Frank nodded. “I musta gone haywire, just crazy enough to want you out of the way. Musta figured the only way to get rid of that spike was to use it on you.”
Kerrigan took a deep breath. It was more like a sigh, as though a tremendous weight had been eased off his chest.
Frank said, “You sure as hell choked it outta me.” He grinned weakly and rubbed his throat. “You squeezed just hard enough to loosen that spike. So now it’s out.”
Kerrigan smiled. He put his hand on Frank’s shoulder. Frank grinned at him with a mouth that didn’t twitch and eyes that weren’t glazed.
“I’m all right now,” Frank said. “You see the way it is? I’m really all right now.”
Kerrigan nodded. He gazed past Frank. The smile gradually faded from his lips as he thought of Catherine. And he was saying to himself, You still don’t know who did it.
And then, very slowly, he felt the answer coming.
17
He stood there and told himself he was getting the answer. He knew it had no connection with any man’s face or any man’s name. His eyes were focused through the window facing Vernon Street. He peered out past the murky glass and saw the moonlight reflected on the jutting cobblestones. It was a yellow-green glow drifting across Vernon and forming pools of light in the gutter. He saw it glimmering on the rutted sidewalk and going on and on toward all the dark alleys where countless creatures of the night played hide-and-seek.
And no matter where the weaker ones were hiding, they’d never get away from the Vernon moon. It had them trapped. It had them doomed. Sooner or later they’d be mauled and battered and crushed. They’d learn the hard way that Vernon Street was no place for delicate bodies or timid souls. They were prey, that was all, they were destined for the maw of the ever hungry eater, the Vernon gutter.