“On a low coffee table, with circular and semicircular stains bitten into the dark veneer, lay a few wilted numbers of Time and Life. I flipped to the middle of the nearest magazine. The face of Eisenhower beamed up at me, bald and blank as the face of a fetus in a bottle.”

“What the heck is that?" I asked, pointing to a dark stain in the nearest corner."Okay, number one question you *don't* want to hear in a creepy cellar," Archer said ...”

“He was pushing fifty, with a face life had chewed on, and long wisps of graying hair parted low on one side and combed over his balding pate.”

“There are few things in life that are worth waking up to: sex, the dark spices of freshly brewed coffee and bacon.”

“I pointed in the general vicinity of my left ovary, "This is Beam Me Up." Then to my right. "And this is Scotty." Garret chuckled and buried his face in his hands. He asked.”

“He could take one look at me- at the ashtray, the bottle, the four pots of coffee, my face, and my gut set like a stone on the white band of the towel- he could take one look at me and be pretty sure i ran on heavy fuel.”