“In the meantime, he’s got a fever of a hundred and two.”
“That’s from the swollen leg. The leg’s all infected, you know.”
“Psoriasis,” the first nurse said, “that’s what it is,” and the doors opened. Both nurses stepped out. The doors closed again. The elevator was silent. He looked at his watch. It was five minutes to eight. The elevator stopped again at the fourth floor, and again at the fifth. On the seventh floor, he got off the elevator with the nurse who had earlier reached for the same button. He hesitated in the corridor for a moment. There was a wide-open area directly in front of the elevators. Beyond that was a large room with a bank of windows, the sun-room, he supposed. To the right and left of the elevators were glass doors leading to the patients’ rooms beyond. A nurse sat at a desk some three feet before the doors on the left. He walked swiftly to the desk and said, “Which way is seven-twenty?”
The nurse barely looked up. “Straight through,” she said. “You’ve only got a few minutes.”
“Yes, I know, thanks,” he said, and pushed open the glass door. The room just inside the partition was 700, and the one beyond that was 702, so he assumed 720 was somewhere at the end of the hall. He looked at his watch. It was almost eight o’clock. He hastily scanned the doors in the corridor, walking rapidly, finding the one marked “Men” halfway down the hall. Pushing open the door, he walked immediately to one of the stalls, entered it, and locked it behind him. In less than a minute, he heard a loudspeaker announcing that visiting hours were now over. He smiled, lowered the toilet seat, sat, lighted a cigarette, and began his long wait.
He did not come out of the men’s room until midnight. By that time, he had listened to a variety of patients and doctors as they discussed the endless variety of ills and ailments, both subjectively and objectively. He listened to each of them quietly and with some amusement because they helped to pass the time. He had reasoned that he could not make his move until the hospital turned out the lights in all the rooms. He didn’t know what time taps was in this crumby place, but he supposed it would be around ten or ten-thirty. He had decided to wait until midnight, just to be sure. He figured that all of the visiting doctors would be gone by that time, and so he knew he had to be careful when he came out into the corridor. He didn’t want anyone to stop him or even to see him on the way to Cindy’s room.
It was a shame he would have to kill the little bitch.
She could have really been something.
There was a guy who came back to pee a total of seventeen times between eight o’clock and midnight. He knew because the guy was evidently having some kind of kidney trouble, and every time he came into the John he would walk over to the urinals — the sound of his shuffling slippers carrying into the locked stall — and then he would begin cursing out loud while he peed, “Oh, you son of a bitch! Oh, what did I do to deserve such pain and misery?” and like that. One time, while he was peeing, some other guy yelled out from the stall alongside, “For God’s sake, Mandel, keep your sickness to yourself.”
And then the guy standing at the urinals had yelled back, “It should happen to you, Liebowitz! It should rot, and fall off of you, and be washed down the drain into the river, may God hear my plea!”
He had almost burst out laughing, but instead he lighted another cigarette and looked at his watch again, and wondered what time they’d be putting all these sick jerks to bed, and wondered what Cindy would be wearing. He could still remember her undressing that night he’d beat her up, the quick flash of her nudity — he stopped his thoughts, he could not think that way. He had to kill her tonight, there was no sense thinking about — and yet maybe while he was doing it, maybe it would be like last time, maybe with her belly smooth and hard beneath him, maybe like last time maybe he could.
The men’s room was silent at midnight.
He unlocked the stall and came out into the room and then walked past the sinks to the door and opened it just a bit and looked out into the corridor. The floors were some kind of hard polished asphalt tile, and you could hear the clicking of high heels on it for a mile, which was good. He listened as a nurse went swiftly down the corridor, her heels clicking away, and then he listened until everything was quiet again. Quickly, he stepped out into the hall. He began walking toward the end of the corridor, the steadily mounting door numbers flashing by on left and right, 709, 710, 711 … 714, 715, 716…
He was passing the door to room 717 on his left, when it opened and a nurse stepped into the corridor. He was too startled to speak at first. He stopped dead, breathless, debating whether he should hit her. And then, from somewhere, he heard a voice saying, “Good evening, Nurse,” and he hardly recognized the voice as his own because it sounded so cultured and pleasant and matter-of-fact. The nurse looked at him for just a moment longer, and then smiled and said, “Good evening, Doctor,” and continued walking down the corridor. He did not turn to look back at her. He continued walking until he came to room 720. Hoping it was a private room, he opened the door, stepped inside quickly, closed the door immediately, and leaned against it, listening. He could hear nothing in the corridor outside. Satisfied, he turned into the room.
The only light in the room came from the windows at the far end, just beyond the bed. He could see the silhouette of her body beneath the blankets, the curved hip limned by the dim light coming from the window. The blanket was pulled high over her shoulders and the back of her neck, but he could see the short blond hair illuminated by the dim glow of moonlight from the windows. He was getting excited again, the way he had that night he beat her up. He reminded himself why he was here — this girl could send him to the electric chair. If Fairchild died, this girl was all they needed to convict him. He took a deep breath and moved toward the bed.
In the near darkness, he reached for her throat, seized it between his huge hands, and then whispered, “Cindy,” because he wanted her to be awake and looking straight up into his face when he crushed the life out of her. His hands tightened.
She sat erect suddenly. Two fists flew up between his own hands, up and outward, breaking the grip. His eyes opened wide.
“Surprise!” Bert Kling said, and punched him in the mouth.
“Why’d you beat her up?” Kling asked.
“I didn’t beat up nobody,” Cookie said. “I love that girl.”
“You what?”
“I love her, you deaf? I loved her from the first minute I ever seen her.”
“When was that?”
“The end of the summer. August. It was on the Stem. I just made a collection in a candy store on the corner there, and I was passing this Pokerino place in the middle of the block, and I thought maybe I’d stop in, kill some time, you know? The guy outside was giving his spiel, and I was standing there listening to him, so many games for a quarter, or whatever the hell it was. I looked in and there was this girl in a dark green dress, leaning over one of the tables and rolling the balls, I think she had something like three queens, I’m not sure.”
“All right, what happened then?”
“I went in.”
“Go ahead.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to know why you beat her up.”
“I didn’t beat her up, I told you that!”
“Who’d you think was in that bed tonight, you son of a bitch?”
“I didn’t know who was in it. Leave me alone. You got nothing on me, you think I’m some snot-nosed kid?”
“Yeah, I think you’re some snot-nosed kid,” Kling said. “What happened that first night you saw her?”