The day had been too long... too much to it. A guy can't take days like that one and stay on his feet. I let my head fall back and closed my eyes. Marsha sobbed softy as she untied my shoes and slid them off. The aches and pains came back, a muted throbbing at first, taking hold slowly and biting deeper with each pulse beat.
Marsha had my tie off and was unbuttoning my shirt when the knock came. It didn't make any difference any more who it was. I heard her open the door, heard the murmur of voices and the high babble of a child's voice in the background.
"Mike... it's a nurse."
"The superintendent asked me to look in on you," the other voice said.
"I'm all right."
Her voice became very efficient. "I doubt it. Will you watch the child, please? Thank you." Her hand slipped under my arm. "You'll do better lying down."
I couldn't argue with her. She had an answer for everything. Marsha was on the couch still crying, playing with the kid. I got up and went to the bedroom. She had me undressed and in bed before I realized it. The sting of the iodine and the cold compresses on my face jerked me out of immediate sleep and I heard her telling Marsha to call a doctor. It seemed like only seconds before he was there, squeezing with hands that had forgotten how to be gentle, then gone as quickly as he had come. I could hear the two women discussing me quietly, deciding to stay until I had awakened. The kid squealed at something and it was the last thing I heard.
There were only snatches of dreams after that, vague faces that had an odd familiarity and incomprehensible mutterings about things I didn't understand. It took me away from the painful present and threw me into a timeless zone of light and warmth where my body healed itself immediately. It was like being inside a huge beautiful compound where there was no trouble, no misery and no death. All that was outside the transparent walls of the compound where you could see it happen to everyone else without being touched yourself.
They were all there, Decker with his child, listening intently to what Mel Hooker had to say, and Toady Link in the background watching and nodding to make sure he said it right, his boys ready to move in if he said the wrong thing. Lou and Teen were there too, standing over the body of a man who had to be Fallon, their heads turned speculatively toward Toady. A play was going on not far away. Everybody was dressed in Roman togas. Marsha and Pat held the center of the stage with the D.A. and Ellen was standing in the open wings waiting to come on. They turned and made motions to be quiet to the dozens of others behind them... the women. Beautiful women. Lovely women with faces you could recognize. Women whose faces I had seen before in photographs.
When the players moved it was with deliberate slowness so you could watch every move. I stood there in the center of the compound and realized that it was all being done for my benefit without understanding why. It was a scene of impending action the evil of it symbolized by the lone shadow of the vulture wheeling high above in a gray, dismal sky.
I waited and watched, knowing that it had all happened before and was going to happen again and this time I would see every move and understand each individual action. I tried to concentrate on the players until I realized that I wasn't the only audience they had. Someone else was there in the compound with me. She was a woman. She had no face. She was a woman in black hovering behind me. I called to her and received no answer. I tried to walk to her, but she was always the same distance away without seeming to move at all. I ran on leaden feet without getting any closer, and tiring of the chase turned back to the play.
It was over and I had missed it again.
I said something vile to the woman because she had caused me to miss it and she shrank back, disappearing into the mist.
But the play wasn't over, not quite. At first I thought they were taking a curtain call, then I realized that their faces were hideous things and in unreal voices of pure silences they were all screaming for me to stop her and bring her back. Teen and Grindle and Link were slavering in their fury as they tried to break through the transparent wall and were thrown back to the ground. Their faces were contorted and their hands curved into talons. I laughed at them and they stopped, stunned, then withdrew out of sight.
The gray and noiseless compound dissolved into sound and yellow light. I was rocked gently from side to side and a voice said, "Mike... please wake up."
I opened my one eye and the other came open with it a little bit. "Marsha?"
"You were talking in your sleep. Are you awake, Mike?"
She looked tired. The nurse behind her looked tired too. The boy in her arms was smiling at me. "I'm awake, honey." I made a motion for her to pull down the shade. "Same day?"
"No, you slept all through yesterday, all night and most of today."
I rubbed my face. Some of the puffiness had gone down. "Lord. What time is it?"
"Almost four-thirty. Mike... that Captain Chambers is on the phone. Can you answer him?"
"Yeah, I'll get it. Let me get something on."
I struggled into my pants, swearing when I hit a raw spot. I was covered with adhesive tape and iodine, but the agony of moving was only a soreness now. I padded outside and picked up the phone. "Hello..."
"Where've you been, Mike? I told you to call me."
"Oh, shut up. I've been asleep."
"I hope you're awake now. The D.A. found Grindle."
"Good."
"Now he wants you."
"What's it this time, a homicide charge?"
"There's no charge. I explained that away. He wants Teen and he thinks you're pulling a fast one again."
"What's the matter with the guy?"
"Put yourself in his shoes and you'll see. The guy is fighting to hang onto his job."
"Christ, I gave him enough. What does he want... blood? Did he expect me to get Teen the hard way for him?"
"Don't be a jerk, Mike. He doesn't want Teen dead. He doesn't want a simple obit in the papers. He wants Teen in court so he can blow the whole thing wide open before the public. That's the only thing that will keep him in office."
"What happened to tin ear?"
"All the guy had was the telephone number of a booth in Grand Central Station. If he didn't call in every hour it meant there was trouble. We traced the number and there was nobody around. The guy worked through an intermediary who passed the information on to the right people. Both of them got paid off the same way... a bundle of cash by mail on the first of every month."
"I suppose Ed Teen's laughing his head off."
"Not exactly, but he's grinning broadly. We checked his alibi for the night before last and it's perfect. You know and I know that it's phoney as hell, but nobody is breaking it down in court. According to Teen the entire thing is preposterous. He was playing cards with a group of friends right through the night."
"Nuts. His story is as old as his racket. One good session under the lights and he'll talk."
"You don't put him under lights."
"There're other things you can do," I suggested.
"You don't do that either, Mike. Teen's going around under the watchful eye of a battery of lawyers well protected by a gang of licensed strong-arm boys. You try anything smart and it'll be your neck."
"Great. Now what's with the D.A.?"
It was a moment before he said anything. "Mike... are you on the level with me?"
"You know everything I know, Pat. Why?"
"You're going to be tied up with our boy for a long time if you don't get a move on," he said. "And by the way, call Ellen when you have time. She wants to talk to you."
"She there now?"
"No, she left a little while ago. I got something else for you.
The playboy is back."
"Marvin Holmes?"
"Yeah. Customs passed the word on to us but it was too late to stop him. We traced him as far as New York and lost him here. The last lead we had said he was with a foreign-looking blonde and was doing his damnedest to stay under cover."