Rick began to laugh.
“Is it true about you being a night climber?” Paul said.
“Sometimes,” I said, feeling a peculiar gulf opening between us. That damned sheepskin was already taking its toll. “Yeah, it’s true.”
“That’s great,” he said. “That’s really great. I’ve always wanted to meet the real Fred Cassidy-the climber.”
“I’m afraid you have,” I said.
Then someone hung up and I grabbed for the phone.
“Excuse me.”
“Yeah. See you later, Fred. Pardon me-Doc.”
“Nice meeting you.”
I felt strangely depressed as I wandered through the backward digits of Hal’s number. As it was, the line proved busy. I tried the Nadler number then. An answering-service girl asked me for the number where I could be reached, for a message or for both. I gave her neither. I tried Hal’s number again. This time I got through-within a fraction of a second, it seemed, from the time it commenced ringing.
“Yes? Hello?”
“You couldn’t have run all that far,” I said. “How come you’re out of breath?”
“Fred! At last, damn it!”
“Sorry I didn’t call sooner. There were a lot of things-“
“I’ve got to see you!”
“That’s what I had in mind, too.”
“Where are you?”
“At the Student Union.”
“Stay there. No! Wait a minute.”
I waited. Ten or fifteen seconds fell or were pushed.
“I’m trying to think of someplace you’ll remember,” he said. Then: “Listen. Don’t say it if you do, but do you recall where we were about two months ago when you got in an argument with that med student named Ken? Thin guy, always very serious?”
“No,” I said.
“I don’t remember the argument, but I remember the ending: You said that Doctor Richard Jordan Gatling had done more for the development of modern surgery than Halsted. He asked you what techniques Doctor Gatling had developed and you told him that Gatling had invented the machine gun. He told you that wasn’t funny and walked away. You told me he was an ass who believed he was going to get the Holy Grail when he finished rather than a license to help people. Do you remember where that was?”
“Now I do.”
“Good. Go there, please. And wait.”
“All right. I understand.”
He hung up, then I did. Weird. And troubling. An obvious attempt to circumvent an eavesdropper’s discovering where we were going to meet. Who? Why? And how many?
I departed the Union quickly, since I had mentioned it in our conversation. Headed north from the campus, three blocks. Then two blocks over and part way up a side street. It was a little bookstore I liked to visit about once a week, just to see what new titles had come in. Hal used to go along with me every now and then.
I browsed for perhaps half an hour, regarding the reversed titles in the backward shop. Occasionally, I paused to read a page or so of text for the practice of doing it that way-just in case things stayed topsy-turvy for any great length of time. The first sentence in one of maerD ehT sgnoS by namyrreB nhoJ took on a peculiar, personal meaning:
rodirroc siht nwod rorrim ym klats I
… rettil seceip ym
And I began thinking of the pieces of myself, scattered all over, from dronehood to raisinhood and thereafter. Was it worth it to stalk the mirror? I wondered. I had never really tried. But then-
I was considering buying the book when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Fred, come on.”
“Hi, Hal. I was wondering-“
“Hurry,” he said. “Please. I’m double-parked.”
“Okay.”
I restored the book to its rack and followed him out. I saw the car, went to it, got in. Hal climbed in his side and began driving. He did not say anything as he worked his way through the traffic, and since it was obvious that length of time. The first sentence in one of Songs Dream was ready to tell me about it. I lit a cigarette and stared out the window.
It took him several minutes to get us out of the sprawl and onto a more sedate stretch of road. It was only then that he spoke.