The store clerk burst through the double glass doors. He was a thirtysomething black man in white sneakers and a brown attendant’s apron.
“Christ woman, that was my truck!” His eyes flashed to Roger’s stump, where the knob of bloody-white bone winked beneath the fluorescent lights and seemed to say, “Hi there.”
He swallowed dryly. “Jesus—what happened?”
“He did lunch with something scaly,” she grunted. “Come on.”
He took up Roger’s left arm and together the three entered the building.
Gasps and shocked profanities accompanied their passage through the room, and a crowd of figures clustered about them like a frenzied Washington press corps.
“We got it, man. We got it ...” the clerk said.
They carried him on their shoulders to the little, pristine men’s room, and the clerk held him al
