The Recycled Citizen Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mrs. Bittersohn. This won’t take long.”
    It didn’t. He came back looking a little frightened.
    “Foot powder?” Max asked him.
    “No, as a matter of fact, it’s heroin. You’re not supposed to have that sort of thing in your possession, you know, Mr. Bittersohn. By rights I ought to turn it in to the police.”
    “I’ll turn it in myself,” Max promised him.
    “Er—soon?”
    “As soon as I possibly can.”
    “That’s good enough for me. Anything interesting in the art line these days?”
    The chemist, an elderly man with a face like an eagle’s, wanted to chat about art forgery techniques. Max didn’t. “We’ll see what we can dig up for you, Mr. Smithers. Thanks for the quick service.”
    “My pleasure. Glad to have met you, Mrs. Bittersohn.”
    Sarah, who was feeling rather sick from the laboratory odors and especially from what she’d just heard, said she was glad, too; and they left.
    “Heroin?” she said when she’d got enough fresh air to quiet her stomach. “Max, that’s terrible.”
    “It’s not good, baby. How do you feel?”
    “How do you expect? Come on, we’d better get over to the center and see what Mr. Loveday has to say.”
    “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
    “The doctor says I have to exercise.”
    “He didn’t say you had to get mixed up in a drug-related murder.”
    “He didn’t say not to. Darling, I can’t sit home and crochet booties all day. I can’t crochet anything, it just comes out one big tangle. Anyway, your sister Miriam’s handling that end of the business. She’s up to three sweater sets and a fancy afghan for the baby carriage already.”
    “Do we have a baby carriage?”
    “We have that adorable wicker stroller your mother used to wheel you in when you were a year old, and the pram Aunt Emma’s parents ordered from London before Young Bed was born. Of course the pram’s carried her own sons, their children, and a few grandbabies by now, but she assures me there’s still plenty of mileage in it. Aunt Appie wanted to give us Lionel’s, but those four hyenas of his had reduced it to shreds long ago. His wife threw the remains out with the trash that time she cast off the shackles of motherhood and went to live with Tigger. Whatever happened to Tigger, I wonder? She used to be one of Aunt Appie’s standard nuisances, but she hasn’t been around for ages.”
    Max shrugged. “Maybe she washed her face and died of the shock. Last time I saw her was in Rotterdam.”
    “Max, you beast! You never told me.”
    “Did you really want to know? As a matter of fact, I’d forgotten all about it till you mentioned her just now.”
    “What was Tigger doing in Rotterdam?”
    “I didn’t stop to ask.”
    “Did she see you?”
    “I made damn sure she didn’t.”
    Sarah supposed one couldn’t blame him. She herself had never been sure whether Tigger was one of her Cousin Lionel’s old girlfriends or just a leftover from one of her aunt’s neighborhood Halloween parties. Tigger had merely shown up at various gatherings, glaring out from under a mat of uncombed black hair, snarling like a cornered coyote if anybody tried to engage her in conversation. They’d last seen Tigger at a funeral up on the North Shore. Tigger had been wearing a hairy brown poncho and filthy corduroy pants tucked into muddy hiking boots. Sarah decided not to think about Tigger any more, for the baby’s sake.
    “Darling, what did you think of that performance Theonia put on for you last night?”
    “I thought it damned peculiar, since you ask,” Max replied. “Theonia’s not in the habit of hurling good china around, is she?”
    “Heavens, no. Theonia takes far better care of things than I ever did.”
    “You don’t suppose I offended her by asking her to read the tea leaves? I only meant it as a joke.”
    “She knew that. Theonia isn’t stupid. But she was brought up as a Gypsy, after all. If you really want to know, I think she was doing what she’d been taught