Free Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned by Kinky Friedman Page B

had clearly become unbullshittable.
    I was well aware that somewhere in that lobby might well be the guy in scrubs who'd seen me in the hallway after I'd planted the smoke bomb. If he spotted me now it would be an easy matter for him to use his powers of deduction and to implicate me as well in the whole mess. But the knowledge that I was at risk was somehow overtaken by my desire to find Clyde and get her safely away from there. It didn't take long for me to spot her forlorn figure leaning against the inside of the glass doors, arms crossed resignedly in front of her, observing the spectacle.
    I ran up the steps two at a time and rapped on the glass near her head. She did not respond. She stood like a frozen, tragic statue watching the noose tighten around Fox's neck. Finally, I yanked the door open and she practically fell into my arms. Without a word, like a small child, I escorted her down the steps, where moments later, from a safer vantage point, we watched the cops take Fox away with his hands handcuffed behind his back. He was still wearing the stethoscope, I noticed. It was the kind of detail that a good, observant author would be unlikely to miss.
    Now Clyde and I were in a cab together heading downtown in the vague direction of Chinatown and Little Italy. I tried not to stare at her as our taxi hurtled down Broadway, toward Canal Street. Neither of us had yet to speak a word to the other, but that's how it always was with Clyde and me and, to a somewhat lesser degree, with me and Fox. There was an inherent understanding between us that never had to be articulated, that although we were cut from a very different cloth, the very fact of our being together said it all. Some of the most intimate, soul-to-soul communication of my life occurred with Clyde and it always seemed to be at moments when not a word was spoken. That being as it may, I now felt I had to break the silence.
    "There was nothing we could do," I said. "I had to get you out of there."
    Clyde did not respond. She'd stopped crying but now she seemed to be gazing wistfully out the window at something apparently only she could see. "Windows," Fox had said.
    "Where do you want to go?" I asked. "Down to the police station?"
    Clyde looked at me quizzically. There were no signs of tears in her eyes.
    "No point going to the cop shop now," she said. "Fox has been there before and he knows what to do. He's been taken away in bracelets many times. Been in and out many times. In and out of places. And people."
    "Are you one of them?" I asked. Clyde ignored my question.
    "We have only one decision to make," she said.
    "What's the decision?"
    "Where are we going for lunch?"
    If the truth be told, I was beginning to feel in pretty good spirits and I knew the reason: the prospect of being alone with
    Clyde without having Fox Harris anywhere in the vicinity. There was a twinge of nagging guilt, however. Fox was definitely a person of the moment, and not unlike Teddy or the Masai warriors, any amount of incarceration he incurred would, no doubt, be exceedingly difficult for him. I put these thoughts out of my mind, nonetheless, and decided I'd concentrate on Clyde. If she could deal so stoically with Fox's current predicament, so could I.
    We got out of the cab on Canal Street, right where Little Italy meets Chinatown, if the two disparate cultures could ever be said to truly meet. I don't know how cultures or even people ever meet in this busy world. Everyone seems so into his or her self, and the human soul, of course, will remain eternally unknowable. Singles bars are just not going to get it done. Sometimes, though, you meet a rather odd, charming person in, of all places, a bank, and you find yourself walking down Canal Street with her, holding her hand.
    "Okay," I said. "Now we come to the decision that all New Yorkers must sooner or later come to grips with. Will it be beef chow fun or linguini with clams?"
    "Neither," said Clyde. "I'm a vegetarian."
    "Another