By that time, active aggression had ceased between Big Bill and Willow. They stayed for the most part in neutral corners. But it wasn’t exactly an armistice—more like Willow retreated, just walked off the battlefield and put it all behind her. With Lulu out of the house, there was nothing left to fight for. Willow delivered no speeches, flew no white flag. She just turned her back and started walking, over craters and around cadavers, toward the wooded fringes. The Pico house was growing conspicuously quiet. Even Lulu’s signature was beginning to fade. Ross was running all over the basin with that little ferret Regan, peddling half grams at a twenty-percent markup. Big Bill and Doug were at the gym most evenings. This left Willow and me alone, though our paths rarely crossed as we stole from station to station, me with my notebooks and my dark little heart, she like a soldier getting over the war. Family dinners were a rarity those days.
