In the kitchen, Cassidy tried to clean up the mess of bottles and dishes and stale food. After a while he gave it up, decided he was starving and maybe there was enough in the icebox to help an empty stomach. He warmed some potatoes and buttered a roll, but when he had the food ready on the table, he couldn’t look at it.
Maybe coffee would help. He lit a fire under the percolator and sat down at the table and stared at the floor. He turned his head slowly and gazed out the kitchen window. The rain was letting up and he could hear its weak patter on walls and rooftops. If it rained for an entire month it wouldn’t begin to clean these miserable tenements, he thought. The ugly cobbled streets like a pock-marked face. And the people. The water-front bums. The human ruins. A perfect specimen w
