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.“Excuse me,” she said to a passing employee, a tired-looking woman with hair that was mahogany on the ends, and black at the roots.“Do you know where the other one of these is?”“That's where the shoes are,” she said, limply gesturing to the wall of shoes.“I know, but there was only one of these, and I wondered if you knew where I might find the other one.” Joss frowned.“You wouldn't put out just one shoe, would you?”“No, we don't do that.Unless it's like, a medical shoe or something.”Joss wondered what that meant but didn't have time today to ask.“So the other one should be there somewhere?”“It should.” She shrugged and pushed her purple hair back.“Unless someone stole it.”Joss considered asking if a one-legged woman with expensive tastes had been in recently, but the employee's eyes widened as she looked at something behind Joss.“Is that your kid?” she asked.“I think something's wrong.”“What?” Joss turned to see Bart, bug-eyed and deathly pale, clawing at his neck.“Oh, my God!” She ran to him.“Bart! What's wrong?”He didn't answer.He didn't make a sound.He just continued to panic and turn a frightening shade of blue.That's when Joss saw the Pez dispenser, less Tweety's head, lying on the floor.“Are you choking?” she gasped, and, without waiting for an answer, flipped him around and performed the Heimlich maneuver on him.Nothing happened.It didn't work.“Colin!” she shouted, pulling the other boy's attention away from bending the antenna out of shape.“Get my cell phone out of my purse.Call 911.”“Why?”“Godalmighty, Colin, just do it!” She clasped her hands tighter and thrust them against Bart's solar plexus again.Still nothing.Joss felt cold terror wash over her.Colin appeared to be moving in slow motion, and the employee who had pointed out that Bart was having trouble was still just standing there, watching.“Call a fucking ambulance!” Joss yelled at her, thrusting hard with panic and anger.This time Bart gave a low, almost inhuman cough, the plastic Tweety Bird head flew out of his mouth and banged against a cement pillar about twelve feet away.Bart coughed and gasped for air.“Are you okay now?” Joss knelt before him.“Can you breathe? Is anything still stuck in your throat?” She knew the coughing was a good sound.As long as he was coughing, he was getting air.Finally the coughing subsided somewhat, and the color gradually returned to Bart's cheeks.“Can you breathe?” Joss asked him again.He nodded, gasping and working his mouth like a fish.“Okay.” She pulled him into her arms.“It's okay.Stay calm.” Holding him against her rapidly beating heart probably wasn't doing much to calm him down.“I was scared,” he said, in a voice so small and vulnerable that her heart felt like it was breaking.“It's okay now.I need to make sure there's nothing still stuck in your throat, okay?” she said to him.“So stay right here.Take big, deep breaths.I'm going to just go get the toy, okay?”He nodded and she went to pick up the bottom of the Pez dispenser and looked for the top, stopping every two and a half seconds or so to look back at Bart and make sure he was still standing, breathing, and pink.She knew the direction the plastic piece had gone and that it had bounced against the pillar, so she searched around that area until finally she saw it lying on the floor behind a threadbare wingback chair that reeked of cigar smoke.Joss got down on all fours and reached under the chair for the Tweety Bird head, but she felt something else first, something hard and furry with dust.She pulled it out.The other Gucci pump.There was no time to examine it now, though, so she reached under again, trying to ignore the tumbleweeds of dust and finally felt the little hard plastic head.It was coated in dust, but she was able to fit it perfectly onto the other part.Good.There were no slivers of plastic working their way toward Bart's lungs or intestines.She slumped against the pillar for a minute, relieved but spent by the experience.“Excuse me, ma'am.”Joss looked to see the employee standing in front of her.“Yes?” She hoped the woman wasn't going to make a big deal about Joss being a hero or anything.In Felling, the news would cover this kind of thing, and the last thing in the world Joss wanted was to be the center of attention.She needn't have worried.The woman gestured at the plastic Tweety Bird she still had clutched in her hand.“You're going to have to pay for that, you know.”Chapter14The thing is,” Lorna said to Phil Carson, who was sitting at the bar during her shift at Jico, “I'm meeting my bills, but I don't feel like I've got anything left over to have fun with.”“Maybe you should come over to the bureau and speak with me during business hours—”“Oh, come on, Phil.” She had no patience for this nonsense.“You can see what I do.” She gestured around.“I'm pulling double and sometimes triple shifts here.And you're sitting right here.What have you got to lose by talking to me for a minute.”“It's not that—”“What are you drinking?” She eyed his glass.She had a gift for this.“RitaTini with a Cointreau floater?”He looked at his half-empty glass.“How did you know?”Actually, it was what all the guys with midlevel management jobs were drinking.“I pay attention, Phil,” she said.“I'm good at my job.And I'm working as hard as I can.So can you just give me a little advice without making me go all the way to your office?”“I guess I can.”“Great.” She looked to the bartender.“Boomer!” She pointed down at Phil.“Another one here.On me
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