“Is this Roberts?” says Charlene, knowing it wasn’t but saying it anyway. Just to kill some time.
“No that’s just another dead body; girl named Time. Over here,” Wanda instead directs Charlene’s attention while still looking out across the room from that perch on the giant vanity table. “Those shoes. That’s you!”
“Me?” Pink high heeled shoes, Charlene observes under the distant bed again. And a blue body stretched out and strapped in up top. Disturbing!
“Oh. Right,” backtracks Wanda once more. “That’s someone else. I keep forgetting.”
“O–kay. But *Roberts*,” Charlene tries to focus the queer, young receptionist. “Where’s the private investigator I came to see? I’ll take Franklin too, mind you. If she’s closer or more available.”
“Roberts is good. Roberts is *there*. Big Feet (!).”
Wanda doesn’t move, but suddenly they were there.
—–
“Ms. Brown. Ms. *Brown*. Slap her again,” commands Roberts from above, fresh from a case. So Wanda does.
I fully come around, sit up from my stretched out if not strapped in position on the floor by the door. I hear Roberts tell Wanda to return to her desk, job done.
“I must have, ow!, tripped over the bow of that boat.”
“What boat?” Roberts says, not even looking around for one. “Never mind. Get up when you feel like it and come into my office. We have many things to talk about.”
“We do?” I said, still aching, still recovering.
“Yes.”
Sunklands 