Chico Wolfe at the library

The keyboard has been idling for several minutes. A hyaline reflection of his double chin, fading in and out, on the screen, replicates the displacement of dreary clouds filtered through the skylight of the reading room. Chico Wolfe has been trying to glue together the shards of a recent episode in his life, which involves a lollipop and the hissing at it of a gray cat; but his mind wanders to a photo pervaded with darkness, a puddle of blood mirroring the darkness, and a hat by the puddle, in a book by Harry Benson. It’s barely past noon.