BooksBarbecue
Back The Deal Goes Down
Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Other Titles
  3. Dedication
  4. CHAPTER ONE
  5. CHAPTER TWO
  6. CHAPTER THREE
  7. CHAPTER FOUR
  8. CHAPTER FIVE
  9. CHAPTER SIX
  10. CHAPTER SEVEN
  11. CHAPTER EIGHT
  12. CHAPTER NINE
  13. CHAPTER TEN
  14. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  15. CHAPTER TWELVE
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  43. CHAPTER FORTY
  44. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  53. CHAPTER FIFTY
  54. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  55. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sexual healing? No, I was certain that wouldn’t do and guessed that she sensed that too. That in that half moment, we both caught glimpses of the insidious twists and turns in the erotic poisons and putrefaction waiting if we entered such swamps. Could we play at substitute daughter and pseudo-papa? A different bearing, simple and caring. No, that wouldn’t do either. Blood is blood, though that, too, is beyond reason. I appreciated the impulse. I nodded, as close to thanks as I could go. And a shrug—it is what it is. As death is what it is.

I felt I had to say something, some explanation of the distance that remained. That we—that I—retained. “Young men run on passion. Old men are filled with broken shards of memories. As if we’ve been looking at our lives in mirrors, all along, through all those years, lots of them forgotten, some lost, most of them broken, nothing really true or completely whole is left, just all those bits and pieces, sharp edges, and silver peeling off the backs. That’s all there is.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

FROM THE SKY

“They call it stormy Monday…”

AARON “T-BONE” WALKER

THE NEXT MORNING, I WANTED to be alone. I caught the first lift. I went off-piste. It may sound snobbish, but the truth is that skiing on the trails in the Alps, at least in the high stations, is a waste. They get crowded, chopped up, and scraped off. It’s all better off-piste.

Whomp, whomp, whomp…that chopper sound…Thicka, thicka, thicka…

Chopper coming in. I was just on my second run.

There’s a helipad in Lech. Actually, there are two. The Flexenpass Helipad is the general commercial one. A helipad doesn’t need to be much more than a reasonably flat area and that’s what this one was, paved, with a circle painted on it, like a target, which would be visible when it wasn’t covered by snow. That’s enough to get it listed in the international airport guide. Technically, it’s in Zürs, not Lech, but not by much.

Flexenpass is an actual pass, a way through the mountains, and, more recently, a road. It’s one of those twisty and narrow tracks, with whole sections tunneling beneath avalanche shields, that makes you glad you’ve obeyed Austrian traffic laws and carried tire chains with you.

Whomp, whomp, whomp…of course there were helicopters. There are always helicopters. They do search and rescue. I knew that. One had come to find me when I was deep in a crevasse, the sun going down, and I was likely to die. They come in when someone’s injuries are so severe they have to be coptered to a big hospital with the facilities and the skills for major surgeries.