Jericho glowered. “I thought you said they were at a rally.”
“Did I? I must have confused my days. Silly me. Mabesie, darling, do hurry!”
A few minutes later the three of them sat in the dining hall at a banquette under a chandelier that blinked every now and then due to some fault in the wiring. Evie filled Mabel in on the details of the murders and what they’d discovered courtesy of Dr. Poblocki. “This fellow seems to be enacting some sort of strange ancient ritual from a vanished cult. It’s pos-i-tute-ly macabre. What a monster he is!”
“That’s what happens when society neglects and abuses children,” Mabel said, fidgeting with her silverware. “They grow up to be monsters.”
“What an interesting theory! Mabel, you are so clever!” Evie said. “Isn’t she smart, Jericho?”
Jericho did not look up from his chicken and dumplings. Across the table, Mabel mouthed an urgent What are you doing?
Operation Jericho, Evie mouthed back.
“How do you know that’s what happens?” Jericho challenged.
“What do you mean?” Mabel asked.
“How do you know that it’s society that makes monsters?”
“Well, my mother says that when—”
“I didn’t ask what your mother thought,” Jericho interrupted. “Everyone who can read a newspaper knows what your mother thinks. I asked how you know that happens.”
Mabel chased the noodles in her cup of soup with a spoon. She’d eaten an hour earlier and wasn’t the slightest bit hungry. “Well, I’ve been to the slums with my mother and father. I’ve seen the horrors wrought by poverty and ignorance.”
“Then how do you account for the poor, abused soul who grows up to achieve greatness?”
“There are always exceptions.”
“What if that isn’t true at all? What if evil exists? What if it has always existed and will continue to exist, an eternal battle between good and evil, always and forever?”
“You mean, like God and the Devil?” Mabel shook her head. “I don’t believe in that. I’m an atheist. Religion is the opiate of the masses.”
“Karl Marx,” Jericho said. “Also not your own opinion. Do you believe that because you actually believe it, or do you believe it because you heard it from them first?”
“I believe it,” Mabel answered. “Evil is a human invention. A choice.”
“Jericho believes we are doomed to repeat our existence,” Evie said, waggling her eyebrows to show just how seriously she took this theory. “Nietzsche.”
“I guess I’m not the only one influenced by other people’s opinions.” Mabel sniffed.
Evie tried to hide her laugh with a cough. She glanced at Mabel and tapped the side of her nose surreptitiously, a signal. “Oh, dear!” Evie said with mock concern. “I seem to have lost my bracelet.”
“No, you haven’t!” Mabel blurted out. She went to kick Evie under the table and got Jericho by mistake.
“Ow,” he said, eyeing her.
“Sorry.” Mabel’s eyes went wide in horror. She looked to Evie with a Please do something quickly expression.
“Do you know what I believe? I believe we should have pie,” Evie announced and signaled for the server.
They fell into near silence, the only sounds around the table the chewing and slurping of food. Evie tried to have a conversation with Mabel, but everything felt forced and awkward. Afterward, they rode the elevator together in uncomfortable silence, all of them watching its gold arrow tick the floors off one by one.
Mabel practically leaped from the elevator when the gate opened on her floor. “Good night,” she said without turning around, and Evie knew she’d hear all about it later. The first stage of Operation Jericho had been a certified failure.
When they reached their own floor they found that Uncle Will had tacked a note to the door: Gone to see Malloy—WF. It was pure Uncle Will, from the brevity to the initials. Evie crumpled the note and slammed the apartment door behind her. She glared at Jericho, who had just made himself at home in Will’s chair with his book.
She moved to the couch and glared at him from there. “You didn’t need to be so rude, you know.”