The Crash of Hennington by Patrick Ness Page A

have learned. Archie’s mother was the reason he loved women so much and also the reason for the manner in which he loved them. Not in the big-rack-hot-ass sort of way that his friends so perplexingly did. Archie just found them easier to talk to, easier to share a meal with, easier to take advice from. It was clear to everyone that Archie had found a wondrous and powerful match in Belladonna, a brilliant, passionate, dark-eyed lawyer who was the only daughter in a family of eight sons.
    Belladonna’s misfortune was to thumb her nose at fate one too many times. One day, when Poison and her daughtersPain, Solitude, Corrupted Innocence and Bad Marriage were sunbathing on the fourth-story roof of Archie’s northeast Hennington estate, an earthquake opened up the ground and reduced the building and the five women to rubble. Archie had been inspecting a vineyard on a horse which hadn’t even thrown him during the tumult. Thomas turned up later full of unsatisfactory explanations.
    Archie’s grief, a deep and powerful thing even if he hadn’t been by then the richest man in Hennington, was finally only mollified by an endocrinologist called Maureen Whipple, a name Archie thought inoffensive enough not to anger the gods. Copper haired with copper-rimmed eyeglasses, Maureen was an amateur lepidopterist and singularly devoid of risky imagination. But she liked Archie quite a bit, and he liked her quite a bit right back. Eleven days after their fourth wedding anniversary, she was killed when a derailing train hurtled through her windshield.
    Archie’s third wife, Anna Grabowski, about whom the less said the better, barely made it down the aisle before perishing in a trapeze mishap.
    His fourth wife was a devil-may-care whirlwind named May Ramshead. Eight years older than Archie, she was a zoologist with a wild streak. She rappelled off of cliffs, swam with sharks, and had spent time as a rodeo clown. Two and a half years of blissful marriage later, May died peacefully in her sleep when her heart failed.
    Archie finally took the hint and settled, at age sixty, for a single life with female friends. That was when he met and hired Cora Larsson. Contrary to the whisperings of those few existing enemies of Cora, Archie wasn’t responsible for Cora’s success. True, Archie had sent Cora poking into some fishy business dealings of then-Mayor Jacob Johnson, but it was Cora who had followed the now-infamous trail to themysterious death of Johnson’s father and the millions stashed away in accounts under the name of Johnson’s mistress, a story so familiar it needs no rehashing here.
    It was, however, Archie’s suggestion, with a helping hand from Albert, that Cora run for Mayor some twenty years ago. Archie was thirty years Cora’s senior, but he was, if the truth be known, in love with her and always had been. Thank goodness she was already married to Albert and also that Archie realized marriage to him meant certain death. He merely had to be her friend. He gave her money and advice when she ran for Mayor and threw the inaugural ball when she won. She was also the reason Banyon Enterprises hadn’t cheated the city in over two decades. Archie respected her too much to ever want to face the disappointment of her certain litigation. He loved her, and that was that, more than enough reason to support her.
    —What’s with this traffic?
    —It seems to be clearing up, sir.
    —Thank God for that.
    —Yes, sir. Thank God, indeed.

17. ‘The Tale of Rufus and Rhonda'.
    —How’s your head, baby?
    —I want to cut it off.
    —But then you wouldn’t have one at all.
    —I don’t care.
    —Medicine’s not helping?
    —I guess. It makes me tired.
    —Try to sleep, then.
    —I can’t keep my mind clear. It races and races and it’s all just thing after thing after thing.
    —That’s the fever, darling. It can’t be helped.
    —I’m so tired.
    —Do you want me to tell you a story?
    —Don’t you think I’m a little old for