Ryerson, who was seated in front of Lucas's desk, answered, "I can tell you only what I saw, and how I interpreted it."
"You mean in this 'vision' of yours? I'll bet you have lots of visions, right, Mr. Biergarten?"
Ryerson sighed. "Can you forget your animosity for just a moment? I'm trying to tell you that your city is in trouble, for God's sake-"
"And do you know that I could have charges of incitement filed against you, Mr. Biergarten? What in the hell did you go to the newspapers for?"
Ryerson ignored the remark; he began, "Captain, there are indeed, as I told the reporter, entities in this city-"
Lucas came forward suddenly, slapped his hands hard on the top of the desk. " ‘Visions’,’entities'?!-for Christ's sake, man, you sound like you've got rats loose in your head!"
Ryerson asked pointedly, "Why did you let me in here to talk to you, Captain?"
The question took Lucas aback. He stared at Ryerson for a few moments, then he stammered, "Well, Jesus … somebody's got to keep you in line."
Ryerson shook his head. "No. You let me in here because you know that what I'm saying is true, because you know that these … these entities I'm talking about are real-"
Lucas pushed himself to his feet, his face beet red from anger. "I want you out of my city, Mr. Biergarten! I am ordering you to get out of my city!"
Ryerson calmly shook his head. "You don't have that right, Captain, and you know it." He stood, winced against the psychic onslaught of Lucas's anger, went on. "What have you got now? Four people dead? Five? By the time the week is done, that number will probably triple."
Lucas pointed stiffly at 'the door. "Get out!"
Ryerson nodded. "We'll talk again," he said. And even as he said it, he read again, as he had during their first meeting, something within the man that shamed him so much he hid it even from himself. And he read this, too: The man did not look ahead. His outlook on himself was very, very limited. Most people thought of themselves not only in terms of the past, but also in terms of the future-what has been, and what will be, so the picture that presented itself to Ryerson was usually very broad. Not so with Lucas. Ryerson could see only half of the picture. Only the past. And he wasn't at all sure why.
~ * ~
Benny Bloom's surgery had gone well and he was recovering in a semi-private room on the hospital's second floor, near the maternity wing. He'd already received a lot of get-well cards and they festooned the area around his bed. On a small roll-about table there was a cute card from his playful Aunt Greta ("Hospitals," it read, "are okay if you don't mind," flip the page, "surly nurses, doctors with bad breath, cardboard food, basic beige, a morgue in the basement, going broke to get well-and that reminds me-get well soon!") and near it a handmade card from his Uncle Floyd, who wrote miserably confessional poetry for various small literary magazines, and around those two, arranged in a neat semi-circle-Benny had a wide streak of orderliness-there were half a dozen cards from classmates at Buffalo Pierpont High School, where he was a senior much liked by the high honor roll crowd.
On the floor, again set up in a semi-circle, were six more cards. One was from his mom, who'd written on the envelope, "To my little boy-may he feel no pain," another was from a great-aunt who saw herself as something of a homey, if confusing, philosopher; her card went on and on, in her own hand, about the rightness of suffering and pain, "if only," it proclaimed, "as a state of looking backwardness and gaiety yet to come." Benny took pleasure and consolation from all these cards. They told him that there were lots of people in the world who cared about him, regardless of the fact that he was more than a little odd.
He said now, to a young nurse named Carlotta Scotti, a tall, olive-skinned brunette who had only recently earned her R.N., "You're not surly at all, Carlotta."
She looked bemusedly at him. "Thank you, I guess," she said.
He nodded at his Aunt Greta's card. "That card says nurses are surly. But I think you're great." His voice was strong and sure, although the rest of him was still weak from surgery.
"I think you're great, too, Benny." She put one hand below his right shoulder, the other on his right thigh. "Do you think you could turn over just a little bit?" she said, and, with his help, she turned him so his buttock was exposed. "Hold it there for just a moment, Benny."
His head was turned away. She heard a strange, soft giggle come from him.
"We're not going to be using the needle today, Benny."
"I don't mind needles," he said.
"Well I do," said Nurse Scotti, smiling at his machismo.
"I really do think you're great," Benny said.
"Quiet now," said Nurse Scotti.
Another strange, soft giggle came from Benny, a little stranger than the first, a little less soft. "That didn't hurt at all, Carlotta," he said.
"I haven't done it yet," she said.
"Do it then," he said.
Chapter Fifteen
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.