"Absolutely. Got to be a good daddy. When my little ox starts school, HI be involved too. Meanwhile, what do you want me to do with Cohen?"

"He's turning out to be a decent interviewer. Show him the ropes. If you think he's up to it, give him a go at some of your lowlifes." Daniel paused. "Of course, if you need to send him on errands, that's okay too."

There was a longer pause; then the Chinaman laughed, 'Long errands? Clear across town?"

"Long errands are fine. He's confident of his energy." More laughter.

"But if his energy runs out," said the Chinaman, "you wouldn't want me breaking his ass, nice kid like that. Forcing him to work a full shift if his frail little body just can't keep up.'

"Never," said Daniel. "The current memo from Manpower says we must respect our officers. Treat them as if they were human beings.'

'As if" laughed the Chinaman. "Which means if he sneezes or blows his nose I should be careful not to overwork him, maybe even send him home for beddy-bye. We wouldn't want little Avi to catch a fever."

'God forbid.'

'God forbid," laughed the Chinaman. "God forbid."

The cat had been a big step forward, real science.

He was twelve when it happened, well into sex thoughts, two years into heavy-duty jacking-off, the hair starting to grow out of his face, but no pimples like some of the other kids-he had good skin, clean.

Twelve brought the noise in his head: sometimes just a hum, other times a race-car roar. All that bad machinery-he wondered how it got in there.

When he jacked off it went away, especially when the sex thoughts got all combined with good pictures: blood; his bug experiments; her on Doctor's lap, them screaming at each other, killing each other, but doing it.

He imagined doing it to a girl on his lap-squeezing her eggs, hurting her, finishing her off, making everything clean. No girl in particular, lots of them. He invented them from different pieces of different girls-pictures in his head collected from magazines and movies and real girls that he saw on the street. All kinds, but the best ones were dark and short, like Sarah. Big tits and pretty mouths that screamed really good.

Sarah had big tits now.

She was in college, had come visiting last semester break, but with a boyfriend, some lame-o named Robert who was studying to be a lawyer and liked to hear himself talk. They slept in separate rooms. He knew why, had heard his ' mother screaming at Doctor that she wasn't going to have any hook-nosed little slut fornicating in her house. But sometimes at night or early in the morning, Sarah got up and went to Robert's room.

Now there was something else to listen to.

When Sarah visited, Doctor took her out every night.

The fights in the library were postponed. When she left, they continued even worse-only once in a while. Doctor wasn't home much. Which made them kind of special.

At twelve he'd gotten smarter, even though his grades were still the same. He understood more about life, could figure out some of the things that had mixed him up when he was a kid. Like what his mother and Doctor were doing when she climbed into his lap after they fought, stabbing herself and bouncing around, screaming and calling him a fucking kike bastard.

What.

But not why.

The library fights gave him a giant hard-on. He carried tissues in the pocket of his robe.

They were both lame fucks. He hated them, wished they'd the while they were doing it and leave him the house and all the money. He'd buy lots of good stuff, fire the maids and hire pretty girls with dark hair to be his slaves.

She was always drunk now, every minute of the day.

Tripping over her own feet when she got out of bed. The whole room stank of gin and bad breath. And she'd gotten all puffy and fat and dark around the eyes; her hair looked like dry straw. She was really had-out.

Doctor didn't give a shit about anything. He'd stopped pretending. Once in a while they ran into each other in the morning-he'd be waiting near the curb for the school bus and Doctor would drive up in his big soft car, coming home to pick up a change of clothes or something. He'd get out of the car. looking all embarrassed, say hello, stare at a bush or a tree or something, then walk on, not even bothering anymore with his bullshit questions about how school had been, was he making friends.

Hello, son

Hello

Lame fuck

Both of them

She was a total zero, when she called for him now, he didn't answer, just let her keep calling until she gave up. He was twelve, with hair, didn't have to take any of her shit, her breath and tits hanging out. She was too had-out to come after him, could barely keep her eyes open. He did what he wanted, probably had more freedom than any kid in the world. More than anyone. Except the cat.

Usually it stayed up in the ice palace, eating human food and getting stroked and running its little pink tongue around the inside of the gin glass. Getting drunk and falling asleep on the big satin bed.

Snowball. C'mere, sweetie.

The only thing she bothered to take care of, washing and shampooing and combing out fleas with this little metal comb, then pinching them between her fingers and dropping them into a glass of liquid bleach. Once she asked him to empty the glass. He spilled it on the bathroom floor, let the fleas stay there on the tiles, little black freckles-he would have liked to see them on her face.

After grooming sessions, the cat got special treats: these crackers that came from an expensive store and were made by a cat chef. The fish ones looked like fish, the beef ones like little cows; the chicken ones were the head of a chicken. She broke off little pieces, teased the cat with them while she blow-dried its fur and rubbed oil into it, put little pink ribbons on its stupid head.

A boy cat, but they'd cut its balls off. Now it wore pink ribbons.

A real faggy cat, fat and nasty. It lay on the bed all day, too drunk to walk, peed wherever it wanted to.

But one night it walked.

A special night: They were going at it in the library.

He was listening on the stairs, not sure if they were going to do it afterward, not sure if he was going to jack off to reality or to thoughts, but prepared, wearing his bathrobe, with tissues in the pockets.