“She is English,” observed the Sheriff.

“He,” Ivan said, pointing an accusing finger at the Sheriff, “torments her. He told her there’d been a landslide in Iceland—her son is stationed there, in the army—and that the entire population had been wiped out. Sadist!” He roared with laughter, his tic accelerating so it seemed about to consume his eye. Abruptly, the wild shouts ceased. Ivan glared at the Sheriff. “She was so drunk today, she couldn’t have taken a phone message. God! What if someone had called me? You may well be responsible for my having lost a stupendous assignment, you bastard!” He turned his attention to Annie. “This is a house of freaks,” he said. “There’s a giant who lives in the next room. He has a seven-foot-long bed. Once a week, he brings home several Filipinos, and the ensuing racket drives me mad!”

“Don’t discuss that,” said the Sheriff angrily. He kicked away the empty beet can and lay down on a narrow cot. “It’s very nasty.”

“And this maniac lying there works in the Owl drugstore and steals them blind once a week and leaves this trash around for me to take care of. He doesn’t even fence it. How the hell could you fence Ex-Lax? Why don’t you steal something useful, you insane creature!”

The Sheriff closed his eyes.

“Now we will listen,” Ivan said quietly. He wound up the phonograph but no sooner had the music begun than he pulled up the arm, staring at it with an expression of hopeless rage. “Why don’t you swipe some new needles for me, you fool!” he shouted in the Sheriffs direction. “It’s the only pleasure of my life! Look at that novel!” He waved at the pages of manuscript piled up around the corners of the room. “It’s over two thousand pages long—for sheer length, I should be given an award. By now, the first pages have already turned yellow. I might as well be dead and buried. Annie, are you in pictures?”

“No.”

“That’s a good girl. I’ll tell you a story. You tell her, Sheriff, about Cusimano.”

“Why is he called Sheriff?” Annie whispered to Jake. “I never found out,” he whispered back.

The Sheriff began to speak tonelessly, his eyes closed.