“Robert walked out of the 7-Eleven with an order of cheese pump nachos, a hot dog, and a couple of packets of those chocolate thingies with a half-life of seventy-five years”
In Big Letters on the Heel
“Because the lead attorney in that firm—Joe Shattuck, Esq.—spoke with a thick Mississippi accent, this always put urban sophisticates off their guard. Shattuck had made a lot of money that way . . . Not that they knew it at the time, but Shattuck had pulled all their shirts up over their heads and rolled all their socks down, creating a little black wool bead around the tops of their expensive Italian shoes. Shattuck, for his part, during a weekly lunch with his partners at a local catfish emporium, was fairly expressive in how he explained what had happened: ‘Those boys couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.’”
What They Call Good Television
“With that, Radavic swiveled his head and looked straight at Rourke with what he thought was a steely, gray-eyed gaze, like in those TV legal-office drama shows, at an especially tense moment when one of the handsome actors rivets another handsome actor with an unshakeable and hardened resolve and says, ‘Dammit, Trevor, this is our job!’”
Some Have Two
“‘Those there that do have brains—and of those there are more than a few—are running a game that would make a cardinal’s mistress envious’
Bradford raised one eyebrow slightly. Cardinals had mistresses?”
But Obvious When You Think About It
“A certain kind of life always goes back to high school, a fact often overlooked by otherwise insightful biographers. Grown-up life is just a continuation of high school, a fact overlooked by everyone else.”
Gearing Up for the Attempt
“Prosecutor Radavic leaned forward, squeaking his chair with authoritative mien. His long fingers were splayed, hands together, fingertip to fingertip, as though a spider were sideways on a mirror, doing push-ups in an agitated manner. His hair, just a tad longer than it really ought to have been, was slicked back on each side, giving the appearance of an attempted comb-over without actually going for it.”
At Least Three
“The customer was just frustrated with his deteriorating motor skills, but I think the way he smelled had something to do with that—he smelled like living downwind of three Kentucky bourbon plants.”
When Tattoos Talk
“This part of town had their crazy pastors too, but they mainly operated out of storefronts with names like Knee Deep in Glory Gospel Center. And some of their pastors had tattoos, but these were just tattoos that said, ‘I was in the Navy once, before I met Jesus,’ instead of the uptown ecclesiastical version that said, ‘I am desperate to accessorize my iPad.”
You Know, Like That
“‘And I know that if you have not yet done this this, it is not yet necessary.’ At this she bobbed her head perkily like a ponytailed girl in a biscuit commercial from 1957.”
Fine With Me
“And Bill used to play that role just fine. If Bill had been a local potentate centuries before, and his city was under siege, and he had been told by the randy and imperious besieger to ‘Surrender all your gold, and let us ravish all your women,’ Bill would have appeared above the city gates to say something along the lines of ‘Okay!’”