A Cry of Shadows

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Three people helped me by reading the first draft of this manuscript and making many valuable suggestions — Marcia Muller, Bill Pronzini, and Barb Kramer. Thank you, folks.

E.G.

There were at least 2,341 other things I wanted to be doing that December morning. Tramping around a dirty alley in fifteen-below temperature was not one of them.

The alley lay behind the Avanti, the sort of chic restaurant where BMWs just naturally go of their own volition, not unlike homing pigeons, and where a mid-westerner like myself can pronounce no more than three of the items on the menu.

The backs of the buildings ran to two stories and dirty brick. Near the rear stoops were Dumpsters and garbage cans with all the attendant scrawny dogs and cats prowling for sustenance. Earlier I’d seen a freezing tiny tabby female. I’d picked her up and put her in my overcoat pocket so she could get warm for at least a while. Even beneath my lined gloves I could feel her frail ribs tremble with cold. I carried her around and every once in a while she’d poke her head up and look at me with those sweet little eyes, but then she started clawing in such a way that I thought she might need to pee. So 1 set her down and damned if she didn’t immediately lift her cute little tail and make a small clump of snow corn yellow. Then she bounded off and I wondered if I maybe shouldn’t have taken her home. Donna Harris, the woman I see, was gone a week on a skiing trip with advertising people and I was in need of company. But the tabby was gone before I could make up my mind. In some peculiar way, I felt jilted by the kitty, which should tell you something about the state of my self-esteem.

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