Had Coup anticipated how unbearable the silence would become he wouldn’t have sought out the remote and silenced the TV, nor encouraged Tess to take Rikki-Tik to the restroom and clean him up.
And yet, Christ, what was there to say? They were strangers, all of them—even he and Tess were strangers—who among them even knew the other’s name, much less anything about what was going on or what the thing lying behind the counter was? When at last he spoke he did so quietly, almost reverentially, offering only his name and where he’d been heading, hoping the others gathered around the counter would follow suit— which, after a moment, they did, slowly, hesitantly.
“Rory Holmes,” said the big man, “long-haul trucker, enroute to Los Angeles from Laredo, when—when all this happened.”
“Elliott Gile
