Nightwork

When Fabian was wheeled out on the operating table he looked calm and peaceful. The doctor, in his green smock and mouth-mask, now hanging at his throat, looked grave as

he pulled off his rubber gloves. 'It's not so goods' he said to me. 'We'll know better in twenty-four hours.'

'Twenty-four hours,' I said dully.

'He's a good friend of yours?' the doctor said.

'A very good friend.'

'Where did he get that long scar on his chest and abdomen?'

'Scar? I never saw a scar," I blinked. 'I guess I never saw him except with his clothes on.'

'It must have been something fierce,' the doctor said. 'It looks like shrapnel. Was he wounded in the war?' The doctor , was young, too, no more than thirty-two or thirty-three, and I wondered, briefly, what he knew about wars.

'Yes,' I said, 'he was in a war. He never told me he was wounded though.'

'Live and learn,' the doctor said briskly. 'Good night.'

When I went out of the hospital, there was a flash in my eyes and I cringed. But it was only a photographer, taking my picture. Wait until tomorrow, friend, I thought, when they get dear old Priscilla Dean down to the police station. There'll be some pictures to be taken then.

I drove home slowly, the road blurring uncertainly before me. Evelyn was waiting up for me and we each had a Scotch as we sat in the kitchen and I told her the whole story of the evening. When I finished, she bit her lips and said, 'That miserable woman. I could strangle her with my bare hands.'

25

In the morning, the story was in the Long Island papers, with my picture. And, of course, Priscilla's. Before I went to the police station, I called the hospital and was told Fabian was resting comfortably. I probably could come and visit him for a few minutes later in the morning. Priscilla got to the police station just ahead of me, with uniformed escort. There must have been ten photographers waiting for us. Inside, we both identified the two men, although how Priscilla could have seen what they looked like in the darkened car with all her screaming and thrashing around was beyond me. They had both confessed anyway, so the identification was really a formality.

The two men looked harmless in the light of day. They weren't men, really. Neither of them could have been much more than eighteen, scrawny and frightened, with bad adolescent complexions and fake-tough mouths that quivered when the cops addressed them. Punk kids, my policeman friend called them contemptuously. It was difficult to believe that just a few hours before they had shot a man and had tried to kill me and I had tried to kill them.

When I left the building, the photographers tried to get me to pose with Priscilla, but I just kept on walking. I had had enough of Priscilla Dean.

* * *

I talked to the doctor before I went in to see Fabian. The doctor was optimistic. 'He came out of the operation much better than I thought he would. I think he'll be around for a while.'

Fabian was lying flat in the neatly made bed, with tubes leading into his arm and somewhere in his chest under the covers. The room was sunny and there was the smell of newly cut grass through the open window. He smiled wanly as I came in and raised his hand in greeting.

'I just talked to the doctor,' I said as I drew up a chair next to the bed, 'and he says you're going to be all right.'

'I'm glad to hear that.' His voice was frail. 'Imagine dying to save the honor of Priscilla Dean.' He laughed faintly. 'What we should have done was introduce her to those two boys.' He laughed again, a little rasping noise. "They could have gone off to Quogue together and had themselves a hell of a night.'

Tell me. Miles,' I said, 'what possessed you to go for that goddamn gun?'

He shook his head gently on the pillow. 'Who knows? Instinct? My better judgment blunted by drink? Maybe it was just a little bit of old Lowell, Massachusetts, sticking out.'

'I guess that's as good an explanation as any,' I said. 'While we're on the subject, the doctor says you have a great big scar on your abdomen and chest. Where did you get that?' 'A souvenir of a previous engagement,' he said. 'I'd prefer not to talk about it right now, if you don't mind. Could you do me a favor?'

'Of course.'

'Will you call Lily and ask her if she could possibly come over for a few days? I think old Lily would do me a lot of good.'

'I'll call her today,' I said.

'That's a good fellow.' He sighed. 'That was a nice evening, last night. All those polite people. You ought to cable Quinn and congratulate him.'

'Evelyn is doing it this morning,' I said.

'Thoughtful woman. She looked beautiful last night.' I started to get up. 'Don't go quite yet,' he said. 'I believe there's a pad and a pen in that drawer. Will you give it to me, please?'

I opened the drawer and gave him the pad and the pen. He wrote slowly and with difficulty. He tore the top sheet off the pad and gave it to me. "There's no telling what's going to happen, Douglas,' he said, 'so I...' He stopped, as though he was having difficulty choosing his words. 'That note you have in your hand is to the private bank in Zurich. I have an account of my own there, as well as our joint one. The number's on there. And my signature. What I'm trying to tell you is that from time to time I ... I. well - siphoned off a not inconsiderable sum. To put it plainly, Douglas, I was cheating you. That note will restore the money to you.'

'Oh, Christ,' I said.

‘I warned you in the beginning,' he said, 'I was not running as an admirable man.' I patted his head gently. 'It's only money, friend,' I said.

'The ride was worth it.'

There were tears in his eyes. 'Only money,' he said. Then he laughed. 'I was just thinking - it was a lucky thing I got shot. Otherwise nobody would have believed that it was anything but a publicity stunt to promote Priscilla Dean.'

The nurse came in and looked at me sternly, so I got up to go. 'Don't neglect the shop,' Fabian said as I left the room.

* * *

Lily arrived the next afternoon. I met her at Kennedy to drive her out to the hospital. She was handsomely dressed for traveling, in the same brown coat I remembered from Florence. She was composed and quiet as we sped east down the highway. But she smoked cigarette after cigarette. I had to stop at a diner to get her two fresh packs. I had told her that the doctor believed that there was a good chance that Fabian would pull through. She had merely nodded.

"The doctor also said' - I broke the silence as we passed Riverhead - 'that Miles has an enormous scar running down his chest and abdomen. He said it looked like shrapnel. Do you know anything about that? I asked Miles, but he said he preferred not to talk about it.'

'I saw it, of course,' Lily said. 'The first time we went to bed together. He seemed almost ashamed of it. As though it somehow lessened him. He's vain about his body, you know. That's why he'd never go swimming and always wore a shirt and tie. I didn't press him about it, but after a while he told me. He was a fighter pilot - I suppose he told you that…'

'No,' I said.

She smiled gently through the cigarette smoke. 'He's a great one for selective information to selected people, our Miles. Well, he was a pilot. He must have been a very good one. I found out from older American friends of mine who had known him that he had almost every medal a grateful government could hand out.' Her mouth twisted ironically. 'In the winter of nineteen forty-four, he was sent on a mission over France. It was a ridiculous, hopeless mission in impossible weather, be told me. I wouldn't know anything about that, of course, but on something like that I tend to believe him. He said his wing commander was a stupid, murderous glory hunter. I'm not up on wars, but I have some idea what that means. Anyway, he and his best friend were shot down over the Pas de Calais. His friend was killed.