Linger Awhile

31 Medical Examiner Harrison Burke

31 January 2004. When Wilbur had drunk nine or ten cups of black coffee and was more or less back to normal we looked at the lab report on Walter Dixon. Wilbur, who’s from Tennessee, said, ‘I don’t need this report to tell me that what we got here is a toad-sucker,’

‘A what?’ I said.

His answer was part of a poem:

How about them toad-suckers,

Ain’t they clods?

Sittin’ there suckin’

Them green toady-frogs.

‘Toad-suckers,’ I said. ‘Have you ever seen one before this?’

‘I dated one when I was in high school,’ he said: ‘Barbara-Ann Hopper. She hung out with a crowd of older boys and they used to kid her about her name. They said she ought to try tripping with one of her relatives. So she did and she liked the effect. She said that sucking those little warty ones made her horny.’

‘Did you ever try it, Wilbur?’ I asked him.

‘No, but I tried her shortly after she had one.’

‘And?’

‘I didn’t care for the taste but I’d rate her eleven out of ten for the rest of it.’

‘Bufotoxin,’ I read from the report. ‘Walter Dixon’s saliva shows traces of bufotoxin. Where would a toad-sucker find a toad in London? You can get frog’s legs in a French restaurant but as far as I know there’s no pub where you can step up to the bar and ask for a little warty guy. You know of any?’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Wilbur, ‘but that woman who snogged me sure as hell had a toad connection.’

‘A toad pusher?’ I said. ‘You never know — London seems to be full of surprises these days.’