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HUNGRY AND CARELESS, I&039;d opened the vein more than necessary and the blood slipped pastI shifted ht hand above the wound and applied pressure, which slowed the flow, and continued withoff more than usual because I&039;d been on short rations the last few nights I drank my fill and more, the excess partly due to curiosity; I wanted to know if I&039;d swell up like a leech or if I could get aith fewer feedings per week
The cow didn&039;t mind, she could afford to spare a quart or more-there&039;d just be that htered her for someone else&039;s dinner
I dreay, a handkerchief ihtened the pressure on the leg It worked, and the bleeding eventually stopped My hand looked the sa it would take for the red to fade from my eyes The usual time was only a few minutes, but there was no way to tell These days I preferred to avoid useless mirrors and their many complications
To spare et out and flowed past the wood corrals and their co state, but I knew the route well and was soon back on the open street again, doing my best imitation of a normal man out for a walk My car was parked less than a block away, but I always varied my route into and out of the Stockyards Few people believed in vampires these days, but it never hurt to be careful
The first aid to the cow had stainedpast Escott&039;s office with a hts were on, which surprised me, for only yesterday he&039;d mentioned a dearth of business I didn&039;t feel like his co, but silently wished hi tap in an alley down the street provided all the cleanup I needed, and I tossed the stained handkerchief into a trash can
Escott&039;s laundry service, which I shared now, had once asked if his houseguest suffered from frequent nosebleeds
The car started up without fuss and I drove ai the stop signals like a good citizen I pulled up and parked near the Night-crawler Club up on the north side and pretended it was only an impulse that took me there, and not some inner need
They had a new man out front He looked askance at my ordinary clothes, but let irl was not new, I rarely forget dimples, but she didn&039;t know ray fedora next to the flashier silk toppers with a friendly if impersonal smile
I knew the place had been raided by the cops at least once since my last visit, and Gordy had taken the temporary shutdown as an opportunity to redecorate The walls were bright with fresh paint, and the tables, chairs, and bandstand were now shiny black with gleaed were the costuirls, which remained black with silver-sequined spiderwebs patterned on the happily short skirts The leggy details were enough to keep me occupied until Gordy showed up
He was puzzled to see htly wary as well, but when I stuckrip
He had no need to prove his strength against anyone, taking it for granted people could figure it out for the, what&039;s up?"
"This and that Got a quieter place than here?" I gestured at the band across the dance floor below They were just starting off another tune for the patrons
He nodded, not one for h a doordid its job and ere in the casino rooht ated tension Gordy nodded to a couple of tough boys in tuxedos guarding the h the craps and roulette tables to the back exit We took a short hall and some stairs up to an office I reotten this far with a new rug, paint, and paintings His deceased boss&039;s boats had been replaced by green-and-brown pastorals A canvas depicting a lush forest covered a section of the here six slugs froht
"Nice picture, huh?" he said, noticingfrom his eyes "I like to look at it"
"That&039;s what they&039;re there for" I noticed it was not an ordinary store-bought print, but a real oil with a decent frame
"Yeah"
He pointed at a deep leather chair and settled into a wideup , and I knew froht when he wanted to; the present slowness was all pan of his cae men were supposed to be slow and stupid, so Gordy cultivated that ie and thus kept a lot of people off balance In his business an edge always ca refreshments
I shook lasses From his reaction I could tell
"You look like you had a hell of a weekend"
"I did"
"You&039;re not the social type; Fles like ot a problem?"
"Yeah"
He apparently recalled the last time he&039;d seen my bloodied eyes "Trouble with Bobbi?"
"No"
"Another wo perceptive like Escott or if it was siical question for him to ask "Yeah, you could say that"
"What kind of trouble?"
"I killed her"
The news didn&039;t exactly send him into a panic "You need protection, a cleanup job?"
"No, nothing like that"
He had one of those phlegreat for poker orpeople sweat "You need to talk about it?"
My instinct to coht, and I nodded, inwardly relieved
"So talk," he said He wasn&039;t the soul of encouragement, but he settled back into the depths of the sofa to listen I gave hi wo bald facts and not bothering with any defense During the story he stared at yet another painting above and behind his desk, his eyes hardly blinking the whole time
"I&039;m sure Charles knows about it, but he hasn&039;t said anything I don&039;t think he ever will"
"Suy, then," he approved "What about Barrett?"
"He apparently took the suicide at face value"
"He probably wants to How are you taking it?"
" I feel like" But I couldn&039;t finish I couldn&039;t put words to what I was feeling
He raised a hand to call off the question and tried another "You remember the war?"
"I was in it"
This confused hih, but he continued "You fight?
You have to kill?"
"Yeah, I see what you&039;re getting at This was different"
" Why? Because it was a woman and in a nice house and not out in a field ofpeople You had to stop her What&039;s the proble with it Whyeyes fro It was a soft overview of a far two plow horses back to the stable "When I was a kid, I once knew a retired hangman I asked him about it He kne to do it better than anyone else but he didn&039;t think much about it, it was just a job to do I can&039;t say he enjoyed it, but he kneas doing his part in s cleaner"
It see how he ca "Yeah?"
"Yeah You either learn to live with it or you go crazy Make up your mind"
"Is that what you&039;ve done?"
He glanced over, again with faint humor "I&039;m just a businessman"
"That&039;s what Capone used to say"
"Huh He never talked about the dirty side of the business, not where he could be overheard He&039;d pretend it wasn&039;t there Maybe that makes him crazy I know it&039;s there, I don&039;t enjoy it, but I&039;ood at it And I&039;m not crazy"
The hu hard and very cold The base of my spine went stiff as I suppressed a shiver
A few days, or nights, later I was just co down from the upstairs bath when I heard Escott let himself in the kitchen door His arms were full with a newspaper, raincoat, and several sain
When he started to jiggle it loose he nearly lost the cartons Drawing a breath to say hello I caught a strong whiff of Chinese food and rushed to rescue the soggy white boxes before his dinner ended up on the floor
"Thank you," he said as I transferred thelared at the lock for exactly one second, tossed his coat and hat on the table, and stalked into the dining room He was back alan an energetic assault on the rusty et cold," I said, leaning against a doorway to watch the show
"A distinct possibility, but I&039;d rather it be cold than suffer the indigestion this recalcitrant lock is likely to cause iven up eating"
His mouth twitched, whether from amusement at my reave, and he seized the oil can and attacked the breach in the lock&039;s defense while it was vulnerable He experis back the way they were
"Good evening Jack," he said, standing and dusting his knees off It was his way of starting things over fresh "How arc you tonight?" His suit coat joined the raincoat on the table und he turned on the hot water in the sink to wash his hands
"Fine You look tired"
"Thank you so much I can assure you it is not frohts"
"Yes, but that little-extre to do now"
"Boredoet
"Inactivity I never allow myself to become bored, but inactivity may strike at any inconvenient moment"
"There&039;s a difference?"
He registered mock surprise as he toweled dry "Most certainly One cannot help inactivity, but boredom is a self-inflicted disease I fir us all for signs of boredom, the moment we declare ourselves in that state soht out of it The last ti a spear, so to speak, in the court of King Claudius"
I looked blank
" Haested, by way of clarification
Dawn broke "You were on stage in front of an audience and bored? I&039;d be scared to death"
"Given tirown all too familiar with that particular scene in that particular play and thus declaredI knew the trapdoor we used for the Ghost to enter froave way and doent It was one of my more spectacular exits"
"Were you hurt?"
"A bruise or then I landed on the platfor for a week
It seeot to latch the trap properly after his last scene"
"Did you kill hiht it eful not to put him out of his misery" He pulled out a few clean plates and emptied the cartons onto them
"Since then I&039;ve schooled myself to patience when it comes to inactivity I&039;ve cos to one side of the table to give hiht up on " He nodded at the crumpled newspaper
"Not even a divorce to turn away?"
His thin lips curled in distaste "Please, I am about to eat"
"Sony"
"What social event are you off to tonight?" he asked in turn as his long fingers snapped up a set of chopsticks with practiced ease
"How did you-"
"You&039;ve taken more care than usual with your hair, that is a hew shirt and tie, and I believe Miss S my the will be quite impressed with the after-shave and shoe shine"
"Looks okay, then? I can&039;t really tell"
"Mirrors must be a considerable source of annoyance to you these days"
"You can say that again," I grumbled
"The event?" he repeated, just before plunging into his chow uely nauseous, but that was my usual reaction to solid, cooked food
"So and playing backgrounda date"
"It sounds an odd mix of the formal and infor the north shore One of the to celebrate a show he&039;s having at his fiance&039;s gallery"
"His naht eyebrow bounced once and he indicated the paper with his chopsticks
"Page eight"
I uncrue It was a splashy article placed above the fold with lots of photos A picture of Brett standing with some people took uphands; in the background was so The caption said he&039;d won the Lloyd A Farron Medal and five hundred dollars for a painting called Ho over the others by a head He had a long, solemn face, dark, curly hair, and serious eyes
Another photo of hi before his portrait of her He was accurate and had caught her looks exactly right, but solance it seemed like a different woman from the cool-faced blond next to him
The article went into detail about Brett&039;s award presentation and the opening of his own gallery Reva would bethe sales; his job was to keep the place filled with neork The between-the-lines e indicated he was destined to be one of art&039;s new ood investment for collectors
I went back to the first photo, drawn by so It looked veryabove Gordy&039;s desk This one still had a boy leading two plow horses, but the stable was gone, replaced by trees and part of a dirt road
"This painting"-I pointed out Hoot an almost identical one in his office"
"You&039;ve been to see Gordy?" He was mildly surprised
"Just to say hello I&039;ll have to ask him who the artist is"
"It could be Brett, I understand he&039;s quite prolific"
"But why paint the saed "You could ask him More than once da Vinci did two versions of one scene The Virgin of the Rocks con word out with dramatic relish and attacked his rice
"La what?"