Chapter 7

Though we've only been back from Red Hawk since May, and had taken a month off in August to visit my desert place, Cecelia had been learning her way around the underside of Albuquerque even before we went to Red Hawk, and in the time we'd been back she'd worked at it. By now she was comfortable going out on Central at night – not only did people down there trust me as much as the criminal element ever trusts anyone in law enforcement, but long before she'd decided to become a PI herself word had somehow gotten around that it wouldn't be wise to mess with her. I don't know where that notion came from, but I've never discouraged it. If people are afraid to mess with me because they fear my wife, I'm not about to tell them that she's not that kind of person. Anyway, with such a fierce reputation she's maybe even safer than I am, and I've never once had someone try to hurt me in those dark alleys unless I was hunting him.

On top of that, she can intimidate with the best of them. Somehow her elegance and her fancy English don't gain laughs, but respect from the riffraff of the city. Maybe it's because she's so genuine with it, not trying to impress anyone but using all those fancy words because she really loves 'em, but whatever it is, when she forks out the fancy language at someone, he may not understand her, but I've see people do everything but bow and scrape to try to appease her.

So I had no qualms about taking her down to Central that night in the Blazer, which everyone knows and leaves alone, just as they used to leave my battered 60-something Chevy pickup alone. I knew that no one would try to hurt her, especially not since she would be talking specifically to homeless people in order to try and find out who was killing them – and if someone did lift a hand against her, she could deal with the situation.

I did make one decision when we got out of the Blazer. "Take your gun," I said, and reached under the driver's seat to pull mine, holster and all, out of the clip I've installed there. "Prob'ly we won't need 'em, but given who we're huntin', it can't hurt none."

She nodded – I could see her head move in the light from the pole overhead; I've disconnected the door switches, an old cop trick, so that the dome light doesn't come on when we get in or out of the vehicle. "I understand. It is unlikely that the creature we pursue will tackle us, since we are not the sort of target he attacks, but – to quote you – it's better to be too careful than not careful enough."

"Exactly." I've said that umpteen times over the years we've been married, and Cecelia doesn't forget things.

"I just hope," Cecelia went on, and her teeth shone against her dark skin as she smiled, "that I have no need for a fast draw; not only is that your specialty, but under this jacket my gun will not be accessible instanter."

"You sound like a Brit," I said, and closed my door. Cecelia came around the hood, stepping up onto the sidewalk. Her feet were clomping again – she'd changed clothes, to a pair of black jeans and a lavender blouse, with a hip length leather jacket over that and a pair of engineer boots on her feet. She'd gotten the boots while we were in Alabama back in the spring, just taking a notion as I put it. The jacket was brown, looking sort of like a mountain man's outfit, with fringes on the sleeves and across the front. Just a description sounds outlandish, but on her it looked – as all her clothes always look – elegant and wonderful.

"Occasionally British English has useful words and constructions," she said. "But I am not aware that the adjective I employed is specifically British."

"I'm sure it ain't," I told her, "but it sounds thataway."

"Whereas your nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, articles – indeed, every word you utter – sound, from their want of proper pronunciation and employment, like someone from the furthest unelectrified reaches of Appalachia. You lack only the accent to believably sound like a hillbilly."

"Gimme some time up in the hollers, an' I'll be able to imitate the accent too."

"I believe it; I have heard you utilize an Oklahoma accent so perfectly that natives believed you to be one of them."

"But I'm from California, an' like it thataway."

I'd parked a bit off of Central, where the traffic wasn't so bad and we could get in and out with minimum fuss. We'd now walked up to Central, just west of the intersection with Carlisle. "We ain't likely to find a whole ton o' street people on this stretch," I said, "but we gotta start somewheres. Why don't you head off thataway," I said, pointing west, "an' I'll head down here. I'll turn back when I get to San Mateo, an' you can turn around when you hit University."