'Well,' said Hackett doubtfully. It seemed quite an undertaking to him.
'Silly,' said Angel, and her mountain-pool eyes that shaded from green to brown were smiling at him.
Mark Christopher, who would celebrate his second birthday two months from now, fastened like a leech on Hackett's left leg and demanded imperatively, 'Kitty-kitty!'
'How the hell did we get into all this?' asked Hackett plaintively. 'We said two, but if this isn't a girl-I know you-and I'm not a millionaire like Luis, just remember.'
'I don't mind if it's not a girl,' said Angel. They wouldn't know about that for five months. 'We can always try again.'
'That's just what I said. Nothing doing. These days, they all expect college-”
'The more we have,' said Angel logically, 'the better chance that one of them will make a lot of money and support us in our old age. And there's a sort of exotic new French casserole for dinner. Yes, I remembered about calories-though I think the doctor's silly about that, you're a big man, you need lots of good food. You're not really too fat.'
'Not yet,' said Hackett gloomily. Ten pounds off, the doctor had said firmly.
'And you don't have to go out again, do you?'
'Well, there's a new one come up, on top of this damned Slasher thing. I'd better call in, anyway, and if anything new has turned up-'
Angel made a face at him. 'Why did I ever marry a cop?'
'You want to be reminded?' He reached for her again but she laughed and backed off.
'Fifteen minutes-I'll just get it out of the oven.'
'Daddy get kitty-kitty!' said Mark Christopher. Hackett looked around and pointed out kitty-kitty: the big smoke-silver Persian curled in his basket by the hearth. 'Kitty won't play!' said Mark tearfully.
'Well, old boy, I can't do anything about that,' said Hackett, who had learned this and that about cats in the time since Mendoza had wished Silver Boy on them. He sat down in the big armchair.
That Nestor. The outside thing, or the personal, private kill? Something a little funny there, anyway. Those files…
Something nagging at him-some little thing.
Chiropractors. A four-year-course now.
The evening paper, the Herald, was unopened there on the ottoman. He didn't pick it up.
The Slasher. Quite the hell of a thing. The sooner they picked that one up…
Some little thing he'd noticed, there. And for some reason he didn't much like that Corliss woman. There was also the wife.
And…
'A sterilizer,' he said aloud suddenly. 'A sterilizer.'
'Well, I try to keep the place reasonably clean,' said Angel amusedly from the dining-room door. 'Need we go quite that far?'
Alone out there in the night, a man walked a dark street. His mind was a confused jumble of thoughts, and all the thoughts were full of hate.
As long as he could remember, he had hated, and envied, and resented. He had learned to hate early, and learned why afterward.
He had hated the unknown mother who had left a baby to the orphanage. He had hated the unknown father who had begotten the baby. He had hated all the other children who laughed at him and called him names, and hated the women at the orphanage who called him stupid and punished him for breaking silly rules.
Other people had things, incomprehensibly and unfairly. Things he had never had and didn't know how to get-things he realized only dimly were good to have.
Other people concerned about them, and homes, and settled existences. He didn't know why. He didn't know why about anything, except that he hated.
He walked the dark street, an entity full of vague undirected hatred against the entire world, and his hand closed over the knife in its sheath, hard.
They had called him names, the other children. Laughed at him. People didn't like to look at him, you could see it in their eyes. As if he was a monster or something. Ever since the fire that time in the school, and the pain- the awful pain…
Nobody, he thought. Nobody. Everybody but him. Everybody against him. Bosses, calling him dumb. Girls… Everybody hating him. He could hate right back, harder.
But there was always the blood; He liked seeing the blood. Things felt better then. He got back at them then. For a little while.
He came to an open door, hesitated, went in. It was a bar, dark and noisy and crowded. He shouldered up to the bar and found a stool, ordered whiskey straight. He felt the weight of the knife in the sheath on his belt. The man on the stool next to him, raising an arm to light a cigarette, jostled him; instant red fury flowed through him like an electric current, but the bartender had put the shot glass in front of him and he picked it up with a shaking hand..
'Sixty-fi' cents,' said the bartender.
He felt in his other pocket, threw a silver dollar onto the bar. He drank the whiskey, and as it jolted his insides he felt a little better.
'You like to buy me a drink, honey?' A hand on his arm, insinuating. He turned and looked at her. Another one like that last one-a kind he knew, knew all about, the only kind of woman he'd ever had, ever could have. She was a little high, her voice was slurred, she had a scrawny aging body and her lipstick was all smeared. 'You buy a lil drink for Rosie, an' Rosie'll be nice to you, honey. I seen you before, ain't I? Around-'
He laughed and leaned into the light from the blaring TV above the bar, and she gave a little gasp and drew back: 'You seen me before?'
'No-maybe not.' She'd have stepped back farther, but he put his arm around her and closed his hand cruelly round the thin sagging breast. 'I buy you all the drinks you want,' he said savagely, 'an' pay you besides. Is it a deal?'
'Sure-it's a deal,' she said dully. 'Can I have a drink now, honey?'
'Sure thing,' he said. He hated her, hugging the hate to himself. The way she'd gasped and looked away. Everybody in the world, except him. His hand went secret and sure to the knife.
There was always the blood…
Mendoza's turn at the newspaper and magazine counter finally arrived and the fatherly attendant turned his British beam in his direction. 'Do for you, sir?'
'I see you stock some American papers-I don't suppose you've got a Los Angeles paper? A Times?'
The beam faltered. 'Well, now, I'm afraid not, sir. I don't recall that I've ever been asked-'
'Well, could you get me one, please?'
'l really couldn't say, sir. I can try. Beg pardon, what was the name again?'
' The Los Angeles Times,' said Mendoza hopefully. He looked around the vaulted immense lobby of the luxury hotel, the new sports jacket feeling uneasy on his shoulders, and felt homesick. Nearly two weeks out of touch now, and they were staying here another week before flying home.
'Beg pardon, would you mind-that's L-O-?… Yes, sir. Er-would that be California, I presume?'
'It's quite a well-known town,' said Mendoza irritably.
'Yes, sir. I'll see what I can do, sir. ‘Kyou, sir.' The beam turned elsewhere.
Mendoza turned away and a diffident voice said, 'Another Californian? I just flew in myself-if this is any use to you, you're welcome.' A big hearty-looking man in city clothes, smiling, holding out a folded newspaper. 'Kind of foolish to extend the feud this far from home.' The paper was a San Francisco Chronicle, with yesterday's date on it.
