From the Corner of His Eye

furious determination to prove wrong the bastards who mocked you, to rub their faces in the fact of your success. Anger and hatred have driven all great political leaders, from Hider to Stalin to Mao, who wrote their names indelibly across the face of history, and who were-each, in his own way-eaten with self-pity when young.
        Gazing into the mirror, which ought to have been clouded with self-pity as though with steam, Junior Cain searched for his anger and found it. This was a black and bitter anger, as poisonous as rattlesnake venom; with little difficulty, his heart was distilling it into purest rage.
        Lifted from his despair by this exhilarating wrath, Junior turned away from the mirror, looking for the bright side once more. Perhaps it was the bathroom window.

Chapter 67
        
        AS THE WULFSTAN PARTY was being seated at a window table, slowly tumbling masses of cottony fog rolled across the black water, as if the bay had awakened and, rising from its bed, had tossed off great mounds of sheets and blankets.
        To the waiter, Nolly was Nolly, Kathleen was Mrs. Wulfstan, and Tom Vanadium was sir-though not the usual perfunctorily polite sir, but sir with deferential emphasis. Tom was unknown to the waiter, but his shattered face gave him gravitas; besides, he possessed a quality, quite separate from carriage and demeanor and attitude, an ineffable something, that inspired respect and even trust.
        Martinis were ordered all around. None here observed a vow of absolute sobriety.
        Tom caused less of a stir in the restaurant than Kathleen had expected. Other diners noticed him, of course, but after one or two looks of shock or pity, they appeared indifferent, though this was undoubtedly the thinnest pretense of indifference. The same quality in him that elicited deferential regard from the waiter apparently ensured that others would be courteous enough to respect his privacy.
        "I'm wondering," Nolly said, "if you're not an officer of the law anymore, in what capacity are you going to pursue Cain?"
        Tom Vanadium merely arched one eyebrow, as if to say that more than a single answer ought to be obvious.
        "I wouldn't have figured you for a vigilante," Nolly said.
        "I'm not. I'm just going to be the conscience that Enoch Cain seems to have been born without."
        "Are you carrying a piece?" Nolly asked.
        "I won't lie to you."
        So you are. Legal?"
        Tom said nothing.
        Nolly sighed. "Well, I guess if you were going to just plug him, you could've done that already, soon as you got to town."
        "I wouldn't just whack anyone, not even a worm bucket like Cain, any more than I would commit suicide. Remember, I believe in eternal consequences."
        To Nolly, Kathleen said, "This is why I married you. To be around talk like this."
        " Eternal consequences, you mean?"
        "No,whack."'
        So smoothly did the waiter move, that three martinis on a corklined mahogany tray seemed to float across the room in front of him and then hover beside their table while he served the cocktails to the lady first, the guest second, and the host third.
        When the waiter had gone, -Tom said, "Don't worry about abetting a crime. If I had to pop Cain to prevent him from hurting someone, I wouldn't hesitate. But I'd never act as judge and jury otherwise."
        Nudging Nolly, Kathleen said, " 'Pop.' This is wonderful."
        Nolly raised his glass. "To justice rough or smooth."
        Kathleen savored her martini. "Mmmm… as cold as a hit man's heart and as crisp as a hundred-dollar bill from the devil's wallet."
        This encouraged Tom to raise both eyebrows.
        "She reads too much hard-boiled detective fiction," Nolly said. "And lately, she's talking about writing it."
        "Bet I could, and sell it, too," she said. "I might not be as good at it as I am at teeth, but I'd be better than some I've read."
        "I suspect," Tom said, "that any job you set your mind to, you'd be as good as you are at teeth."
        "No question about it," Nolly agreed, flashing his choppers.
        "Tom," Kathleen said, "I know why you became a cop, I guess. St. Anselmo's Orphanage… the murders of those children."
        He nodded. "I was a doubting Thomas after that."
        "You wonder," Nolly said, "why God lets the innocent suffer."
        "I doubted myself more than God, though Him,