Chapter VIII
Within the Brindled Light
of the Glowing Cat
Awake for twenty-eight hours, Alicia Martinez put her fingertips to the façade placard, dialed her code, entered the building, walked through the brownstone atop which her Brooklyn City skyscraper had been built, reached the lobby that was the original building’s roof, glanced at the white cockatoos in the coop, ascended to floor number seventeen, strode up the hallway, passed the scruffy neighbor who wandered the hall like a nomad, yawned, pressed her fingerprints, dialed her code and transcended the living wall, entering the apartment wherein her family had been murdered before her eyes. There, the widow strode to the living-room window (beyond which glowed two sunlit buildings), closed the curtain, sat, pulled foam rubber boo
