My driver, Miles, has been in a sour mood lately. I've always had a fondness in my heart for the third sex, those boys who banter in the noon hour with the dames, but slip into the night with the lads. The feds will never admit it, certainly not that lout in lace Hoover, but the homosexuals really are some of the best operatives out there. They're incredibly detail-oriented, they can read behind the eyes of even the most poker-faced men, they can separate business from pleasure seamlessly and, let's face it, they know how to handle a gun. I've watched Miles talk to his Colt like it was a longtime lover, caressing it, oiling it, guarding it closely. While he's not discharged it more than a half dozen times in his life, he's not missed his target once.
Miles is my driver, but I should be lying if I didn't admit to more than that. He's my net, my bridge, my oxpecker. What that, you ask? Why, the oxpecker is also known as the tick bird and it is the loyal companion to the rhinoceros. The rhino has a symbiotic relationship with tick birds, like Watson to Holmes or Mrs. Claus to the Mister. In Swahili the tick bird is named "askari wa kifaru," meaning "the rhino's guard" and this nifty bird eats ticks it finds on the rhino and noisily warns of danger. The birds also eat blood from sores on the rhino's skin and in this way, they obstruct healing. But they are still tolerated, as I tolerate Miles even though he sometimes shares his opinions far too often, thus aggrivating my own deep-seated wounds. For shame, but what's a girl to do? Anyway, Miles is downcast because a boy in his heart has been out of communication for some time, now. He last saw him when were in Paris and the man in question was to take a short jaunt to Puerto Rico and contact him via telgram shortly thereafter. He's not heard word one, and so Miles is as pissy as a little girl whose jump rope has burst into flames in the middle of "Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish..." I should try and be more patient because the man has saved my skin on more than one occasion, but please. This is why love and death seldom mix (and when they do, the combination is positively murderous, my jelly beans).
I arrived in New York shortly after my last entry and received the box and, as I'd predicted, there was no hat enclosed. Rather, I found a tiny cosmetics box and an invitation to Dim Sum at Chef Ching's Cafetorium two days following. When I opened the case, I became smart to the shade of lipstick I would be sporting. What next? Why, the white fox stole, of course!
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