“That done, I sank into an uneasy sleep wherein I dreamed of an assembly line of pale, bloodless girls walking down an endless dark street and moaning softly for help. Somewhere, toward the edge of my inner vision, a shadowy figure pursued them with long, beckoning arms. Goddamn booze! Somewhere in the midst of this ghoulish girl parade Cairncross materialized and hung a garland of garlic around my neck, glaring at me with his good eye and intoning, 'Go and sin no more.' Vincenzo appeared at Cairncross' side and together they laughed insanely, then vanished in a puff of sulphurous smoke. I made several high-minded resolutions, muttered half-heard but sincere-sounding prayers to all the recently deposed saints, thrashed and rolled clean off the bed. I might just as well have stayed up.”

“Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.”

“Fine. Stay. I don’t care,” I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes. “But don’t think I’m going to share the bed!”~Touching Smoke”

“Yeah, I know. It's one of my plans. It'll go all Dog Day Afternoon somewhere along the line. But a girl can dream, can't she?”

“I'm half good and I'm half bad. My mama is a very good girl and my daddy is a very bad boy. And I guess that leaves me somewhere sort of...here.”

“I knelt down to his side. I touched his arm, and got closer to his face to check his breathing. I felt the heat of his breath on my cheek. I smoothed my hand over his forehead pushing his long dark choppy hair aside. His skin was soft. He moaned, and his brown eyes fluttered. I kissed him with a small soft peck on his lips.”