The sound of him landing on his ass was music. There was still an orange neon glow on his face, but bright red mingled there as well. I must’ve broke his fucking nose. I went to kick him in the balls and he grabbed my foot and threw me into my desk. The desk slid, banged up against the wall by the windows and the phone and desk lamp tumbled off and landed noisily and, holding his bleeding nose, the guy headed unsurely for the door. His panicked friend had Barney in a clinch, using his size to squeeze Barney and keep from getting hit anymore.
The bleeding guy was to the doorway, when he turned and said, “Toss him!” to his friend, and his friend threw Barney over at me and we were in a pile together. Barney’s guy slipped in my puke on the way out and took a fall on his face, then picked himself up and was gone. I would’ve laughed, if I hadn’t had the sense of humor beat out of me.
Barney got up slowly and shook himself — he’d taken a hard knock against the desk — and started to go after them, but by that time the sound of their feet slapping down the corridor had disappeared. He went to the window and looked down.
“Damn!” he said. “Someone’s out front with a car for ’em! There they go... damn!”
Shaking his head, he walked over and switched on the light by the door. I was still sprawled against the desk like a rag doll. Barney looked a little mussed up, still wearing his suit and bow tie, though the bow tie was sideways, now. I probably looked like shit.
He bent over me, touched the side of my face gently. “You look like shit.”
I tried to smile. Couldn’t.
“I was worried about you, Nate. Thought I’d better check in and see how you were doing. I guess I found out.”
I said something. Not a word. A sound.
“Nate, I’m going to put the Murphy bed down and get you stretched out on it so you can take it easy.”
I made a sound. Affirmative sound.
Then he was setting me gently down on top of the blankets on the Murphy bed. The overhead light was in my eyes and I winced at it, turned my head. He went over and quickly moved the desk back in place, picked up the phone, and the desk lamp, which he turned on.
“Something isn’t broken, anyway,” he said, with a little smile.
He went over and turned off the overhead light. Then into my washroom over by the door and dampened a washcloth and cooled my face with it. My face was the only place they hadn’t hit me, but the cloth felt good just the same.
“There’s a doc in residence at the Morrison,” he said. “I’ll call him and get him over here.”
I tried to swallow; my mouth felt like cotton.
He was over at the phone when I managed to say, “No.”
He looked back puzzled, then came over and sat on the edge of the bed. “No doc?”
“No broken bones,” I said. “Just gonna be sore...”
“I think you should see a doc.”
“Tomorrow.”
He didn’t like that, but he didn’t press. “You want the cops?” he said.
“That was cops.”
“Cops?”
“Rubber hose. Cops. East Chicago, I think.”
“You want some Chicago cops?”
“They’d... just thank the East Chicago boys.”
He smiled sadly. “What was it you said about your job? That it beat having people bash your head in?”
“Didn’t lay a... glove on my head.”
“No more talk. Get some rest.”
He went over to the washroom and got a towel and cleaned up the puke. He was on the floor doing that, in fact, when Sally showed up.
“What the hell is going on here?” she demanded. She had a white dress on. She seemed angry. And afraid.
Barney told her.
I passed out about then. When I woke up she and Barney were helping me out of bed and then out of my office and down the hall and even, God help us, down the steps. She seemed almost as strong as Barney. An athlete, too. Dancer.
Then they were putting me in the back of a cab.
I heard Barney say to her, “Are you going to be all right?”
“Fine. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Sally got in, told the cabbie, “The Drake,” and we were moving.
“What...?” I said.
“You’re staying with me at my place, tonight,” she said. “No one’s going to hurt you there.”
I went to sleep in her arms; my last conscious thought was how nice she smelled. Talcum powder...
15
A bell was ringing.
I opened my eyes slowly. The round chrome clock on Sally Rand’s nightstand said it was four-oh-seven. Sun streamed in through sheer curtains. I was bathed in sunshine and pain.
The bell kept ringing.
I managed to sit up, but it took a while. The pain was general. Everything from the neck down ached. A long slow dull ache. I’d been sleeping since late morning. I’d been awake for a few hours early this morning, I remembered; Sally had fed me some breakfast and some aspirin. She’d given me some aspirin the night before as well, she said, but I didn’t remember that. And I’d been awake awhile mid-morning, too: a doctor had come round — Barney’s doing — and recommended more aspirin. And sleep. And I’d slept.
The bell kept ringing. In a brilliant intuitive flash — even battered I was still a detective — I realized it was a doorbell.
I swung my legs over to the side of the bed. Lowered them to the floor. The pain became specific. My eyes teared, but I didn’t wipe them dry. I didn’t want to make the effort because my arms hurt worse than my legs. I looked down at my legs and they were splotched with black-and-blue bruises of various sizes — from as small as a dime to as large as a saucer, though they were oblong dimes and saucers. I was in my shorts, I noticed, and my undershirt. My arms had odd-shaped bruises, too. No small ones, though. Large black-and-blue patches, strips of black and blue from the rubber hose.
The bell kept ringing.
I stood. My legs started to buckle but I forced myself not to fall; if I fell, I wouldn’t be able to get up, and that would hurt even worse than standing. Moving across the soft carpet with the slow pathetic urgency of a very elderly man walking toward a bathroom that he has little chance of reaching in time, I found my way into the living room and, eventually, to the front door of the suite.
Facing the white door, the bell louder here (but I was used to it by now — in fact, I couldn’t remember a time when that bell wasn’t ringing), I decided to see if I could speak.
“Who?” I said. It didn’t hurt much to talk. I didn’t have a headache; the aspirin had done that much for me.
“Inspector Cowley, Mr. Heller. Sam Cowley. Could I speak to you?”
There was a night-latch, which I left in place, as I cracked the door open.
“Mr. Heller? Could I come in?” His round, somber, earnest face under the gray hat was damp with sweat.
“Another hot day?” I asked.
A tiny smile creased his face. “Hottest yet.”
“Another good reason for me to stay inside.”
“Could I come in?”
“That putz Purvis with you?”
“No. Nobody’s with me. Nobody knows I’m here.”
“I know you’re here.”
“Nobody at the office.”
I let him in.
The pain turned general again. A neck-to-toe ache. It felt like a cross between the flu and having fallen off a building.
Cowley took off his hat; he had on the same gray suit as before, and the same gray complexion. He wiped his face with a hanky, put it away, looked me over and shook his head slowly.