack and trundled her, tipsy and willing, back to the Busted Flush.
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John D. MacDonald |
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1e1d096
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She looked at me with gentle indignation. She was what we have after sixty million years of the Cenozoic. There were a lot of random starts and dead ends. Those big plated pea-brain lizards didn't make it. Sharks, scorpions and cockroaches, as living fossils, are lasting pretty well. Savagery, venom and guile are good survival quotients. This forked female mammal didn't seem to have enough tools. One night in the swamps would kill her. Yet ..
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John D. MacDonald |
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349f8bd
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Suddenly she came racing into the lounge. She wore one of my big blue towels in sarong fashion, and had a white towel wrapped around her head. Her face looked narrow and intent. Her features looked more pointed. "That last trip," she said. "I don't know if it will help. We stopped at some sort of a boat yard in Miami. I can't even remember the name. Something about a new generator. He kept complaining about the noise the generator made. The..
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John D. MacDonald |
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015c0f9
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A sulphur sun pierced the gloom, and the rain stopped and I drove to the hospital.
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John D. MacDonald |
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92db868
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The rain had washed the sunset time to a lambent beauty.
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John D. MacDonald |
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db857f0
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Saturday night. Buddy Dow, hired skipper of a big lunker owned by an insurance company in Atlanta, had enlisted two recruits and was despairingly in need of more.
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John D. MacDonald |
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6431d5a
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Willy Lazeer is an acquaintance. His teeth and his feet hurt. He hates the climate, the Power Squadron, the government and his wife. The vast load of hate has left him numbed rather than bitter. In appearance, it is as though somebody bleached Sinatra, skinned him, and made Willy wear him.
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John D. MacDonald |
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50dff37
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What kind of people did he have aboard, Willy?" "Smart-ass kids." "Tourists, college kids?" He stared through me for a moment. "I knew one of them." "One of the kids?" "What the hell are we talking about? One of the kids. Yes. You know over the bridge on the right there, past where they're building is a place called Charlie Char-Broil."
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John D. MacDonald |
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d03eab4
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I went back to Lois. She had a glass of bourbon that looked like a glass of iced coffee. Her smile was loose and wet and her eyes didn't track.
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John D. MacDonald |
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f80a395
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She trudged along, dutiful as a naughty child.
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John D. MacDonald |
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0f7bccd
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I think he'll wait until he gets the new generator installed." "But what if he leaves with them in the morning?" "If that seems too dreadful to you, Lois, you can always get drunk." "You don't have to be so cruel." "You disappointed me." "I know. I'm sorry." "How's your head now?" "A little better, I think. Trav?" "Yes, honey." "Trav, I'm so hungry I could eat this bench."
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John D. MacDonald |
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5862bc2
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Who the hell are you?" "A friend of a friend." "Like who?" "Marianne, works at Charlie Char-Broil." "That silly bitch hasn't got any friends." Had I done any pleading or begging, she would have slammed the door. So I stood easy, mildly smiling. It's a relaxed area. There is a code for all the transients. If you are presentable, unhurried, vaguely indifferent, it is a challenge. I was having better luck with this than I expected, up to this ..
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John D. MacDonald |
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6722671
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At a thirty-foot distance she was a very attractive, ripe-bodied young girl. At close range the coarseness, and the sleaziness of the materials used in construction were all too evident. Her tanned hide had a coarse and grainy look. Her crinkle of putty-colored hair looked lifeless as a Dynel wig. The strictures of the bottom half of the bikini cut into the belly-softness of too many beers and shakes, hamburger rolls and french fries. The m..
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John D. MacDonald |
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5ecbdcb
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I am wary of the whole dreary deadening structured mess we have built into such a glittering top-heavy structure that there is nothing left to see but the glitter, and the brute routines of maintaining it.
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John D. MacDonald |