T. Wright - The Devouring

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.

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."