The difference was that Jack knew precisely who was speaking to him before he had blurted out his exclamation. There were few men in the world who were like Dr. Frederick Chilton, which he was certain that Chilton would be rather proud of; for Jack's part, it meant that he had a dislike of the man. Given his involvement with Dr. Abel Gideon, Jack felt that he had a strong case for that. And that excluded Dr. Chilton's posturing, his tendency to speak so confidently that a room would turn toward him.

Now, the capacity to do that was hardly a crime; of course it wasn't. It was more the fact that Jack just didn't like how he did it.

And here he was again, speaking so confidently and flippantly about dolls and necrophilia, and he didn't even seem to recognize who he was speaking to. That, of course, was something that Jack would grant. He doubted a man like Dr. Chilton would meander off into a subject so freely given his audience.

"Yeah, I just got here." There was a pause. "Today." He scrutinized Dr. Chilton's features. He had regrown the facial hair that he lacked at his testimony. Not surprising, exactly, but he wondered about the choice—fleetingly, at least. He also noticed the lack of cane.

"But you seem to have been here long enough to adjust and make such prolonged ... statements about the market," he added, baiting the man a little.