The elevator began to rise. He saw the panel buttons blink in front of him and watched them climb toward fifteen. The elevator was taking him to his office. But he hadn’t punched the button, had he? He glanced down in confusion and jumped. He was no longer wearing the clothes he had worn when Nightshade had sent him into the mists. He was wearing the running suit and Nikes he had worn when he had gone into the Blue Ridge.
What was happening?
The elevator stopped at fifteen, the doors slid open and he stepped out into the hallway. A jog left and he was at the glass doors that fronted the lobby to the offices of Holiday and Bennett, Ltd. The doors were open. He pushed through and stepped inside.
Miles Bennett turned from the reception desk, a sheaf of papers in his hands. He saw Ben, and the papers slipped from his fingers and tumbled to the floor. “Doc!” he whispered.
Ben stared. It was Miles who stood before him, but not the Miles he had left behind. This Miles was a shell of that other man. He was no longer simply heavy; he was bloated. His face was florid in the manner of a man who drinks too much. His dark hair had gone gray and thin. Worry lines marked his face like an etching.
The shock faded from his partner’s eyes and was replaced with undisguised rancor. “Well, well — Doc Holiday.” Miles spoke his name with distaste. “Goddamn if it isn’t old Doc.”
“Hello, Miles,” he greeted and stuck out his hand.
Miles ignored it. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe its reaiiy you. I thought I’d never see you again — thought no one ever would. Goddamn. I thought you long since gone to hell and shoveling brimstone, Doc.”
Ben smiled, confused. “Hey, Miles, it hasn’t been that long.”
“No? You don’t call ten years a long time? Ten goddamn years?” Miles smiled as he saw the stunned look on Ben’s face. “Yeah, that’s right. Doc — ten years. Not a living soul has heard a word from you in ten years. No one — me, least of all, your goddamn partner, in case you’d forgot!” He stumbled over the words, swallowing. “You poor, dumb jerk! You don’t even know what’s happened to you while you’ve been off in your fairy world, do you? Well, let me clue you in. Doc. You’re broke! You’ve lost everything!”
Ben felt a chill settle through him. “What?”
“Yeah, everything, Doc.” Miles leaned back against the desk top. “That’s what happens when you’re presumed legally dead — they take everything away and give it to your heirs or to the state! You remember your law, Doc? You remember how it works? You remember anything, goddamn it?”
Ben shook his head disbelievingly. “I’ve been gone ten years?”
“You always were a quick study. Doc.” Miles was sneering openly at him now. “The great Doc Holiday, courtroom legend. How many cases was it you won, Doc? How many shootouts did you survive? Doesn’t much matter anymore, does it? Everything you worked for is gone. It’s all gone.”
The veins on his cheeks were red and broken. “You don’t even have a place with this firm anymore. You’re just a collection of old stories I tell the young bucks!”
Ben wheeled about and looked at the lettering over the glass entry doors. It read, Bennett and Associates, Ltd.
“Miles, it seemed like only a few weeks…”he stammered helplessly.
“Weeks? Oh, damn you to hell, Doc!” Miles was crying. “All those dragons of the law you thought you’d slay, all those witches and warlocks of injustice that you thought you’d take on and straighten out — why the hell didn’t you stay here and do it? Why’d you leave here for your goddamn fairy land? You weren’t a quitter before, Doc. You were too stubborn to quit. Maybe that’s why you were such a good lawyer. You were, you know. You were the best I’d ever seen. You could have done anything. I’d have given my right arm just to help you do it, too. I admired you that much. But, no! You couldn’t survive in the same world with the rest of us. You had to have your own goddamn world! You had to jump ship and leave me with the rats! That’s what happened, you know. The rats came out of their holes and took over — the rats, sniffing around the old cheese. I couldn’t handle it alone! I tried, but the clients wanted you, the business couldn’t function without you, and the whole goddamn mess went down the tubes!”