Detective Guy Mallory threw back his head and downed a small glass of Genny Cream Ale: he followed it immediately with a shot of whiskey. Then he leaned over the bar and nodded grimly. "Yes," he said to Detective Spurling, "I'd have to agree, Andy; that was just about the nastiest thing I've ever seen."
Spurling harrumphed. "You think what you had to deal with was nasty! Jesus Christ, that thing we found-"
"It's amazing Lucas could keep it out of the papers."
Spurling shrugged. "Why not. Just a wino; nobody cares about winos." He downed the rest of his beer. "Probably a half-dozen dead winos in there."
"I wouldn't be surprised," Mallory said. He grinned. "Well, at least you guys found something."
"Oh, gimme a break," Spurling growled. "What do you think I am-an amateur? I knew what I was doing in there, and like I told the captain-shit, there was nothing to find. Except that damned wino. And a thousand rats."
Mallory's grin froze on his face. "What are you getting so hot about?"
Spurling nervously sipped his glass of Michelob. He grimaced. "This stuff doesn't taste the same as it used to," he muttered. He glanced at Mallory. "Sorry. I guess I've been a little on edge lately."
"Yeah," Mallory said, "tell me about it."
Spurling shrugged. "I haven't been sleeping, you know? And I ain't had no appetite, either. Nerves, I guess." He took another sip of the Michelob, grimaced again. "Everything tastes like the stuff that wino was covered with smelled. Maybe that's why I ain't been eating." He pushed the glass away from him on the bar. "How's your partner doing? She on the mend?"
"She'll survive," Mallory answered, "she's tough-maybe even as tough as she thinks she is." He smiled, pleased by his observation. "That damned kid sucked her blood? Did you know that?"
Spurling nodded. "Yeah, I knew it. Jesus." He put his hand to his stomach.
Mallory said, "Hey, you okay?"
"Sure." Spurling closed his eyes tightly, in pain. "It's this damn beer, I think-I don't know." He took his hand from his stomach, sighed in relief. "It comes and goes, Guy," he explained. "Maybe I got an ulcer or something."
And Mallory said, "I think you've got wormy winos on the brain, Spurling."
~ * ~
The uniformed cop who shot Benny Bloom was a twenty-two-year veteran of the forcenamed Isaac Mathilde. The name, which suggested gentleness, sophistication, and learning, did not suit him on the job, when he climbed into his tough-as-nails, don't-mess-with-me character. But when he left work, and went home to his books, his flowers, and his cats, it fit him beautifully. He even looked the part: he was thin, dark-haired, dark-eyed, smooth-faced, graceful-looking. That side of him-his gentleness, sophistication, and learning-was in agony. He'd requested and had been granted a week's leave of absence because of that agony and now, at 10:30 P.M., five days after the shooting, he was sitting in his shade-darkened living room with a small glass of Grand Marnier in hand and Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun on the stereo. It suited his mood of guilt and self-doubt. It fed it.
In his twenty-two years on the force, he had never before even drawn his gun, let alone fired it. And now he had come damned close to killing some kid with the unlikely name of Benny Bloom, who, it turned out, was only trying to be a Good Samaritan.
And who in God's name had given him, Isaac Mathilde, the kind of power that had allowed him to step in and make a snap decision that had nearly ended Benny Bloom's life? Who had given him that power, who had authorized it, what moral right did he have? Who had let loose the foul creature who'd been strutting about for twenty-two years as if the world were answerable to his whim and his weapon?
And why, in the past three days, had he found that creature so terribly strong within him?
One of Isaac's cats came into the darkened room. The cat was a small and sleek Siamese whose favorite spot was on the wide mantel over the fireplace, five feet up from the floor. The cat eyed the mantel, settled back on its haunches, and leaped.
"Good Samson," Isaac said, as the cat lay down on the mantel and began cleaning itself with slow and graceful deliberation.
Isaac took another sip of the Grand Marnier, then poured some more from the bottle on the delicate cherry table near his chair. He'd never gotten drunk on Grand Marnier before and he wondered if it was even possible to get drunk on it.
But hell, what did it matter now?
On the mantel, Samson began to purr loudly. Isaac lifted his glass to him: "To all the sleek and sophisticated cowards in this world, Samson. To you and me!" And he downed the Grand Marnier in one swallow.
Then he lifted his .38 from the table near his chair, put the barrel into his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
~ * ~
At that very moment Lilian Janus was saying to her reflection in her bathroom mirror, "Well, you were never that beautiful anyway." Then she immediately turned away from the mirror and began to weep.
From the bedroom adjoining the bathroom her husband Frank called, "Lily? Are you all right?"
She nodded, face in her hands, left hand covering the bandages that swathed that side of her face. The doctors at Buffalo Memorial had made a heroic effort to sew the skin and the ear back, but had warned her that the probability was she'd lose the ear, and that since the skin over her cheek had suffered too much trauma, she'd probably have to have skin grafted from her thigh, instead.
Lilian Janus was a passive, unassuming, gentle person. At thirty-three, she was the mother of twin seven-year-old boys, and a ten-year-old girl. She belonged to the PTA, the Buffalo Arts and Crafter's Club, the Young Republican Women's Club, and she regularly submitted "Life in These United States" anecdotes to the Reader's Digest, hoping to make a quick $500. At least twice a month she wrote letters to the editors of various newspapers in the area. She wrote about zoning laws, leash laws, massage parlors, and Bingo games, which she described as "ill-disguised gambling schemes." She had a part-time job as a cosmetics salesperson at Sibley's Department Store.
Her husband appeared in the bathroom doorway. He was a muscular, hairy, handsome man with a cleft in his chin and a twinkle in his eye. He was dressed only in a towel, which he held at his waist. "C'mon, babe," he said, "it's not as bad as you think. So you lose an ear?" He was, of course, trying to be flippant, and therefore comforting. "You can still hear out of it; that's what the doctors said."
Lilian let her hands drop slowly. She blubbered, "Whether I ca-can hear out of it doesn't make any di-difference, Frank. It looks ugly!"
"So you cover it with your hair. You've got nice hair, Lily." He let his towel drop.
Her mouth fell open. "What are you doing?" she whispered.
He shrugged. "Hell, I thought we could make love. It is Thursday, you know."
"No, it isn't. It's Friday."
Again he shrugged. "So? Who says that just because it's Friday we can't make love? You want to know the truth, Lily?"
"The truth?" She put her hand to her stomach.
He nodded vigorously. "The truth. And the truth is, I like you … uh, like that."
"Like what?"
"Like that. In bandages."
"You like me …" She winced against the sudden pain in her belly.
"In bandages," Frank repeated. "I like you in bandages."
"I don't understand," Lily said. "I don't think I want to understand." She glanced at his penis. "Please, Frank, cover that up, would you?"
"You never asked me to cover it up before."
"Well, it was never so . . . so obvious before."
"That's because you were never so appealing before, Lily."
With her left hand she again covered her stomach, where the pain had redoubled. And with her right hand she reached out and slammed the bathroom door shut. She did it so quickly, and took Frank soby surprise, in fact, that the door slammed hard into his erection and he screamed in pain.
Seconds later, his voice trembling with anger, and with pain, he pounded on the door. "Open up now, Lily! You open up now, or this door's coming down. And that's not a threat! That's a promise!"
"Frank, please, she pleaded. "I don't feel well. Please go away. I'm sorry I hurt you." And even as she said the words, she realized that she'd been right all along, that what she'd suspected these past twelve years of her marriage to Frank Janus had been true. He was a lecherous, unseemly, brutish dolt, and she deserved far, far better.
~ * ~
For Ryerson Biergarten, the act of making love was an unpredictable experience, as it is for everyone. There were good times and bad times, and the bad times were always better than no lovemaking at all. And there were times when it looked like bad or just so-so lovemaking was going to happen and it turned out to be great, and there were times when what looked like great turned out just so-so. Such things could never be counted on.
What made the experience great for Ryerson was how much intermingling there was-not just the intermingling of bodies, pleasant as that could be, but the intermingling of souls and psyches, too. When for a precious few seconds, the lovers intermingled themselves, their lives, and sum totals. When they opened themselves up and swallowed each other.
He thought that that was what had happened with Joan Mott Evans, who lay beside him on her bed. She had been lying quietly beside him for a good ten minutes, while her breathing slowed and softened. They were naked on top of a blue quilt; a night-light burned at the other side of the room.
Ryerson, the first to speak, said, "That was beautiful, Joan."
She said nothing. He could sense a feeling of comfort and contentment from her. For another minute or so he stayed quiet, then he added, "You're beautiful."
She covered her hand with his. She whispered, "I think this is the start of something, Rye."
In the semi-darkness, he said, "I'm smiling."
"And?" she said.
"And what?"
"And anything else, Rye?"
He nodded. "Oh. Yes." He turned over on his side. She turned, faced him. He lovingly stroked her cheek, her neck, the slope of her breast.
At the other side of the closed bedroom door, Creosote began to whimper. Ryerson said to Joan, "He and I have grown very attached."
"Uh-huh," she said. "Well, let's you and me grow attached, okay."
"I'd like that very much," he whispered.
~ * ~
In Room 1512 of the Buffalo Memorial Hospital, Laurie Drake was still in the fetal position, still had her thumb in her mouthand her eyes open; nearby, a device had been set up to drip a mild salt solution into her eyes every few seconds, so they wouldn't dry out.
"We're getting some response," said Dr. Wayne Chandler to Guy Mallory.
"Oh?" Guy said, uncertain what the doctor was referring to and unwilling to let him know it.
Chandler nodded. "Her EKGs have altered since she was brought in, and now and then she appears to look around the room-moving her eyes only, of course."
"Of course," Mallory said.
"Her coma is deep," Chandler went on, "though not so deep that we see no hope for recovery. I do think she'll be with us a good long time. A month, perhaps. Maybe longer."
Mallory sighed. "Jesus, Doc-"
"Doctor," Chandler corrected him, then smiled an apology. "I'm sorry-I just have this aversion to 'Doc.' You understand, I'm sure."
Mallory said, "Yeah, I understand. I was going to say that I've seen a few like her. You know-people in comas, and I have to ask myself what the hell is going on in their heads. Where they are, you know. Because if they're not here, with us, where are they?"
Chandler nodded. "It's a question all of us ask, Detective. And I wish I could answer it."
But even Laurie Drake could not have answered that question, because language was beyond her, just as language is beyond any fetus. Which is what she was, essentially. A developing organism, something newly created, not yet whole-regardless of the physical evidence to the contrary. Inside her skull, her brain was struggling to renew itself, but in the process of conception, all that was Laurie Drake had been swept away, and a new Laurie Drake was emerging. Whether she would be as precocious as the old Laurie Drake, whether she would have a predilection for hot fudge sundaes, or would develop an early interest in the opposite sex, or be drawn to horror movies, all as the old Laurie Drake had been, was yet to be seen.
But that evening, while Ryerson Biergarten again made sweet and soul-consuming love to Joan Mott Evans, and Captain Jack Lucas lovingly cleaned his Colt .45, and Gail Newman slept a fitful sleep, and Detective Andy Spurling went on his shift-despite the awful pains in his stomach-and Lilian Janus kept herself locked in her bathroom, and Benny Bloom dreamed of Nurse Scotti, she-the new Laurie Drake-was destined to be one of the lucky ones.