"Jesus," Ryerson said, "you really are sick, aren't you?"
"God, yes," McCabe groaned. He motioned for Ryerson to come in. "I feel like I look, Rye."
Ryerson quipped, "I hope not, Tom," and followed him into the den; they sat in the same big wing chairs they'd used before.
"Got this from my nephew," McCabe explained. "Little twerp sneezed right in my damned face a couple days ago. Had 'the croup,' they said, said I'd probably be all right. I think I'll sue." He paused. "Where's your little dog, what's-his-name?"
"Creosote. He's with the owner of the place where I'm staying." Ryerson paused. "Tom, I went to see Greta Lynch today at Strong Memorial."
McCabe took a long, slow breath, let it out slowly, shook his head. "Rye, you're going to get into trouble pulling that crap. I admit she was damned lucky"-he paused, hacked a little, drank some of his weak tea, went on-"damned lucky you went to her place, and damned lucky you got that… feeling, or whatever you call it-"
Ryerson waved away what McCabe was saying. "Tom, I don't suspect Greta Lynch. Whatever her problems are, they have nothing to do with our werewolf. I'm sure of that."
McCabe eyed him suspiciously. "Oh?" he said. "That's a first."
"What's a first?"
"That you'll say you're sure of something. You're always so damned equivocal-"
"This is a complex world we live in, Tom-"
"Yeah, yeah; I know-I've heard it before." He coughed, drank some more of his weak tea, and continued, "So if you don't think it's Greta, who do you think it is, Rye?"
Ryerson shook his head. "It could be anybody, Tom. I haven't a clue." He grinned. "It isn't me, I know that. And I don't think it's you, though I wouldn't stake my life on it."
"Come off it, Rye." McCabe was clearly upset.
"I'm only telling you the truth, Tom. As I see it."
"And that's the point, my friend. Because you"-he coughed, swiped at his nose with a Kleenex he got from the pocket of his robe-"you see a shitload more than the rest of us, and if I was this nutcase who's running around carving people up-"
"He's not 'carving' anyone up, Tom. You know that. He's tearing them up."
"So let's get into an argument about semantics now. I'm really in the mood to argue with you about words -"
Ryerson stood. "Sorry, Tom. We can pick this up some other time. .."
McCabe stood, body shaking with anger. "Is it because of what I told you, Rye? About the god-damned little naked men? Christ, I knew I should have kept that to myself, I knew the goddamned psychologist in you would have a fucking field day with that-"
"No, Tom. No!" Ryerson heard a tightness in his own voice that was close to anger, too. He tried to soften it. "What you told me has nothing to do with anything. I do not suspect you. I suspect no one. I believe in possibilities, and probabilities. And I believe that whoever this 'nutcase' is, as you so eloquently put it, he or she probably believes himself to be as innocent as the next guy; he probably looks over his shoulder, too. He probably even has a mental list of people he suspects-" He stopped suddenly. "My God," he breathed.
McCabe hacked.
"My God," Ryerson breathed again.
McCabe said, "You're being cryptic, Rye. Don't be cryptic-you're always so fucking cryptic!"
But Ryerson wasn't listening to him. Ryerson was listening to a voice from within himself, a voice he couldn't resist.
Chapter Eighteen
Doug Miller was not a welcome sight on Jack Youngman's doorstep. Youngman thought he was noble enough to put up with Miller on Sundays, at the golf course-which, after all, was in a good cause: winning-and also during working hours. But not while he was between shifts. And not while he was trying to catch some time alone with the woman from next door, who'd only recently agreed to come into his house without her teen-age daughter or twenty-five-year-old son in tow as a freaking chaperone.
He growled at Miller, "What the hell you doin' here? Christ-" He stopped, noticed that Miller looked a bit on edge, a little nervous, that he was avoiding Youngman's gaze. "What's your problem, Miller? Jees-you got ants in your pants, or what?”
“Can I come in, Jack?"
"Come in?! Shit, no, I got a woman in here-"
"Jack, it's important. I know…" He hesitated. A sly grin spread over his mouth. He finished, "I know what you've been doing, Jack."
The fucking blood in the trunk! Youngman thought. He said, "You don't know shit, Miller," but he could hear that his voice was wavering and uncertain, and he knew that Miller could hear it, too. He took a breath. "Listen, Miller, let me get rid of the woman, okay? She doesn't need to know anything-"
"Whatever," Miller said. He suddenly seemed more at ease, less nervous; he met Youngman's gaze. "You do what you have to do, Jack. Then we'll talk."
"Yeah," said Youngman. "Wait right here." And he closed the door. A minute later he opened it again, just wide enough for Miller to squeeze through. "Okay, come in." Miller went in, was led into the small but scrupulously neat kitchen, and was told to sit down. He did.
"I'd like some coffee, Jack," he said matter-of-factly.
Youngman looked momentarily stunned; then, yet again, these wordsThe fucking blood in the trunk- swam before him, and he said, "Yeah," trying to sound gruff but missing it by several degrees. "So would I." He busied himself with instant coffee preparations.
Miller said, as Youngman poured water into a shiny aluminum teapot, "Confession's good for the soul, Jack."
Youngman glanced at him from the sink, a look of suspicion, fear, and distrust mingling on his face, making the skin over his cheekbones slither and his mouth open and close repeatedly. He looked back at what he was doing, said, as the water poured, "Yeah, sure it is, Miller; I know it is."
"Confession can make things right, Jack. It can give us peace."
Youngman turned the water off, set the pot on the stove, turned the stove on. "State your business, Miller," he said, this time hitting the gruff tone he was shooting for. "I haven't got all day." He crossed his arms, stood with the small of his back against the top of the stove, aware that in this position his gut hung out quite dramatically. He sucked it in as far as it would go until he could almost see the tips of his shoes.
Miller said, his words slow and measured, "Some of us are… tortured, Jack. Some of us are at war with ourselves; we have no… no inner peace because there are… two entities dwelling within us." He paused for effect. "The animal, and the man."
"Cut the bullshit, Miller!"
Miller went on, clearly ignoring him. "And the animal and the man that are at war within us cannot communicate, because, after all, animals and men communicate on only the most elemental levels. The cat wants food, it meows. But it meows for other reasons, too. It meows when it wants sex, or when it wants to go out. But if the animal dwelling within us is a wild animal, if it's beyond all communication, no matter at what level, even with itself-"
"This is a bore, Miller!"
"-Then the two entities, the animal and the man, are kept eternally separate and will never communicate, and so will probably never know anything about each other. Except by the fact of what the animal does. Except by the fact that the man knows he has some horrible secret eating away at him, gnawing at his guts, but he has no idea what that secret is, so his life is made into a kind of living hell-"
The teapot started whistling. Youngman didn't hear it for several seconds, his mind turning over and over what Miller had just said. Then Miller nodded at the teapot, "Jack; it's whistling," and Youngman turned automatically, as if in a daze, toward it.
Miller asked, as Youngman got two mugs from the cupboard, "You know what I'm saying, don't you, Jack?"