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courier’s strange behavior.
    Then, like some freakish hunting dog, the creature froze, its muzzle pointing directly at the felled bird. It began to hiss.
    Eli moved alongside the courier, studying the face in the photograph. Although the creature had not singled out the largest picture of this particular angel, it had certainly chosen the most identifiable. Her face was almost square with the lens, and, in stark contrast with her other pictures, her suffering was absent. In this one she wore an expression of hopeless resignation, when he had captured the very moment the muscles in her face had finally tired of all the contorting, all the grimacing and clenching, and had slackened to the consistency of sun-warmed tar. Behind her eyes, it looked as if her soul were staring sorrowfully back at him—grievous not over its fate, but for his own.
    Fuck you and your pity , he thought.
    She’d definitely been his prettiest.
    Many years had passed, but he’d not forgotten her name.
    “Katherine Bently,” he whispered. She’d been his second angel.
    Now, why would the courier suddenly become obsessed with a photograph of a girl long dead? he wondered.
    Then the most alarming thought struck him.
    His right fist shot out violently, punching the creature across the side of its snout. “Just what the fuck are you trying to tell me?”
    Cocking its head, the creature considered Eli with an expression that was nearly human; a look that said: Do that again, chum, and I’ll take it off at the elbow . Then it began to slowly, demonstratively, flap its wings.
    With avaricious eyes, Eli critiqued the display. Then: “She’s back ?”
    The creature turned its muzzle back to the photograph and growled in the affirmative.
    “Where?” Eli demanded.
    Using the blood engendered by Eli’s right hook, the creature leaned forward and, with a long, thin tongue, licked two crimson letters upon the face of the angel: L A
     

3.
     
    “Hemorrhoids?” Duncan McNeil said, maintaining his composure. He removed his gray corduroy jacket, hung it on the brass coat tree standing beside the kitchen doorway, then loosened the knot in his tie.
    Wednesday was his shortest day of the academic week, his last class usually extending no farther into the afternoon than one o’clock. Today’s had ended mercifully at noon. He had seen to it. He liked teaching Criminal Justice, but it never failed to bring back memories, some good, some bad.
    Today’s had been bad, one of his Reliving days. And The Wounds were still throbbing.
    The kitchen smelled strongly of sauerkraut, behind which his nose espied the presence of Kielbasa sausage. He shook his head.He hated that dish, but what infuriated him was that Juanita Santiago, the maid from hell, knew it, too, but kept on stuffing it into the oven anyway.
    This, of course, was just one of her many and none-too-subtle ways of telling him that she was in charge.
    Puta loco.
    If it wasn’t for the close relationship Juanita shared with his daughter Amy, he would have long ago Federal-Expressed the wench back to Tampico, Juarez, or whatever impoverished Mexican borough she was from.
    He turned to his wife. “Hemorrhoids?” he said again, his poise quickly losing altitude.
    “It’s a job,” Rachel said, absolving herself.
    Duncan scratched his nose, as if that might stunt the grin forming below it. “Yeah, but…a hemorrhoid commercial?”
    “Look, Dunc,” she said defensively, “everyone’s gotta start out somewhere.”
    Duncan lifted his shoulders. “Why not toilet paper, tampons, stuff for yeast infections? Hell, I can even see you pushing Midol. The afflicted housewife. God knows that would be a challenging role,” he clucked. “But, geez, hon— hemorrhoids ?” Then, in a pleading tone: “Tell me they’re just going to dub in your voice, use only your hands to hold the—”
    “Full frontal nudity,” she declared.
    He moaned. “Cable or Network?”
    “Both. Networks don’t make commercials