Image of the Beast and Blown Read Free Page B

Commisioner stuck out a skinny and cold but sweat-
ing hand, said, "See you!" and turned and walked off down
the hall.
    Childe went into the nearest men's room, where several
plainclothesmen and two uniformed men were washing
the taste of vomit out. Sergeant Bruin was also there, but
he had not been sick. He came from the stall zipping up
his fly. Bruin was rightly named. He looked like a grizzly,
but he was far less easily upset.
    As he washed his hands, he said, "I gotta hurry, Childe.
The Commissioner wants a quick conference about your
partner, and then we all gotta get back on this smog thing."
    "You have my phone number, and I got yours," Childe
said. He drank another cup of water and crumpled the pa-
per and threw it into the wastepaper basket. "Well, at least
I'll be able to move around. I got a permit to use my car."
    "That's more'n several million citizens got right now,"
Bruin said cheerfully. "Be sure you burn the gas in a good
cause."
    "So far, I haven't got much reason to burn anything,"
Childe said. "But I'm going to try."
    Bruin looked down at him. His big black eyes were as
impenetrable as a bear's; they did not look human. He
said, "You going to put in time for free on this job?"
    "Who's going to pay me?" Childe said. "Colben's di-
vorced. This case is tied up with Budler's, but Budler's
wife discharged me yesterday. She says she doesn't give
a shit any more."
    "He may be dead, just like Colben," Bruin said. "I
wouldn't be surprised if we got another package through
the mails."
    "Me neither," Childe said.
    "See you," Bruin said. He put a heavy paw on Childe's
shoulder for a second. "Doing it for nothing, eh? He was
    your partner, right? But you was going to split up, right?
Yet you're going to find out who killed him, right?"
    "I'll try," Childe said.
    "I like that," Bruin said. "There ain't much sense of
loyalty kicking around nowadays." He lumbered off; the
others trailed out after him. Childe was alone. He looked
into the mirror over the washbowl. The pale face resem-
bled Lord Byron's enough to have given him trouble with
women—and a number of jealous or desirous men—ever
since he was fourteen. Now, it was a little lumpy, and a
scar ran down his left cheek. Memento of Korea, when a
drunken soldier had objected to being arrested by Childe
and had slashed his face with the broken end of a beer
bottle. The eyes were dark gray and just now much blood-
shot. The neck below the slightly lumpy Byronic head was
thick and the shoulders were wide. The face of a poet, he
thought as he had thought many times, and the body of a
cop, a private investigator. Why did you ever get into this
sordid soul-leaching depressing corrupting racket? Why
didn't you become a quiet professor of English or psychol-
ogy in a quiet college town?
    Only he and a psychotherapist would ever know, and he
evidently did not want to know, since he had never gone
to a psychotherapist. He was sure that he enjoyed the sor-
didness and tears and grief and hatred and the blood,
somewhere in him. Something fed on contemptible food.
Something enjoyed it, but that something sure as hell
wasn't Herald Childe. Not at this moment, anyway.
    He left the washroom and went down the hall to an
elevator and dropped while he turned his thoughts so in-
wardly that he did not know whether or not he was alone
in the cage. On the way to the exit, he shook his head a
little as if to wake himself up. It was dangerous to be so
infolded.
    Matthew Colben, his partner, had been on his way to be-
ing his ex-partner. Colben was a big-mouthed braggart, a
Don Juan who let his desire to make a pass interfere with
his business. He had not allowed his prick to get in the way
of business when he and Childe had become partners six
years ago. But Colben was fifty now and perhaps trying to
keep the thoughts of a slowing-down body and thickening
flesh and a longer time to recover from hangovers away
from him. Childe didn't accept this reason; Colben could
    do whatever he wanted