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"I’ll do my best, sir"
"Do better than your best"
His usual droll deave way tohis days of fame "This world can be hard on children"
Later, I would learn that he and his wife, Alhter na pictures of portly Mr Hitchcock and tiny Pat on vacation with Alma in exotic places like Paris and Africa and Switzerland His sh ironic when calculated for publicity, could be sweet, and never sweeter than in photographs with Pat or with her children At play with the grandchildren, he had been like a child hinity discarded in favor of participating fully in the gaard for children and their happiness had its roots in his own lonely childhood At the age of nine, he was sent off to a Catholic boarding school Until he was fourteen, he was raised by Jesuits who believed ly in severe corporal punishment, and before he was fifteen, he quit school and took his first job He was re boy, and he called hih rare photos from those days don’t really support such a harsh self-assess late on Christmas Eve, when he was only five, to discover histhe thees
"This world can be hard on children," he repeated "Now, these seventeen think they’re being held for ransoh a fewThe cultists want to surprise them, the better to savor their terror as the full horror of their fate dawns on the you told ’s sure to be all right now"
He raised one eyebrow "Is it sure to be, Mr Thomas? Are you really certain that you’ve seen o, and wished I hadn’t
Again he rose off the floor
This tih I did say, "Please call , he said, "That’s very kind of you, Mr Thoain, Mr Hitchcock?"
"I would count on it, Mr Thomas, whether or not you survive the next half hour"
He disappeared through the ceiling
The time had come to kill or die Or both
Twenty-nine
NOT BEING A QUICK-DRAW ARTIST, I WAS RELUCTANT to leave both pistols in their shoulder rigs, as Mr Hitchcock had suggested I understood that I would be more likely to arouse suspicion if I went everywhere with one of the Glocks drawn and ready for action, but I had to work up the nerve to do as he had instructed
I turned out the lights in that room of paper towels and toilet paper I took a deep breath and let it out slowly I stepped into the basement corridor
As I moved toward the farther end of the hallway and the back stairs by which I’d coht, and a woman came out of the office of the man whoh Goth ia tour, she wore high-heeled shoes, tight and wonderfully supple black-leather pants, and a sort of half jacket ofleather that bared her midriff As most belly dancers have a jewel in their navels, this woman had a carved-bone skull
She didn’t appear to be alarmed, which surely she would have been if she’d discovered a corpse, unless these people found so ularity that all the shock value had gone out of the experience She smiled at h the upper cuspids seemed to have been filed into sharper points than nature would have given them
I raised eek when instead of replying with "Potestas," she said, "Hey, look at you, boy toy"
"Hey," I said
Being called a boy toyif she hadn’t been festooned with knives At each hip, two loaded sheaths were fixed to her belt In a scabbard against her back hung a full-length sword, which she could draw by reaching over her left shoulder Froh the blades were at the moment safely folded into the polished-ivory handles, I suspected that with a flick of her hands, she could bring both razors out, up, and into service Whatever all she ht want to do to a boy toy, I didn’t think I could assume that sex would be part of it
"You know Rob Burkett, honey?" she asked
I said, "The twelve rules of successful h and half snort "Yeah, he’s kind of an asole Where’d he get that stupid shit-happens poster with the cat and the crocodile?"
"Wherever, it wasn’t a Hallmark store"
"You seen him? He said he’d be down here in his office"
Evidently, she hadn’t gone around behind the desk and looked in the knee space, where Rob was in the fetal position as if being born into death
She came close and looked me over froht?"
"Yeah Are you?"
"Can’t wait They’re givin’ ht the dangling ivory handle into her hand and released the straight razor, which appeared to be sharp enough to divide a hu to admire her dexterity and style "You ever cut one before?"
"A juicy little boy? Nah Youngest ones I’ve cut are like eighteen, they come on tohot about ’eht, I suppose it would be
But I said, "I’m Lucius"
"I think you’re luscious," she said, and she stroked the flat of the razor blade slowly alongme a shave
The steel was cold
Her eyes were the jaundice yellow of a very sick ," I said
"They’re really blue I’m wearin’ contacts that make ’em this way Wild-animal eyes I want my little boy so scared the second he sees ht then"
"I think he will"
"You think he will?"
"I knoill"
Jinx said, "I’m from Reno"
"I’ open the straight razor in her left hand and drawing the flat of the blade along ht cheek
"Little town you never heard of"
"Maybe I have"
"Lonely Possum, Arizona"
"Sounds like the ass end of nowhere"
"You can get a lot of land cheap Keep neighbors at a distance"