Tick Tock

said, “I'll wander aimlessly in the wilderness of my ignorance.”
    “Sarcasm doesn't become you.”
    “Are you about finished here? I'm freezing.”
    Del stepped back from the open passenger-side door, the roll of plumbing tape in one hand and the razor blade in the other, surveying her work. “It'll keep the rain out well enough, I guess, but it's not exactly the latest thing in aesthetically pleasing motor-vehicle accessories.”
    In the poor light, Tommy couldn't clearly see the elaborate Art Deco, jukebox-inspired mural on the van, but he could discern that a substantial portion of it had been scraped off the passenger side. “I'm really sorry about the paint job. It was spectacular. Must have cost a bundle.”
    “Just a little paint and a lot of time. Don't worry about it. I was thinking of redoing it anyway.”
    She had surprised him again. “You painted it yourself?”
    “I'm an artist,” she said.
    “I thought you were a waitress.”
    “Being a waitress is what I do. An artist is what I am.”
    “I see.”
    “Do you?” she said, turning away from the door.
    “You said it yourself earlier—I'm a sensitive guy.”
    On the freeway overhead, the airbrakes of a big truck screeched like the fierce cry of a scaly behemoth raging through a Jurassic swamp.
    Tommy was reminded of the demon. He glanced nervously at one end of the short concrete tunnel, then at the other end, but he saw no monster, large or small, approaching through the rain.
    At the back of the van, Del handed one of the two twelve-ounce bottles of orange juice to Tommy and opened the other for herself.
    His teeth were chattering. Rather than a swig of cold orange juice, he needed a mug of steaming coffee.
    “We don't have coffee,” she said, startling him, as though she had read his mind.
    “Well, I don't want juice,” he said.
    “Yes, you do.” From the two vitamin bottles, she counted out ten one-gram tablets of C and four gelatine capsules of B, took half for herself, and handed the rest to him. “After all that fear and stress, our bodies are totally flooded with dangerous free-radicals. Incomplete oxygen molecules, tens of thousands of them, ricocheting through our bodies, damaging every cell they encounter. You need antioxidants, Vitamins C and B as a minimum, to bind with the free radicals and disarm them.”
    Though Tommy wasn't much concerned about maintaining a healthy diet or vitamin therapy, he remembered having read about free-radical molecules and antioxidants, and there seemed to be medical validity to the theory, so he washed down the pills with the orange juice.
    Besides, he was cold and weary, and he could save a lot of energy by cooperating with Del. She was indefatigable, after all, while he was merely fatigued.
    “You want the tofu now?”
    “Not now.”
    “Maybe later with some chopped pineapple, maraschino cherries, a few walnuts,” she suggested.
    “That sounds nice.”
    “Or just a slight sprinkle of shredded coconut.”
    “Whatever.”
    Del picked up the red-flannel Santa hat with the white trim and white pompon, which she had found in the display of Christmas items at the supermarket.
    “What's that for?” Tommy asked.
    “It's a hat.”
    “But what are you going to use it for?” he asked, since she'd had such specific uses for everything else they had picked up at the market.
    “Use it for? To cover my head,” she said, as if he were daft. “What do you use hats for?”
    She put it on. The weight of the pompon made the peak of the cap droop to one side.
    “You look ridiculous.”
    “I think it's cute. Makes me feel good. Puts me in a holiday mood.” She closed the back door of the van.
    “Do you see a therapist regularly?” he asked.
    “I dated a dentist once, but never a therapist.” Behind the wheel of the van again, she started the engine and switched on the heater.
    Tommy held his trembling hands in front of the dashboard vents, relishing the gush of hot air. With the broken window covered, he might be able to dry out and get warm.
    “Well, Detective Phan, do you want to start this investigation by trying to find it?”
    “Find what?”
    “Your butt.”
    “Just before I totalled the Corvette, I'd decided to go see my brother Gi. Could you drop me off there?”
    “Drop you off?” she said disbelieving.
    “It's the last thing I'll ask you for.”
    “Drop you off—and then what? Just go home and sit and wait for the doll snake rat-quick little monster thing to come tear out my liver and eat it for dessert?”
    Tommy said, “I've been