“Look. I sat at Willsson’s table tonight and played them like you’d play trout, and got just as much fun out of it. I looked at Noonan and knew he hadn’t a chance in a thousand of living another day because of what I had done to him, and I laughed, and felt warm and happy inside. That’s not me. I’ve got hard skin all over what’s left of my soul, and after twenty years of messing around with crime I can look at any sort of a murder without seeing anything in it but my bread and butter, the day’s work. But this getting a rear out of planning deaths is not natural to me. It’s what this place has done to me.”

She smiled too softly and spoke too indulgently:

“You exaggerate so, honey. They deserve all they get. I wish you wouldn’t look like that. You make me feel creepy.”

I grinned, picked up the glasses, and went out to the kitchen for more gin. When I came back she frowned at me over anxious dark eyes and asked:

“Now what did you bring the ice pick in for?”