Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned by Kinky Friedman Page A

accused of plagiarism.
    "'Trite'?" I shouted. "Trite? What's trite about—"
    And then the second, and far more obvious factor dawned upon my marinated brain cells. How could Clyde have known what I'd scribbled in my little notebook? She hadn't seen a word of it. Did she know me so well? Was I that much of an open book? Had she truly read my mind?
    Suddenly, I felt a little dizzy and the room seemed a bit warm. What kind of girl was this? I wondered. What kind of person can actually read your mind, tell you what you jotted down to yourself on a little pad thirty minutes ago, and then go on eating her vegetarian minestrone soup as if nothing had happened? And now she was smiling.
    "Don't be alarmed," she said. "It was just an educated guess."
    "Bullshit. You couldn't have seen what I'd written. What is this? A magic act?"
    "I suppose you could say that what you've written didn't go down too well."
    I felt as if somebody had hit me with a hammer, but it didn't feel bad; it just felt strange. I retrieved my little novelist's notebook from the inside pocket of my coat. What was the point of keeping my notes to myself? I thought. I might as well wear them on my body like a sandwich board. For a few stunned moments, I carefully perused the words I had recently written.
    "It says here 'go down very well,'" I said weakly. "Not 'go down too well.'"
    "Nobody's perfect," she said.
    "So just like that you read my mind? I can't believe it. It's got to be some kind of trick. But how in God's name did you learn to do it?"
    "Nobody learns to do it," said Clyde. "It's just like telling fortunes. It's something I've been doing since I was very young. In fact, I was working in a carnival. That's how I first met Fox. Then the carnival left town."
    "Where did this happen?"
    Clyde took a cigarette out of my pack on the table. I lit it for her. She took a puff and seemed to just watch the smoke for a moment.
    "I think," she said, "it was either in Chinatown or Little Italy."
    The waiter came over and we ordered two double espressos, two cannolis, and some of those strawberries you can get in Little Italy that are covered with chocolate. There wasn't much conversation and that was good. I had some serious thinking to do, and since I couldn't know for sure if Clyde knew what I was thinking, I had to be very careful. It was strange, to say the least. But, I must admit, it was not entirely unpleasant. Indeed, there was a rather bizarre sense of excitement about it. It was a new sensation for me. Sharing my innermost thoughts with a friend. Or maybe it wasn't really happening at all. Maybe it was all in my mind.
    Suddenly, Clyde clapped her hands together twice, like the CEO of some grand global corporation indicating that the meeting was adjourned. Whatever stray remnants of thoughts I'd had in my mind, I noticed, had also taken their little briefcases and left the conference room.
    "Okay, team," she said. "Here's what we're going to do. You're going down to the courthouse and help facilitate Fox's timely release from the calaboose. I really don't want him to stay in there too long this time. It's starting to have a deleterious effect upon his personality. I'd say bailing him out would be the easiest."
    "What if I can't afford his bail?"
    "Spring him. Like we did Teddy. I trust your judgment, Walter. You have a really well-grounded sense of judgment. You'll know what to do."
    "And will you help me?"
    "That's impossible. For one thing, I have a rather severe allergy to cops. For another, I've got to get to work wreaking revenge upon the person who got Teddy locked up in the nuthouse."
    "And whom would that person be?" I asked somewhat cautiously.
    "Donald Trump," she said.
    There are many weird and arcane strains of logic in this vast and troubled land. But from none of these that made any sense, or so it seemed to me, did Clyde's comments appear to come. Possibly, I thought, I was just too rational, too pragmatic, too Walter, to see the light of her