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As he got closer to Kurt's storefront, he slowed down. The crowds were
thick, laughing suburban kids and old men in buttoned-up cardigans and
fisherman's caps and subcultural tropical fish of all kinds: Goths and
punks and six kinds of ravers and hippies and so forth.
He spied Link sitting on the steps leading up to one of the above-shop
apartments, passing a cigarette to a little girl who sat between his
knees. Link didn't see him, he was laughing at something the boy behind
him said. Alan looked closer. It was Krishna, except he'd shaved his
head and was wearing a hoodie with glittering piping run along the
double seams, a kind of future-sarcastic raver jumper that looked like
it had been abandoned on the set of *Space: 1999*.
Krishna had his own little girl between *his* knees, with heart-shaped
lips and thick matte concealer over her zits. His hand lay casually on
her shoulder, and she brushed her cheek against it.
Alan felt the air whuff out of him as though he'd been punched in the
stomach, and he leaned up against the side of a fruit market, flattening
himself there. He turned his head from side to side, expecting to see
Mimi, and wanting to rush out and shield her from the sight, but she was
nowhere to be seen, and anyway, what business was it of his?
And then he spied Natalie, standing at the other end of the street,
holding on to the handles of one of the show bicycles out front of Bikes
on Wheels.
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