T. Wright - The Changing

"No problem," and McCabe hung up.

At 7:30, two hours earlier, Greta Lynch had gone down to the first floor of the house at 8 Fairview Heights where she rented a three-room apartment. She saw Linda Bowerman, a single woman in her forties, the owner of the house, watching television in the big living room and stuck her head in. "I'm going out, Linda. Do you need anything?" Linda turned her head, smiled, said, "No, thanks. I shopped today."

"Okay," Greta said. "Just thought I'd check. Do you think the drugstore's open now?"

Linda checked her watch: "Sure. It closes at 9:00. What do you need? Some aspirin or something? I've got some aspirin. No sense going out if you don't have to; those streets ain't the safest place to be at night. Maybe where you come from they are, but not here."

Greta smiled, pleased by the woman's concern. "No. There are just some… other things I need. Thanks." She turned, stopped, looked back. "Oh, can I borrow your little grocery cart, Linda?"

"Sure," Linda said, waving the question away. "You don't even need to ask." She came forward, made a show of studying Greta's face. "You look a little flushed, Greta. If you have a fever, maybe you shouldn't-"

Greta shook her head briskly. "No. It's nothing. I have a… sunlamp and I'm afraid I spent too long under it."

"Dangerous things, sunlamps," Linda Bowerman said.

"Yes," Greta said, "I know. I'll have to be more careful." And she left the house.

APRIL 16: 9:04 P.M.

Just before he died, Leonard Pitcher was trying to think of phrases other than "security guard" to describe his job. But the phrases that came to him were no good: Rent-A-Cop, for instance, was awful. Company Peacekeeping Personnel, he thought, sounded pretty good in his head, but not so good when he said it aloud. Too wordy, he told himself. Too… pre ten tious, yeah.

Then he hit on it.

"Damnit," he said aloud to the mirror in the all-but-empty locker room to a face that was long and thin, the cheeks hollow, the brownish hair heavily lacquered, the hazel eyes small and ignorant. "I'm a fuckin' cop! There ain't no two ways about it. I'm a fuckin' cop!" After all, what did it matter if he was an employee of the city or if he was an employee of the Eastman Kodak Company? The job was the same, wasn't it? And it was the job that was important, not the freakin' asshole who signed the freakin' paycheck. "I'm a cop!" he said again, and again, and again. Didn't the gun prove it? Cops wore guns. He wore a gun. He was a cop! And the uniform, too, which was cop-blue. And the badge, the cap, the nightstick. All of it. The whole… persona ("pretentious" and "persona" were his improve-yourvocabulary words for the week). He stood with his arms stiff, his hands on either side of the sink supporting him, his head tilted slightly upward, and an I'm-a-real-mean-son-of-a-bitch look about him. He said to himself, tightly, with feeling, "If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, then, shit!-it's gotta be a fuckin' duck!"

Then he sniffed the air conspicuously and asked himself, "What for crimey's sake is that smell?"

He heard a low and menacing growl behind him. And the top of his head and most of his brain were ripped away and thrown, with a clunking thud, to the other side of the room.

~* ~

McCabe said, "One thing's for sure, Rye." They were again in the cafeteria at Building Six; it was not quite 7:30 in the morning; Leonard Pitcher's body had been found nine hours earlier.

"Oh? What's that?" Ryerson chomped on a piece of whole-wheat toast, found it was stale and grimaced. Creosote looked pleadingly at it. "No," he said firmly. "No people food!" For man or beast, Ryerson maintained, a proper diet was paramount to the maintenance of good health.

"Our murderer," McCabe said, "is damned strong. I mean, he's just in cred ibly strong; so I think that would probably rule out the possibility that he's a female." Since McCabe had been awakened at his house at about 1:00 A.M., he was having a full breakfast-cheese omelet, sausage patties, home fries, orange juice, toast, a side order of pancakes. It made Ryerson a little queasy just to look at it.

"Our murderer," Ryerson said, "doesn't know what he is. When he's doing a murder, anyway." Ryerson sipped his grapefruit juice, took a small bite of the toast, and glanced down at Creosote, who was again looking pleadingly at him. "No!" he said, more firmly this time. Then to McCabe, "When he's doing a murder, Tom, he thinks he's an animal-a wolf, a bear; I don't know. If he thought he was an armadillo he'd probably act like one. My point is; it's all simply a matter of belief. If we believe deep in our heart of hearts, down where we live, that we're a wolf, or a bear, or a mountain lion, then we can probably gather up immense reserves of strength just to keep that belief alive. To fill the role. To be what we believe we are."

"Yes," McCabe said, spreading orange marmalade on his toast, "I can understand that. I don't think it applies here, because I don't think any woman has the strength that this guy has-even in reserve, even to pump up her insanity." He took one then quickly another big bite of the toast and smiled as he chewed it.

Ryerson said, "Well, for the record, Tom, I think you're wrong." A short pause. "Did you get that warrant I asked you about?"

McCabe swallowed and asked, "For the files on new employees?"

Ryerson nodded.

"Yes," McCabe said, swiping at his lips with a napkin. "I got it. The files are being sorted now. You should have them by tonight."

Douglas Miller said to Greta, "You look terrible, Greta."

She said, "Well, you look like death warmed over," and sat wearily at her desk in Emulsion Technology. She pushed some papers around and leaned back in her chair, sighing. She folded her hands on her stomach. "Jesus," she breathed.

"Hot date?" Miller asked and immediately regretted the question because he thought she'd see it as a come-on, which it was, though he didn't want her to know it just yet.

"Yeah," she whispered, eyes on the ceiling, "hot date."

"Anybody I know?"

She glanced at him and shook her head slightly. "Doug, just can it, okay?"

He'd been standing near her desk. He held his hands up, said "Okay," and went to his own desk, kitty-corner from hers in the small beige room. Greta thought he moved with a slight stiffness, as if he were aware of his muscles and didn't want them to show. That was her fault, she realized. When she'd known him only a week or so and had the idea that perhaps they could go out sometime, just for the hell of it, she'd let slip that he walked as if he were muscle-bound-which, of course, he was. He'd looked hurt, and she'd regretted saying anything, but ever since he had manifested a stiff, sexless walk that was unnerving.

After a few minutes he said, a little squeamishly, "I didn't mean to pry, Greta."

She shook her head. "And I didn't mean to snap your head off."

"You didn't snap my head off."

She managed a smile, though it was weak, and showed clearly that she was hurting under the skin. "Maybe you and I can… do something one of these days, Doug."

His smile was quick, strong, and disbelieving: "Sure," he said. "Sure," and found himself tongue-tied.

"Maybe," she suggested, "you can show me the nightlife in this city of yours."

He nodded vigorously-a little too vigorously, he realized-so he stopped nodding and shrugged, which he thought was stupid, too. "Sure," he said again. "Anytime. You name the time, Greta. There's a place called The Manhattan. I think you'd like it"

She cut in, "It sounds great, Doug. Really. I'll let you know." She stood, shakily. "For now, I think I'll go and throw up in the ladies' lounge." And that's precisely what she did.