Chapter Twelve
So’d ya bring it?” Little Max says, making a halfhearted, unambitious grab for Lenore’s breast. She swats his hand away, tired, but tied into the ritual that Max loves.
“I brought it,” Lenore says.
They’re sitting in the Barracuda in the parking lot of the old Quinsigamond airport. The airport is deserted and abandoned, a mini ghost town of aviation. Weeds have grown up in the middle of both runways. Windows are smashed in and doors missing from the old wooden, Colonial-style terminal.
There’s a new, modern airport a few towns outside of the city. Lenore hates the new airport, though she’s never been there. She made a small vow to herself never to fly out of that “abomination in the name of progress.” The old airport sits on the very top of one of the city’s seven hills, and though this made it ridiculously susceptible to dense fog, it also gave it a strong quaintness and a view that extends for miles and, on some autumn days, all the way to Boston.
Woo has relinquished the front seat to Max and sits silent in the back, his hands folded and resting in his lap like a monk at prayer.
“So c’mon, c’mon,” Max says, “let’s see.”
Lenore reaches under her seat and pulls out an oversized black leather portfolio. She unzips the top, reaches in, and pulls halfway out what looks like a stiff piece of drawing paper or posterboard. It’s filled with colorful cartoons framed in square panels with inked-in dialogue balloons. Woo leans forward to take a look. Max mumbles, “Jesus,” with a real and humble reverence.
“What strips?” he asks quietly, his voice suddenly sounding much younger, even prepubescent.
Lenore suppresses a need to grin, a feeling of triumph. She acts bored and says slowly, as if attempting to remember bothersome facts, “Two Ripped-Up Man and a Prince Natema, I think.”
“Oh, Christ,” Max says, and he sinks back into his seat, then snaps forward and says, “Lemme see,” and tries to grab the drawings.
Lenore stuffs them back into the valet and holds it at her side.
“You’re forgetting your manners, Maxie.”
Max breathes out a lungful of air and his head bobs fast and loose.
“How’d you get ’em?” he asks. He can’t help himself.
“C’mon, you dink,” Lenore says to him. “You know better than that. I ask the questions. That’s how it works. My game from here on in.”
Max starts to drum on his legs with the palms of his hands and Lenore says, “Look, Max, I own these now, okay? You want, you can get out of the car, and I can go home and burn them in my fireplace. They’re mine. I possess them. I can do what I want. So don’t waste my time and don’t piss me off. You want some original Menlos, great. Tremendous. Start talking to Lenore.”
“Just one thing,” Max says. “I really need this, okay? Do you know Menlo?”