Two men sit on a rock halfway up the slope of a desert mountain. Sundown: The air is still, caught in the pause between the heat of the day, the cool of the evening. Doves call in twilight, testing the tentative peace. Downslope from the men a rattlesnake slides from its dark den, scales hissing over stone; the yellow eyes glow with hungerβdeath in its glance. The unnamed narrator, a young bookkeeper at a seedy nightclub, is referring to the legs of Gloria Denton, a forty-something queenpin think kingpin in the underworld of casinos, racetracks, and similar venues.
In the book, the opening line is presented in italics and comprises the entire first paragraph. In the second, the narrator continued:. The legs were the legs of a twenty-year-old Vegas showgirl, a hundred feet long and with just enough curve and give and promise. Sure, there was no hiding the slightly worn hands or the beginning tugs of skin framing the bones in her face.
But the legs, they lasted, I tell you. They endured. Two decades her junior, my skinny matchsticks were no competition.
After a game, it takes a half-hour under the shower head to get all the hairspray out. To peel off all the sequins. To dig out that last bobby pin nestled deep in your hair. Touching every tender place. Watching the swirl at your feet, the glitter spinning.
Like a mermaid shedding her scales. Once a month I go shopping downtown, near the prefectural offices. My nickname trails after me like a shadow. The entire opening paragraph piques our curiosity, but especially the final sentence. The narrator then goes on to advance the story in an intriguing way:. I stand five feet eight inches tall, weigh two hundred and fifteen pounds, and have round shoulders and stumpy arms and legs.
