I gave thought to Spider Kern after that. Not very productive thought. There was nothing loose in the ward that could be used as a weapon. All the furniture was tubular aluminum. Even a leg wrenched from a chair would be too fight for my purpose. I'd get only one chance if I went after Kern. I couldn't afford a mistake.
So day after day I sat in my rocker and stared out over the hospital grounds. Not even rocking. Just waiting. I never doubted that I'd find a way. I'd been in tougher places. I waited, and meantime I toughed it out each time Spider Kern came down the ward to my chair.
Nothing lasts forever, I kept reminding myself.
Least of all Spider Kern.
Willie Turnbull was back on the ward in three weeks. His head was wrapped like a mummy's, and his right arm was elevated above his head with the flesh of his inner arm pressed against his cheek. For three-quarters of each hour he had to he down on his bed to keep the blood circulating in his arm. The other fifteen minutes he would prowl the ward restlessly until the upstretched arm started getting numb again. His meals were liquids taken through a tube. The only way he could sleep was under sedation.
Dr. Afzul came to see him every day. Twice a week he worked on Willie's arm and face without ever fully removing the facial bandages. "It isss coming," he said each time to Willie. "Don't get dissscouraged." Willie had become very discouraged. "You will find that it will all be worth it."
Once a week the slender little doctor would knock Willie out with a needle, loosen the bandages, and treat him for half an hour with a thin-looking liquid in an aerosol spray can. Then Dr. Afzul would wait for another half hour before he rebandaged Willie. During the interval Dr. Afzul would roam the ward, talking to the other inmates. "How do you feel today, sssir?" he would ask me, stopping in front of my chair. I would wait for a count of five, then nod my head slowly.
At first Spider Kern accompanied Dr. Afzul as he toured the ward, but as time went on even Kern became adjusted to the little doctor's continued presence in what Kern considered to be his own private domain. Occasionally the doctor would sit down with a magazine while he was waiting. He never looked at anything except the advertisements for cars, footwear, and men's clothing and jewelry.
He came into the ward one day with two young doctors. The three of them set up a portable tent around Willie Turnbull's bed, and they all disappeared inside it. Most of the men on the ward drifted in that direction for what they sensed was to be the unveiling. "What does it look like, Doc?" we heard Willie ask impatiently several times.
"Soon you will see for yourssself," Dr. Afzul assured him each time.
It must have been two hours before the doctors emerged from the tent. All three were smiling. Willie Turnbull followed them. His head was no longer mummified and his arm was at his side again although still bandaged. The lumpy, purplish growth on the right side of Willie's face was gone. In its place was a shiny, reddish, taut-looking sheath of flesh that didn't look too much like skin.
"The color will fade," Dr Afzul said calmly, correctly interpreting the doubtful expressions on the faces of his audience.
"And it will blend," one of the young doctors confirmed.
"It will never match exactly the other ssside of your face, Willie," Dr. Afzul said. "But we will show you how to use cosssmetics so that few can tell the difference."
The third doctor shook hands ceremoniously with Dr. Afzul. "As fine a job as I've ever seen, Doctor."
Willie didn't sound nearly as certain when he voiced his own thanks.
From the time Willie walked out of the ward until the unveiling, the process had taken about twelve weeks. In another month the lobster-red coloring had faded to a dull pink and the shininess had begun to disappear. Every third day Dr. Afzul would come onto the ward and cover the new side of Willie's face with his liquid spray, wait for an hour, then do it again.
I had watched the program with more than an academic interest. What I had just seen accomplished was what I most needed myself. I waited until Dr. Afzul sat down near me with a magazine one day while his liquid concoction "set" on Willie's face. "How long would it take you to fix me a new face, Doc?" I said in a normal tone but without looking at Dr. Afzul.
"That isss hard to-" he began, then turned from his magazine to look at me. I was staring straight ahead as usual. The doctor glanced about the ward. Spider Kern was at its far end, out of earshot. Dr. Afzul lowered his voice before he spoke again. "I have not heard you ssspeak before."
"I want to talk to you, but not here."
He was looking at his magazine again. "I have my share of curiosssity. I will have you brought to my office tomorrow."
"Fine."
Neither of us said anything more.
After Dr. Afzul left the ward that afternoon, I experienced another break in my usual monotonous routine. Colonel Sam Glencoe of the state police came to see me. He'd come three times before, and each time I'd let him see a slight improvement in my supposed catatonic condition. Another man was with him this time, not in uniform. He looked like F.B.I.
They drew up chairs and sat down, one on either side of me. The first time Glencoe showed up, Spider Kern had tried to horn in on the interview. Glencoe sent him packing with a single hard look.
I knew it was still bugging Glencoe that he couldn't get a line on Chet Arnold. It probably bugged him almost as much that after talking to Hudsonites like Jed Raymond and Hazel Andrews, he didn't hear much that was wrong with Chet Arnold. Chet had arrived in Hudson as a stranger with a tool kit and a trade. A year in a lumber camp had made me a tree surgeon when I wanted to be. That and a crack shot.
I came to Hudson to try to find out what had happened to my partner, Bunny, who had gone there with the loot from a bank job in Phoenix. While looking for him, I did a little tree work and blended with the local citizenry. As I gradually uncovered the slimy trail of Blaze Franklin and his girl friend, Lucille Grimes, I developed an affair with Hazel that was the finest man-woman relationship I'd ever had. Then the roof had fallen in.
The unexplained explosion had baffled the sheriff's department, too, but they'd given up a lot more easily. Colonel Sam Glencoe wasn't naive enough to believe that a man of Chet Arnold's locally demonstrated dimensions had sprung full-blown from the earth, though. With no fingerprints possible, and me out to lunch mentally, as Glencoe thought, the colonel was frustrated.
"How are you feeling today?" he began.
I waited for a count of three instead of five. "Good."
His hard blue eyes inspected me. "What day is it?"
I waited again. "Tuesday."
"What month?"
"March."
"What date?"
I shook my head negatively.
Glencoe smiled, although it wasn't much of a smile. His frosty-looking features merely rearranged themselves in a different pattern. "If you'd known the answer to that, I'd have accused you of seeing me coming and boning up. There's plenty of days I don't know the date myself."
It was a surprise to me that he would even attempt a smile. He certainly hadn't on his previous trips. He'd sat and fired hard-voiced questions to which I'd supplied no answers while staring straight ahead. This time Glencoe was apparently ready to try sugar instead of vinegar. It suited me fine. Up to a point, I was ready to show progress.
"You've never told us anything about yourself, Arnold," Glencoe continued. "Now that you're communicating better, I want to ask again about your background. Where you're from originally, what you do for a living, how you happened to be in Hudson, what triggered the events there… quite a few questions. Where would you like to begin?"