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been wary of Walvis since the first time they met. Since the first time he had seen Walvis, a face on the other side of a crowded room at some get-to-know-you party. He possessed what Sanchez called “jackals’ eyes,” always scanning the crowd, looking for a patsy, looking for a mark. Looking for somebody to try the patter on. Sanchez steered clear. But when, in the second winter, Sanchez’s mother had grown worse and could no longer afford the medicine, it was to Walvis that Sanchez went. He knew that Walvis would be able to produce 36 - October 2012
a solution. And he did. At a price that stayed put and with terms that were stuck to. Walvis had one other useful quality, and it was because of this that Sanchez had called him some two months previously. He knew far, far more about cancerous growths than Sanchez ever would. • Eight weeks before the death of the medicine man . . . “Hell-oo.” Walvis was chirpy, chirrupy from the beginning. “Why, Dr. Sanchez. What an honor.”