Opening Lines

With 20/20 hindsight - and isn't hindsight always 20/20? - Kyle should have known inviting the cobra to the picnic would end badly.

The road wound down from the top of the Rockies like a cracked gray ribbon of ash, leading Willa from her old life as a mountaintop stripper to her new calling as a Bible saleswoman.

Most people didn't believe that Little Dave could hear the Night People's celebration, but then again most people weren't deposed banana republic dictators like Senor Maldonado.

With a snap of his fingers the Russian mob boss tried, convicted and executed Arthur Marx. Arthur had tried in vain to convince the man his last name was just a coincidence.

The lobster bisque was exquisite, the salata alexandra sheer delight, and the lemon sobet a palate-cleansing epiphany. But the real treat came when the chef served Cecile's perfectly-roasted husband as the main course, with a port-pomegranate demiglace and roasted herbed new potatoes.

It wasn't the injustice of his unfortunate demise the very first time he tried autoerotic asphyxiation that made Mike's ghost angry, it was the indignity of his body dangling naked from the fire escape.