The Face

know.
        Initially he believed that her willingness to educate him in these matters could be attributed to the fact that she was hot for him. Jungle cats in heat didn’t copulate with the ferocity or the frequency of Mary Noone and Corky in the few months that they had been together.
        Eventually he realized that she understood his true motives and didn’t disapprove. Furthermore, he began to suspect that Mary was a self-styled Angel of Death who acted upon her utilitarian bioethics by quietly killing the patients whose lives she deemed to be of poor quality and of little value to society.
        He dared not remain her sex toy under such circumstances. Sooner or later, she would be arrested and put on trial, as angels of her breed usually were. By virtue of being her lover, Corky was sure to be closely scrutinized by the police, which would put his life’s work and possibly his freedom in jeopardy.
        Besides, after they had been together more than three months, Corky grew uneasy about sleeping in the same bed with Mary Noone. Although as a lover he might command a high value in horny Mary’s estimation, Corky didn’t know how much-or how little-she thought he was worth to society.
        To his surprise, when he cautiously raised the issue of an amicable [332] breakup, Mary responded with relief. Apparently, she had not been sleeping well, either.
        In time he had chosen not to kill his mother by injection, but the effort to educate himself in these aspects of medical care had not been wasted.
        During the years since, he had seen Mary only twice, both times at bioethics parties. The old heat was still there between them, but so was the wariness.
        With an efficiency and tenderness that Mary Noone would admire, Corky finished ministering to Stinky Cheese Man.
        The paralytic drug would incapacitate Stinky without making him drowsy or putting him in an altered state of consciousness. With full mental clarity, he could spend the day agonizing over the deaths of his wife and daughter.
        “Now I’ve got to dispose of Rachel’s and Emily’s bodies,” Corky lied with panache that pleased him. “I’d feed their remains to hogs, if I knew where to find a hog farm.”
        He remembered a recent news story about a young blonde whose body had been dumped in a sewage-treatment plant. Borrowing details from that crime, he spun for Stinky a story about the ponds of human waste for which his loved ones were bound.
        Still no heart attack.
        Late this evening, when he returned here with Aelfric Manheim, Corky would introduce the boy to this emaciated wretch, to prime him for the terrors that awaited him. Aelfric’s suffering would be of a somewhat different variety from what had been required of this once-arrogant lover of Dickens, Dickinson, Tolstoi, and Twain. If the stubborn drudge hadn’t died of a heart attack during the day, Corky would kill him before midnight.
        Leaving Stinky to whatever strange thoughts might occupy the odd mind of a traditionalist in these circumstances, Corky donned his amply provisioned yellow slicker, locked the house, and set out into the December day in his BMW.
        [333] The new storm had already shouldered into the city. Great dragon herds of black clouds seethed from horizon to horizon, coils tangled in one colossal heaving mass, full of pent-up roars and white fire that might soon be breathed out in dazzling, jagged plumes.
        A tentative drizzle fell, but cataracts were sure to follow, vertical rivers, torrents, Niagaras, a deluge.

CHAPTER 49
        
        PROTECTED BY THE TREE OF ANGELS AND BY the photo of the unknown pretty lady, Fric woke unharmed, with his body and soul intact.
        Over the center of the library, the elaborate stained-glass dome brightened with the dawn, but the colors were muted because the early light fell weak and gray.
        After studying the photograph of his dream mother for a moment, Fric folded it and returned it to a back pocket of his jeans.
        He got up from the armchair. He yawned and stretched. He took a moment to be amazed that he was alive.
        At the back of the library, he removed the bracing chair from under the knob of the powder-room door. He did not, however, enter that mirrored space to use the facilities.
        Following a quick look around to be certain that he remained unobserved, he peed on the potted palm that he had begun to