“I’ll remember every minute here for the rest of my life,” I mumbled, placing my arm over my eyes. “Right now I’ve got a headache and I want some sleep. How much time till midnight?”
“About two hours.”
Maybe I fell asleep. Maybe not. It makes little difference because it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes later that I removed my arm from my face and saw M.C. next to my bed.
“Checking on you,” he said. “Just stay put.”
“Five dollars says I can beat you arm-wrestling,” said Sklodovich. M.C. watched me ease off the bed and said nothing.
“Five dollars if I lose,” Sklodovich went on, going for the money in the closet where he had placed the key. “You don’t have to put up a thing.”
M.C. glanced casually at the five bills that Sklodovich placed on the night table.
“Five dollars cash,” said Sklodovich.
M.C. looked at his watch, walked to the door, and locked it from the inside. A wild, eager flash came into Sklodovich’s eyes as he rushed to the closet and searched for something while I watched with curiosity and M.C. paid no attention, but moved the night table out between the two beds.
Sklodovich found what he was looking for and moved to the table, whistling “Beseme Mucho” and grinning. He had two candles in his hand, the kind you use when a fuse blows, and he quickly lighted them and let a little wax drip from each one so they could be placed firmly at two ends of the table.
Whatever he was doing, it didn’t surprise M.C., who watched the procedure as if it were a ritual viewed daily.
Sklodovich got into position. Seated on his bed, he placed his right elbow on the table between the two burning candles. M.C. did the same, and their hands clapped together and held. Arm perpendicular between the candles, Sklodovich stopped whistling.
“Say ‘go,’ Toby,” he said, shifting his weight slightly.
Protest would have been useless, and besides, I was fascinated.
“Go.”
The smooth, black arm and the orangish-white and hairy arm bulged into taut knots, but neither moved. Sklodovich continued to smile happily while M.C. looked neither bored nor interested. If it weren’t for the expanding cords of muscle under the tight skin, it would have looked like two men exchanging a strange fraternal grip.
The candles flickered, and one seemed about to go out. I felt that if the flame died, I would roll helplessly onto the floor and under the bed. Whatever they had filled me with was hard to shake.
Time passed, maybe a minute, and a few tiny drops of perspiration appeared on Sklodovich’s still happy face, flickering with light from the candles. More time passed, and I thought I heard a sound, a grunt, a sigh from M.C. Still the arms pointed upward. At first I wasn’t sure, so I concentrated intently on a point in space a fraction of an inch behind M.C.’s jagged knuckles. A few seconds later I was sure. M.C.’s hand was moving very slowly toward the candle, giving way a fraction of space each second. I saw the flame shine brightly against the black back of his hand only an inch away from the dancing heat. M.C. closed his eyes, the only facial movement he had made. Then, suddenly, the struggle turned and it was Sklodovich who was giving way. When the quivering arms were again pointing toward the ceiling, Sklodovich closed his eyes for another effort. But he still smiled. The table vibrated as the back of Sklodovich’s hand slowly approached the flame of the second candle. When the hand was no more than paper thickness from the flame, I could see the dark hairs singeing. Sklodovich said nothing, made no sound as he watched the back of his hand dip into the flame.
M.C. released his hand, snuffed out the two candles with his palm, and stood up.
“We’ll have to try that again soon,” said Sklodovich, examining his burnt hand. “I’ll practice. Don’t forget your five dollars.”
M.C. turned to Sklodovich and for the first time since I had met him, M.C. smiled.
Sklodovich returned the smile and put the five dollars in the night table.
CHAPTER 13
I don’t know how much time passed before the door began to open and the hall light cast the shadow of a man on the floor at the foot of our beds. The shadow’s body whispered from the door in Sklodovich’s familiar voice.
“Toby, get up. It’s time.”
He pulled open a package and handed crumpled clothing to me. Sklodovich turned the beam toward me so I could put on the white uniform. When I was dressed, he handed me a stethoscope, which I put around my neck, a pair of shoes, which fit fairly well, and a thin, wrinkled raincoat.
“You look just like a doctor,” Sklodovich said.
“A pass.”
“You know the way you’re supposed to go?” Sklodovich asked. I gave an affirmative nod of my head and repeated the instructions he had given me. “The window will be open. I checked it before I came up.”
“I’m ready,” I said, taking a deep breath and thinking that my freedom was in the hands of an assortment of lunatics.
“Quiet,” Sklodovich whispered, putting finger to lips. “Someone’s in the hall.”
He dived for his bed. The flashlight went out as I crawled quickly under my blanket and closed my eyes. The door opened.
“I know you’re still awake.” It was M.C.’s voice. “Don’t get no ideas. I’m locking this door and I’m going to be right outside of it for the rest of the night.”
Sklodovich got up, pat-patted across the floor, and pulled the obviously startled M.C. into the room. Then darkness. Someone had closed the door. I sat listening to the struggle. There was nothing to hear but the panting of two men. It was like earlier arm-wrestling between the candles without the candlelight, and I strained my eyes in the darkness.
“Light,” Sklodovich whispered seconds later.
I jumped from my bed, searched Sklodovich’s blankets for the flashlight, and turned it on. M.C. and Sklodovich were locked together, teeth clenched, hands clasped overhead, stalemated.
“Go on,” Sklodovich said. “I’ll hold him. But hurry.”
Pride, I assumed, kept M.C. from shouting for help. Given time he would probably overcome the hairy madman, but he wanted to do it himself. How much time would it take? Five minutes, I decided. No longer. Maybe much less.
I wrapped the raincoat tightly around me, got the passkey from the closet, and turned to the door.
“Thanks Ivan,” I said, turning out the flashlight.
“My pleasure,” he grunted. “Now go.”
I stepped into the empty hall and closed the door behind me.
The lights in the hall were dim, and I moved as quickly as I could in the shadow of the walls.
I inched along the wall as I’d seen Lloyd Nolan do in a Mike Shayne movie and looked around the corner where I saw a tired, young nurse at the desk looking at herself in a pocket mirror. It was impossible to get to the room at the end of the hall without being seen by her, and seconds were passing. Then the buzzer rang. In the reflection from the alcove window, I could see her get up and turn her back. With a short gulp, I tiptoed across the open space as fast as I could. The stethoscope almost slipped off my neck. In the safety of the other side of the corridor, I heard the buzzer stop. She had obviously not seen me, but she might now turn to my direction to answer the buzzer call. I ran down the hall to room 421. It had twin, reinforced glass doors, and in the near-total darkness I could make out a long ward room with beds on either side. There was an aisle between the beds, and at the far end I could see another set of double doors. A man was seated at a desk behind those far doors, and behind him was an elevator.
The source of the dim yellow light, which cast a slight and eerie shadow of beds on the wall, came from a desk lamp to the left of the double doors through which I walked. At the desk sat a stocky tree trunk of a man with a flat head, made more flat by his close-cut hair. The white-clad man squinted over his glasses at me as I walked toward him and began to rise, but sat down again.