Down These Strange Streets (George R.R. Martin) (Kitty Norville 6.50)

“I’VE ALREADY TOLD THE POLICE WHAT I KNOW.”

The sausage cooker downstairs was a thick-boned Korean woman in her late forties named Anna. Her kitchen was exactly the same layout as Sobinski’s, but with less light and more cooking. She stood at the stovetop, stirring a pan of sizzling meat. The smell of hot gristle and salt hadn’t gotten less repulsive by being closer. Scarrey didn’t seemed bothered by it.

“I’m not a policeman. Did he seem to have many friends?”

She scowled at Scarrey, then up at Mason, then at the food cooking before her.

“He didn’t have any for very long. He was one of those people who knows someone really well for a little while, then moves on. Drank too much. He was always . . .”

She shook her head. Scarrey looked at his own clasped hands. For a moment, he could almost have been praying.

“Frightened,” he said.

Anna glanced at him, then nodded.

“Could put it like that. He was always talking about how the liberals were going to take away our rights, or how George Bush was really working with the Saudis. He was pretty evenhanded about his politics. Give him that. Hated everybody.”

“Did you know him well?”

“For a little while.”

“Did he frighten you?” Scarrey asked.

“No, never.”

“Does that frighten you, considering what he did?”

“Yeah,” she said, turning off the burner under her pan. “Yeah, it does.”

She turned to the refrigerator and took out a round loaf of uncut bread. The place was so small, she didn’t have to shift her feet.

“How did the two of you end your acquaintance?” Scarrey asked. Mason shifted his weight to his left foot. Anna took a knife from its stand and slit the loaf of bread down the side. She was quiet for long enough that Mason started to wonder if she’d heard the question, and, if she had, whether she’d answer it.

“He didn’t hit me,” she said. “He didn’t even get mean. He just drifted off. Didn’t come down for dinner anymore, and so, after a while, I stopped cooking for him.”

She pushed a lock of hair back over her ear, put down the knife, and bent the opened bread, the crust cracking under her fingers, and the soft white tissue of the loaf blooming out.

“I was going to cuss him out,” she said. “But I never got around to it. I wonder. If I had . . .”

“Did he take up with another woman?” Scarrey asked.

“No. He was in a band. Teaching himself guitar. Only lasted about a month. Then there were a bunch of Jesus freaks he had over for a while, until they stopped coming. I stopped paying much attention after that. I don’t think he was the kind of man that ever knew much peace.”

“Would you call him depressed?”

She opened the refrigerator again and took out a tub of fake butter and used the same knife she’d cut with to spread it.

“No,” she said. “He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t depressed. He was . . . hungry? Scared? Shit, I don’t know what you want to call it. He was messed up. Bad childhood or something. He was always looking for something, always had a scheme for how it was all going to be okay this time. Only it never was.”

She was still scowling, but the angle of her shoulders had changed. Her guard was coming down. Mason tried to keep his own expression soft and unintimidating. He wasn’t much in practice for that.

“You guys want some food?” she asked.

Jesus no, thought Mason.

“Please,” Scarrey said. “That would be lovely.”

“None for me,” Mason said. “Just ate.”