In the kitchen she snapped on the lights, then the radio. The station came in clearly enough, though there was a continuous crackle of storm-generated static.
While she listened to tales of economic crises and breathless accounts of airplane hijackings and rumors of war, Grace put a clean paper filter in the coffee machine, filled the brewing basket with drip-ground Colombian, and added half a spoonful of chicory. The story of the fire came at the end of the newscast, and it was only a sketchy bulletin. The reporter knew nothing more than that lightning had struck a couple of buildings in the heart of the city and that one of them, a church, was afire. He promised more details on the half hour.
When the coffee was ready, Grace poured some for herself. She took her mug to the small table by the kitchen’s only window, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
In the backyard, the myriad roses—red, pink, orange, white, yellow—looked preternaturally bright, almost phosphorescent, against the cinereous backdrop of the rain.
Two psychology journals had arrived in the morning mail. Grace opened one of them with pleasant anticipation.
Halfway through an article about new findings in criminal psychology, as she finished her first mug of coffee, there was a pause between songs on the radio, a few seconds of dead air, and in that brief quietude, she heard furtive movement behind her. She turned in her chair and saw Aristophanes.
“Come to apologize?” she asked.
Then she realized that he appeared to have been sneaking up on her, and that now, confronted, he was frozen; every lithe muscle in his small body was spring-taut, and the fur bristled along his arched back.
“Ari? What’s wrong, you silly cat?”
He whirled and ran out of the kitchen.
3
CAROL sat in a chrome chair with shiny black vinyl cushions, and she slowly sipped whiskey from a paper cup.
Paul slumped in the chair next to hers. He didn’t sip his whiskey; he gulped the stuff. It was an excellent bourbon, Jack Daniel’s Black Label, thoughtfully provided by an attorney named Marvin Kwicker, who had offices down the hall from Alfred O’Brian and who realized that a restorative was urgently needed. Pouring bourbon for Carol, Marvin had said, “Kwicker with liquor,” which he had probably said ten thousand times before, but he still enjoyed his own joke. “Kwicker with liquor,” he repeated when dispensing a double shot to Paul. Although Paul wasn’t much of a drinker, he needed every drop that the attorney gave him. His hands were still shaking.
The reception lounge that served O’Brian’s office was not large, but most of the people who worked on the same floor had congregated here to talk about the lightning that had shaken the building, to marvel that the place hadn’t caught fire, to express surprise that the electric power had been restored so quickly, and to wait their turns for a peek at the rubble and ruin in O’Brian’s inner sanctum. The resultant roar of conversation did nothing to soothe Paul’s nerves.
Every thirty seconds or so, a bleached blonde with a shrill voice repeated the same words of amazement:
“I can’t believe nobody got killed in all that! I can’t believe nobody got killed.” Each time she spoke, regardless of where she was in the room, her voice carried over the din and made Paul wince. “I can’t believe nobody got killed.” She sounded somewhat disappointed.
Alfred O’Brian was sitting at the reception desk. His secretary, a prim-looking woman whose hair was drawn back in a tight bun, was trying to apply Merthiolate to half a dozen scratches on her boss’s face, but O’Brian seemed more concerned about the condition of his suit than he was about himself. He plucked and brushed at the dirt, lint, and small fragments of tree bark that clung to his jacket.
Paul finished his whiskey and looked at Carol. She was still badly shaken. Contrasted with her glossy dark hair, her face was very pale.
Apparently, she saw the concern in his eyes, for she took his hand, squeezed it, and smiled reassuringly. However, the smile didn’t set well on her lips; it was tremulous.