Tomorrow, the Killing

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To the Sibs, in order of appearance:

David, Michael, Marisa and Alissa.

1

Man is a puerile creature, easily misled by the superficial. Some fool from the neighborhood, a mark you wouldn’t trust to clean a chamberpot, comes up to you on the street in a clean suit and you find yourself ducking your head and calling him sir. It works backways as well – that selfsame halfwit puts on a uniform and gets to thinking he’s hard, wraps up in a priest’s vestments and mistakes himself for decent. It’s a dangerous thing, pretense. A man ought to know who he is, even if he isn’t proud to be it.

I tugged loose the collar of my dress jacket and wiped sweat from my brow. It was a hot day. It had been a hot week in a hot month, and it didn’t look to be getting cooler. The drawing room wasn’t built for the wave that had baked the city this last month, left wells dry and stray mutts foaming in the alleys. Though for the inhabitants of the mansion I supposed the drought was more a question of ruined outfits and canceled garden parties – what was life and death in Low Town was an inconvenience in Kor’s Heights. Even the weather afflicts the rich differently.

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