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espect. It was one of many things Rose liked about him. She had no doubt that the True could carry
on under his leadership if she died. For awhile, at least. But for another hundred years? Perhaps not.
Probably not. He had a silver tongue and cleaned up well when he had to deal with the rubes, but Crow
had only rudimentary planning skills, and no real vision.
This morning he looked troubled.
Rose was sitting on the sofa in capri pants and a plain white bra, smoking a cigarette and watching
the third hour of Today on her big wall-mounted TV. That was the “soft” hour, when they featured
celebrity chefs and actors doing PR for their new movies. Her tophat was cocked back on her head.
Crow Daddy had known her for more years than the rubes lived, and he still didn’t know what magic
held it at that gravity-defying angle.
She picked up the remote and muted the sound. “Why, it’s Henry Rothman, as I live and breathe.
Looking remarkably tasty, too, although I doubt you came to be tasted. Not at quarter of ten in the
morning, and not with that look on your face. Who died?”
She meant it as a joke, but the wincing frown that tightened his forehead told her it wasn’t one.
She turned the TV off and made a business of butting her cigarette, not wanting him to see the
dismay she felt. Once the True had been over two hundred strong. As of yesterday, they numbered
forty-one. If she was right about the meaning of that wince, they were one less today.
“Tommy the Truck,” he said. “Went in his sleep. Cycled once, and then boom. Didn’t suffer at all.
Which is fucking rare, as you know.”
“Did Nut see him?” While he was still there to be seen, she thought but did not add. Walnut, whose
rube driver’s license and various rube credit cards identified him as Peter Wallis of Little Rock,
Arkansas, was the True’s sawbones.
“No, it was too quick. Heavy Mary was with him. Tommy woke her up, thrashing. She thought it
was a bad dream and gave him an elbow . . . only by then there was nothing left to poke but his
pajamas. It was probably a heart attack. Tommy had a bad cold. Nut thinks that might have been a
contributing factor. And you know the sonofabitch always smoked like a chimney.”
“We don’t get heart attacks.” Then, reluctantly: “Of course, we usually don’t get colds, either. He
was really wheezing the last few days, wasn’t he? Poor old TT.”
“Yeah, poor old TT. Nut says it’d be impossible to tell anything for sure without an autopsy.”
Which couldn’t happen. By now there would be no body left to cut up.
“How’s Mary taking it?”
“How do you think? She’s broken-fucking-hearted. They go back to when Tommy the Truck was
Tommy the Wagon. Almost ninety years. She was the one who took care of him after he Turned. Gave
him his first steam when he woke up the next day. Now she says she wants to kill herself.”
Rose was rarely shocked, but this did the job. No one in the True had ever killed themselves. Life
was—to coin a phrase—their only reason for living.
“Probably just talk,” Crow Daddy said. “Only . . .”
“Only what?”
“You’re right about us not usually getting colds, but there have been quite a few just lately. Mostly
just sniffles that come and go. Nut says it may be malnutrition. Of course he’s just guessing.”
Rose sat in thought, tapping her fingers against her bare midriff and staring at the blank rectangle
of the TV. At last she said, “Okay, I agree that nourishment’s been a bit thin lately, but we took steam
in Delaware just a month ago, and Tommy was fine then. Plumped right up.”
“Yeah, but Rosie—the kid from Delaware wasn’t much. More hunchhead than steamhead.”
She’d never thought of it just that way, but it was true. Also, he’d been nineteen, according to his
driver’s license. Well past whatever stunted prime he might have had around puberty. In another ten
years he’d have been just another rube. Maybe even five. He hadn’t been much of a meal, point taken.