The Height of Summer

Vinny came around back and squeezed through the doorframe. He chewed on a piece of white bread, saliva collecting at the corner of his mouth. The whole shack swelled to contain Vinny and Sawyer and the little deck chair and the spirals.
“What a fat fuck,” thought Sawyer, and he dropped his pen. “Yeah, sure, I’ll check it out in a sec, okay?”
He paused. “Whaddya have there?”
“White bread.”
“Nothin’ on it?”
“Nah man. Nothin’ on it.”
Vinny smiled, bearing a set of five teeth caked with wet, starchy particles. His mouth looked like a culture, a Petri dish, something that moved and multiplied at an infinitesimally viscous rate.
Sawyer felt pretty bad for Vinny, but not bad enough to warrant any tangible sympathy. A smile and nod would do, but he wouldn’t go near a pat on the back. The thought made him anxious. Imagining slow things crawling up through Vinny’s work shirt, viral things that made him sweaty and dirty or maybe just dumb, Sawyer shook his head a bit and said he’d be up at the shop in a jiff. Vinny could sit here and watch the trucks.

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I'm back in Bethlehem; the temperature is 79 degrees. I have a handful of new contacts that I plan to find in this town. While looking over negatives, Jack gave me the name of the guy who "knows where all the bodies are buried," and his name is Dr. Ralph Schwarz, a Moravian historian and archivist. Also, there's the Morning Call's economist, a one Mr. Afshar, and then a handful of people Barbara has mentioned.

I think I am going to wake up early tomorrow and saunter down to City Hall. I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with Bethlehem politicians and their apparently lack of accountability. It's harder to ignore a human being in the flesh. As to what I'm actually going to say or try to accomplish when I get there... I suppose I'll figure that out on the walk down New Street.