the two of you ought to knock off, go home, get some rest. You’ve put
in a long day already; the task force is functioning now, and it can get
along without you until tomorrow. Jack, if you’ll hang around just a
couple of minutes, I’ll show you a list of the available officers on
every shift, and you can handpick the men you want to watch your kids.”
Rebecca was already at the door, pulling it open. Jack called to her.
She glanced back.
He said, “Wait for me downstairs, okay?”
Her expression was noncommittal. She walked out.
From the window, where he had gone to look down at the street, Walt
Gresham said, “It’s like the arctic out there.”
The one thing Penny liked about the Jamisons’ place was the kitchen,
which was big by New York City apartment standards, almost twice as
large as the kitchen Penny was accustomed to, and cozy. A green tile
floor.
White cabinets with leaded glass doors and brass hardware. Green
ceramic-tile counters. Above the double sink, there was a beautiful
out-thrusting greenhouse window with a four-foot-long, two-foot-wide
planting bed in which a variety of herbs were grown all year long, even
during the winter. (Aunt Faye liked to cook with fresh herbs whenever
possible.) In one corner, jammed against the wall, was a small
butcher’s block table, not so much a place to eat as a place to plan
menus and prepare shopping lists; flanking the table, there was space
for two chairs. This was the only room in the Jamisons’ apartment in
which Penny felt comfortable.
At twenty minutes past six, she was sitting at the butcher’s block
table, pretending to read one of Faye’s magazines; the words blurred
together in front of her unfocused eyes. Actually, she was thinking
about all sorts of things she didn’t want to think about: goblins,
death, and whether she’d ever be able to sleep again.
Uncle Keith had come home from work almost an hour ago. He was a
partner in a successful stockbrokerage. Tall, lean, with a head as
hairless as an egg, sporting a graying mustache and goatee, Uncle Keith
always seemed distracted. You had the feeling he never gave you more
than two-thirds of his attention when he was talking with you. Sometimes
he would sit in his favorite chair for an hour or two, his hands folded
in his lap, unmoving, staring at the wall, hardly even blinking,
breaking his trance only two or three times an hour in order to pick up
a brandy glass and take one tiny sip from it.
Other times he would sit at a window, staring and chainsmoking.
Secretly, Davey called Uncle Keith “the moon man” because his mind
always seemed to be somewhere on the moon. Since coming home today,
he’d been in the living room, sipping slowly at a martini, puffing on
one cigarette after another, watching TV news and reading the Wall
Street Journal at the same time.
Aunt Faye was at the other end of the kitchen from the table where Penny
sat. She had begun to prepare dinner, which was scheduled for
seven-thirty: lemon chicken, rice, and stir-fried vegetables. The
kitchen was the only place Aunt Faye was not too much like Aunt Faye.
She enjoyed cooking, was very good at it, and seemed like a different
person when she was in the kitchen; more relaxed, kinder than usual.
Davey was helping her prepare dinner. At least she was allowing him to
think he was helping. As they worked they talked, not about anything
important, this and that.
“Gosh, I’m hungry enough to eat a horse!” Davey said.
“That’s not a polite thing to say,” Faye advised him.
“It brings to mind an unpleasant image. You should simply say. “I’m
extremely hungry,” o. “I’m starved,” or something like that.”
“Well, naturally, I meant a dead horse,” Davey said, completely
misunderstanding Faye’s little lesson in etiquette. “And one that’s
been cooked, too. I wouldn’t want to eat any raw horse, Aunt Faye. Yuch
and double ynch. But, man-oh-man, I sure could eat a whole lot of just
about anything you gimme right now.”
“My heavens, young man, you had cookies and milk when we got here this