“They drive back home to grab his backpack and as he bends and kisses his grandma Agnes, she scrunches a one-hundred-dollar bill in his hand. “Buy yourself some chocolates, Tom.”It’s what she’d say to him as a kid with a twenty cent coin.”

“Well, " I began,"I've been roped into shenanigans."Without preface, Catcher muttered a curse ,then leaned over slipped his wallet from his jeans, and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, which he handed to Mallory.”

“After Bill got his shot, a little color crept into his face and he would become almost coy. It was a gruesome sight. I remember once he told me how he'd been propositioned by a queer who offered him twenty dollars. Bill declined, saying "I don't think you would be very well satisfied." Bill twitched his fleshless hips. "You should see me in the nude," he said. "I'm really cute.”

“He took from his coat pocket a handful of wadded-up cash, as if children had paid him directly with their sweaty clutches of dollar bills.”

“There was a momentary lull in the shooting and spellslinging, and the kid started scrambling to his feet. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. “In my family that’s not silence; it’s reloading.”

“It's always the mother's fault, ain't it?" she said softly, collecting her coat. "That boy turn out bad cause his mama a drunk, or she a junkie. She let him run wild, she don't teach him right from wrong. She never home when he back from school. Nobody ever say his daddy a drunk, or his daddy not home after school. And nobody ever say they some kids just damned mean. ...”