He threw the gloves back onto the bed.
"You're not above the law," said Harry.
"Oh please," the Cankerist protested. "let's have no nonsense. It's too late at night."
Harry felt a sharp pain at the base of his skull, and a trace of heat where blood was running.
"Patrice thinks you should go home, D'Amour. And so do I."
The knife point was pressed a little deeper.
"Yes?" said Marchetti.
"Yes," said Harry.
"He was here," said Norma, when Harry called back at the house.
"Who?"
"Eddie Axel; of Axel's Superette. He came through, clear as daylight."
"Dead?"
"Of course dead. He killed himself in his cell. Asked me if I'd seen his soul."
"And what did you say?"
"I'm a telephonist, Harry; I just make the connections. I don't pretend to understand the metaphysics." She picked up the bottle of brandy Harry had set on the table beside her chair. "How sweet of you," she said. "Sit down. Drink."
"Another time, Norma. When I'm not so tired." He went to the door. "By the way, " he said. "You were right. There was something on Ridge Street..."
"Where is it now?"
"Gone...home."
"And Cha'Chat?"
"Still out there somewhere. In a foul temper..."
"Manhattan's seen worse, Harry."
It was little consolation, but Harry muttered his agreement as he closed the door.
The snow was coming on more heavily all the time.
He stood on the step and watched the way the flakes spiraled in the lamplight. No two, he had read somewhere, were ever alike. When such variety was available to the humble snowflake, could he be surprised that events had such unpredictable faces?
Each moment was its own master, he mused, as he put his head between the blizzard's teeth, and he would have to take whatever comfort he could find in the knowledge that between this chilly hour and dawn there were innumerable such moments-blind maybe, and wild and hungry-but all at least eager to be born.
"Harry is an interesting combination. He springs out of the film noir detective tradition, but he also has his feet and hands deep in horror territory. Like me, he feels the tension between the ordinary world and the supernatural world."-Clive Barker