Saint Peter’s Wolf by Michael Cadnum Page B

price.”
    â€œI’m still doing some work on their more recent history. Let me tell you the price when I find out more about them.”
    â€œYou’re skeptical, but cautious.”
    He waved my comment aside. “I don’t believe in ghosts. It’s all so much chatter, to frighten children.”
    â€œBut you wanted to warn me.”
    â€œI’m a normal man. I have a conscience. I don’t want to feel terrible if something happens to you.”
    I felt that I was hiding something from this honorable man. Hiding my dream. Hiding my love for the fangs. But hiding something else, too, as though I did not deserve to be in his presence.
    So that when I left I felt that I was lying when I said, “I’m sure everything will be fine.”
    It was late afternoon when I reached my home. I put the key into the lock of the front door, and there was a step behind me.
    The very rasp of the step froze me. “Dr. Byrd,” said a deep voice. “I need very much to speak with you.”
    I nearly laughed at the strength of my reaction to the sound of this voice. It was a gentle, solemn voice, not at all unpleasant. But I could think only: don’t turn around. Don’t talk to him.
    Don’t let him in.

Thirteen
    Karl Gneiss was large, broad-shouldered, and bald in the way that makes certain men look powerful. He was an older man, but his age was hard to guess. He was dressed in a cream linen suit, with a raincoat over one arm. He tossed the raincoat onto a chair in my study, and gazed around with his hands on his hips.
    There was a companion with him, a man so like a shadow he was easy to overlook. This other man was younger, a thin figure with blond hair. He said nothing, a man willing himself invisible. His dark blue suit completed the impression: this man could follow me for weeks and go unnoticed. Gneiss himself seemed to forget his companion, and introduced him without looking his way. “Stowe,” Gneiss said. “With an e .”
    Stowe’s hand was dry, his face pale, his smile handsome except that it wasn’t really a smile. One corner of his mouth lifted showing white teeth.
    â€œStowe sees what I miss,” said Gneiss.
    â€œHow convenient for you.” I said.
    Stowe himself said nothing, and faded into the furniture.
    Gneiss gave a quiet whistle at the sight of a Degas pencil-and-cardboard. He declined a drink, and an offer of tea or coffee. He sat with every sign of affable curiosity at the art, at the kilim carpet on the opposite wall, asking friendly questions about this charcoal, about that ceramic, until he at last leaned forward and said, “I startled you.”
    I had settled in my chair, and found myself wanting to turn away from his gray eyes.
    He continued, “Just then on the front porch. You were startled.”
    â€œI was, a little. I knew you would pay me a visit, but I supposed you’d make an appointment and.…”
    I was hoping he would finish my thought for me, but he smiled and said, “There’s a good deal of crime around. I shouldn’t have frightened you.”
    â€œHow can I help you?”
    â€œI heard you had a good sense of things. I imagined you to be a canny individual. The police rave about you. I was simply going to ask you to keep your ear to the ground over the next few months.”
    â€œA psychologist has a duty to his clients before he has one to any.…” I searched briefly for the word, and when I found it did not like saying it. “Police.”
    He lifted a hand. He knew all that. “I am harmless. I investigate unusual crimes, and unusual phenomena generally. I am out of the FBI, but there’s a high deniability factor here. They won’t admit it if anything happens to me, but on the other hand if there is some astounding success, they will naturally want the credit.”
    We shared a smile at bureaucratic deceit, but I clasped my hands and thought: this man is