Seeing that I was, he rushed about the room, destroying everything in his path. I found it all terribly exciting as I always did. I expected his tantrum to end in the usual manner, with him making violent love to me. It didn’t. “What you’re suggesting is perverted, it’s disgusting. I won’t be part of it.” He said other things, none of which are important. I’d struck some puritanical nerve in him and there was no going back.
He walked out of my life.
And what did I ask him to do? You can use your imagination. Once accepted routes of sexual creativity have been exhausted, it requires one to walk darker, forbidden paths. Paths I’ve been down countless times.
I tell you of Rick as an example and nothing more. It will give you an idea of the course my loves generally take. They are disasters from the beginning and, as I have said, this is beyond my power to change.
But I can help you, Eddy. Believe me, I can. Because you’re not going anywhere I haven’t been. I know about lunacy. It rules my life.
And I love you. God, yes, I do.
When I find you, we’ll help each other.
Yours,
Cherry
HOUSE OF MIRRORS
----
“I don’t know what I expect to find,” Lisa said. “Probably nothing. But it seems like a good place to start. If Eddy’s in this town at all, then I’m sure he’ll go there.”
Fenn nodded. “I’m taking a lot of chances with you,” he said. “I’ll be damned if I know why.”
“Because you want to stop him as I do.”
Fenn looked thoughtful as he drove. “Yes, I suppose I do.” But even with all that she told him, he still wasn’t sure. He had other work to do, yet he was willing to help her track down some guy who might have been a thousand miles away. He was surprised at himself. He’d always been one who went with a sure thing and here he was tracking down a maybe. He supposed, realistically, homicide work was really just a loose collection of maybes that you fit together into a pattern. Yet, there was more involved here than just that. Yes, he wanted to stop Eddy Zero if he was indeed in the city; that was his job. But ever since he’d talked with Soames, there were suddenly too many questions in his mind. And, madman or not, Soames had seemed quite lucid on certain points. There was a hidden agenda here somewhere and Fenn wanted to know what it was.
Lisa said, “If you didn’t want to be here, Mr. Fenn, you wouldn’t be. I imagine you’re a careful man. I’m sure that you weren’t as sold on me and what I said the other day as you acted. But you’ve done some checking since then, and you know I’m not some crusading nut.”
Fenn laughed. “You’re a smart cookie, Doc. I did check you and our boy out.”
“And?”
“And I trust my instincts. You’re okay.”
“Good.”
“One thing, though. Probably none of my business, but why did you leave the prison? I got the impression you liked it there. I talked with your superiors there. Hope you don’t mind. They were impressed with you. Couldn’t say enough good things about you.”
“I needed time for other things. Research, mainly, for a book I was working on.”
“Where are you working now?”
“I’m not. I’m doing research.”
“Listen, I was just curious.”
“So now you know everything.”
She was lying and he knew it, but he wasn’t going to press it. There was a lot more to know about her. Maybe in time she’d be truthful with him. She was just another part of this mysterious puzzle.
“I’m sure it’ll be a good book,” he said.
She smiled and looked out the window.
“This house we’re going to, I take it you’ve been by there already?”
“Yeah. I’ve driven by it, but I didn’t bother going in. It looks like a bad neighborhood. I didn’t want to get out alone.”
Fenn chuckled. “Not too bad by day, but definitely sketchy by night.”
“About what I thought.”
He was watching her out of the corner of his eye as he spoke. Her hair was pulled back tight in a blonde
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