Kerry had insisted on unplugging the phone the past two days and I hadn’t argued with her. A few people had called Eberhardt at the office, including Tom Washburn; Eb had told me that when he stopped by on Tuesday evening. Nothing new on the case, though. Everything on hold, waiting for me to wade into it again, stir it up again.
I plugged the phone back in and called the office. Eberhardt said, “You sound better today. Feel better too?”
“Enough to get out of bed for a while.”
“How’s the eye? Swelling down on it yet?”
“Yeah. I can see out of it all right.”
“Another few days, you’ll be back in harness.”
“Another few days, hell. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“Hey, come on, hero, they cut you up pretty bad-”
“And now it’s my turn to cut somebody up. Don’t argue with me, Eb; I’m in no mood for it. Anything new this morning?”
He sighed. “Washburn came by twenty minutes ago. Dropped off that photograph he found.”
“What’s it of?”
“Alicia Purcell, he says. You want me to bring it over there?”
“When you get a chance. Anything else?”
“Nada. Well, Ben Klein got a lead on the whereabouts of Danny Martinez’s in-laws in Mexico-Cuernavaca, he said. But you know how it is with the Mexican cops. Be days before Ben gets word, even if Martinez is there and they pick him up.”
“No other calls?”
“That’s it.”
“If there’s anything else let me know right away, will you? I’m not unplugging the phone anymore.”
“Will do. Just take it easy, okay? Thing’s will keep for the time being.”
“Sure,” I said. “But I won’t-not much longer.”
I went back into the kitchen and heated up the rest of Kerry’s soup and ate it with a slice of bread. I wasn’t hungry, the food had no taste, and chewing the bread made my face hurt; but I ate it all just the same, for strength. Afterward I moved around for the same reason, shuffling from room to room; I was so damned stiff and sore from the beating and from lying in bed two days that I needed the exercise.
I got tired before long and sat in the living room and tried to think it all through. Still no good. Too quiet in there: I could hear the silence and it made me restless, edgy. I turned on the TV and stared at a movie that I didn’t really see. That made me drowsy, and I went back to bed and slept some more, and when I woke up it was dark outside and Kerry was there. I found her in the living room, curled up on the couch, reading one of my pulps.
“Hey,” she said when she saw me come out in my robe and slippers, “you sure you should be out of bed?”
“I was out for three hours earlier,” I said. “Didn’t do me any harm.”
“How do you feel?”
“Not too bad. I’ll live.”
“Well, you’d better.” She let me have one of her chipper smiles. I didn’t smile back; I did not feel like smiling, even for her. “Want something to eat?” she asked.
“Pretty soon. How long have you been here?”
“Couple of hours. Since five.”
“Eberhardt didn’t come by yet, did he?”
“He did. I wouldn’t let him wake you up.”
“You should have, if he had something to tell me-”
“He didn’t have anything to tell you. He just left you an envelope-a photograph, he said.”
“Where is it?”
“Over there on your desk.”
I went to the desk-an old secretary that I had bought a long time ago, before sixty-year-old Sears, Roebuck junk became “antiques” and quadrupled in value-and opened up the manila envelope that was sitting on it. The photograph was an eight-by-ten color glossy, professionally done. A full-length portrait of Alicia Purcell wearing a slinky black low-cut gown with glittery stuff on it; she had struck a provocative pose and was smiling moistly at the camera. I turned it over to look at the back. And there was an inscription, in green ink, that said: For Leonard. Love, Al.
Things moved around inside my head-but that was all they did; nothing came of the movement. I looked at the photo for a time. Then I said to Kerry, “I want to make a call,” and went back into the bedroom and dialed the number where Tom Washburn was staying.
When I got him on the line I let him tell me how sorry he was about what he called my “ordeal,” and then I said, “I’ve just seen the photo of Alicia Purcell. Where’d you find it?”
“In Leonard’s study. It was tucked away in one of his business files.”
“That’s an odd place, isn’t it?”
“Yes. If she gave it to him, I can’t imagine why.”
“They weren’t close, as far as you know?”
“Well, he seldom spoke of her.”
“When he did, what did he say?”
“He said she was cheap. He couldn’t understand why Kenneth married her.”
“Did he ever call her ‘Al’ instead of ‘Alicia’?”
“No. Never.” Washburn paused. “Perhaps it was Kenneth who gave him the photo, for some reason.”
“Can you think of one?”
“No, I can’t. If only Leonard hadn’t been so private…”
“I’ll find out, Mr. Washburn,” I said. “I should be back on the job in a day or two.”
“So soon? But your partner said you had cracked ribs and a concussion…”
“They’re healing.”
“Aren’t you… I mean, you’re not afraid they’ll try to hurt you again?”
Yes, I thought, I’m afraid. You’re always a little afraid in this business-more than a little when something like Sunday night happens. But you learn to live with it. And right now what I was feeling was a great deal more rage and determination than fear.
I didn’t say any of that to Washburn; it was not the kind of thing I can articulate. I said only, “Don’t worry about that. You hired me to do a job; I intend to finish doing it.”
Kerry wasn’t in the living room when I went out there again. I heard her in the kitchen, bustling around, and I smelled meat frying. It made me hungry-much hungrier than I’d been earlier in the day. I took that as a positive sign. If I could eat with appetite I was capable of putting my pants on and facing the world again.
We had hamburger-“It’s about time you ate some solid food,” she said-and a spinach salad, and I drank a little beer with it. Afterward we sat in the living room and talked about neutral topics. At ten o’clock I chased her out. And when she was gone I was sorry about it, yet relieved at the same time. I wanted to be alone; I didn’t want to be alone. Ambivalence.
Christ, I thought, I need to get out of here.
Tomorrow, I thought. If I can walk in the morning I’m gone.
I went to bed. I was afraid I might have difficulty getting to sleep, because I had done so much sleeping the past three days, but it didn’t happen that way. I put the light out and I went out with it.
Dreams.
Faces, places-the same as before. And some new ones too: Alicia Purcell in the slinky, low-cut black gown, smiling. Danny Martinez’s son Roberto, smiling.
Voices, old and new. “Deadfall so sorry love Al once bitten whosoever toucheth fall how could you…”
All through the night, dreams.
Morning.
A little after seven, by the nightstand clock.
I lay in bed remembering the dreams and the voices, and I knew I was close. Don’t try to force it; it’ll come. I got up, donned my robe, went into the bathroom and had another look at myself.
Not too bad. The swelling was completely gone from my right eye and the lemon-brown discoloration around it had begun to fade; I could see as well as ever, except for a faint blurriness at the far periphery of my vision. Two other bruises were fading even more rapidly. The face might draw some looks, but nobody was going to be startled or frightened by it.
I flexed my body a little, testing my ribs. Still some of that tearing pain; I would have to be careful how I moved. My head didn’t hurt at all, but that might be a false sign. Head wounds, concussions, could be tricky. Still, my mind seemed perfectly clear… clear enough, anyhow.