"Thud!"
The Chasean man's body was tossed into the rectangular recess inside the hearse. Alfred got out, closed the rear doors, then took a wad of money from his pocket and offered it to the Chasean woman who had just helped cover for him and move the body.
The woman still held the iron box she had finally managed to pry open. There were fewer Lu Coins inside it than in the wad Alfred was holding.
But the woman pushed Alfred's hand away,
saying,
"This was what I ought to do."
As she spoke,
she leaned back against the car door and turned her head to ask,
"Do you have a cigarette?"
"Yes."
Alfred did not actually smoke, but the sight of the great being leading him and Miss Molly in smoking and laughing when he first met Kallen had truly shaken him;
so afterward, he always kept cigarettes on him, ready to offer one whenever the young master wanted something to occupy his mouth.
If his image in a future mural depicted him offering the great being a cigarette, he would be very satisfied. Believers viewing the mural would surely think he was very close to the great being.
The woman lit her cigarette, took a drag, and said,
"I made a wish to God, and God answered my prayer."
Alfred smiled and said,
"Perhaps it wasn't God who heard you."
The woman shrugged and said,
"Whoever heard me, to me, they're as good as a god, aren't they?"
"You have a point. But do you really not want this money? Your husband did just die, after all."
"You don't understand Chaseans."
Leaving him with those words, the woman walked away carrying the iron box and said,
"It's not that we like poverty, but we truly do love wandering."