Marty’s eyes widened in alarm. “The pharmacist gave the name of his drugstore and said where it was. Now my doctor knows, too!”
“Right. So does whoever was listening in on the doctor’s end. Let’s go.”
They rushed out. Marty’s medication was wearing off, and they needed to save the last dose for the morning and the long drive ahead. Marty grumbled and stayed close to Smith. He put up with buying clothes and other necessities, and he grudgingly ate dinner in an Italian restaurant in North Beach that Smith remembered from a brief stint at the Presidio when it was an active army base. But the computer genius was growing more agitated and talkative.
At nightfall they took a room at the Mission Inn far out on Mission Street. Fog had rolled in, wrapping itself around picturesque lampposts and rising above bay windows.
Marty noticed none of the area’s charm or the advantages of the small motel. “You can’t possibly subject me to this medieval torture chamber, Jon. Who in heaven’s name would be idiotic enough to want to sleep in such a foul dungeon?” The room smelled of the fog. “We’ll go to the Stanford Court. It’s at least presentable and almost livable.” It was one of San Francisco’s legendary grande dame hotels.
Smith was amazed. “You’ve stayed there before?”
“Oh, thousands of times!” Marty said in an enthusiastic exaggeration that warned Smith he was beginning to spin out of control. “That’s where we rented a suite when my father took me to San Francisco. I was enthralled by it. I used to played hide-and-seek in the lobby with the bellmen.”
“And everyone knew that’s where you stayed in San Francisco?”
“Of course.”
“Go there again if you don’t mind our violent friends finding you.”
Marty instantly flip-flopped. “Oh, dear me. You’re right. They must be in San Francisco by now. Are we safe in this dump?”
“That’s the idea. It’s out of the way, and I registered under an alias We’re only here one night.”
“I don’t plan to sleep a wink.” Marty refused to take off his clothes for bed. “They could attack at any hour. I’m certainly not going to be seen running down the street in my nightshirt with those beasts or the FBI pursuing me.”
“You’ve got to get a good night’s sleep. It’s a long trip tomorrow.”
But Marty would hear none of it, and while Smith was shaving and brushing his teeth, he hooked a chair under the knob of the only door. Then he crumpled a newspaper sheet by sheet and arranged the crushed papers in front of the door. “There. Now they can’t sneak in on us. I saw that in a movie. The detective put his pistol on the bedside table, too, so he could reach it quickly. You’ll do that with your Beretta, Jon, right?”
“If it makes you feel better.” Smith came out of the bathroom, drying his face. “Let’s get to bed.”
When Smith slid under the covers, Marty lay down fully dressed on the twin. He stared up at the ceiling, his eyes wide open. Suddenly he looked to Smith. “Why are we in California?”
Smith turned off the bedside light. “To meet a man who can help us. He lives in the Sierras near Yosemite.”
“That’s right. The Sierras. Modoc country! You know the story of Captain Jack and the Lava Beds? He was a brilliant Modoc leader, and the Modocs were put on the same reservation as their arch enemies, the Klamaths.” In the dim room, Marty launched into the excited reverie of his unleashed mind. “In the end, the Modocs killed some whites, so the army came after them with cannon! Maybe ten of them against a whole regiment. And…”
He related every detail of the injustice done by the army to the innocent Modoc leader. From there he described the saga of Chief Joseph and his Nez Percé in Washington and Idaho and their mad dash for freedom against half the army of the United States. Before he had finished reciting Joseph’s heartrending final speech, his head jerked around toward the door.
“They’re in the corridor! I hear them! Get your gun, Jon!”
Smith leaped up, grabbed the Beretta, and tried to speed quietly through the rumpled newspapers, which was impossible. He listened at the door. His heart was thundering.
He listened for five minutes. “Not a sound. Are you sure you heard something, Marty?”
“Absolutely. Positively.” His hands flapped in the air. He was sitting upright, his back rigid, his round face quivering.
Smith crouched, trying to relieve his weary body. He continued to listen for another half hour. People came and went outside. There was conversation and occasional laughter. Finally he shook his head. “Not a thing. Get some sleep.” He moved through the noisy newspapers to his bed.
Marty was chastened and silent. He lay back. Ten minutes later he enthusiastically began the chronological history of every Indian War since King Philip’s in the 1600s.
Then he heard steps again. “There’s someone at the door, Jon! Shoot them. Shoot them! Before they break in! Shoot them!”
Jon sped to the door. But there was no sound beyond it. For Smith, it was the final straw. Marty would be inventing wild dangers and relating more stories about early America all night. He was reaching warp speed, and the longer he was off his medication, the worse it would be for both of them.
Smith got up again. “Okay, Marty, you’d better take your last dose.” He smiled kindly. “We’ll just have to trust we can get you more when we get to Peter Howell’s place tomorrow. Meanwhile, you’ve got to sleep, and so do I.”
Marty’s mind buzzed and flashed. Words and images whipped through with incredible speed. He heard Jon’s voice as if at a great distance, almost as if a continent separated them. Then he saw his old friend and the smile. Jon wanted him to take his drug, but everything within him railed against it. He hated to leave this thrilling world where life happened quickly and with great drama.
“Marty, here’s, your medicine.” Jon stood beside him with a glass of water in one hand and the dreaded pill in the other.
“I’d rather ride a camel across the starry sky and drink blue lemonade. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you like to listen to fairies playing their golden harps? Wouldn’t you rather talk to Newton and Galileo?”
“Mart? Are you listening? Please take your meds.”
Marty looked down at Jon, who was crouching in front of him now, his face earnest and worried. He liked Jon for many reasons, none of which seemed relevant now.
Jon said, “I know you trust me, Marty. You’ve got to believe me when I tell you we let you stay off your medication too long. It’s time for you to come back.”
Marty spoke in an unhappy rush. “I don’t like the pills. When I take them, I’m not me. I’m not there anymore! I can’t think because there’s no `I’ to think!”
“It’s rough, I know,” Smith said sympathetically. “But we don’t want you to cross the line. When you’re off them too long, you go a little nuts.”
Marty shook his head angrily. “They tried to teach me how to be `normal’ with other people the way they teach someone to play a piano! Memorize normality! `Look him in the eye, but don’t stare.’ `Put out your hand when it’s a man, but let a woman put out her hand first.’ Imbecilic! I read about a guy who said it just right: `We can learn to pretend to act like everyone else, but we really don’t get the point.’ I don’t get the point, Jon. I don’t want to be normal!”
“I don’t want you to be `normal’ either. I like your wildness and brilliance. You wouldn’t be the Marty I know without that. But we’ve got to keep you balanced, too, so you don’t go so far out into the stratosphere we can’t bring you back. After we get to Peter’s tomorrow, you can slide off the pills again.”
Marty stared. His mind did cartwheels of numbers and algorithms. He craved the freedom of his unfettered thoughts, but he knew Jon was right. He was still in control, but just barely. He did not want to risk dropping off the edge.
Marty sighed. “Jon, you’re a champ. I apologize. Give me the darn pill.”
Twenty-five minutes later, both men were sound asleep.
__________
12:06 A.M., Saturday, October 18
San Francisco International Airport
Nadal al-Hassan strode off the DC-10 red-eye from New York into the main concourse. The overweight man in the shabby suit who greeted him had never met him, but there was no one else on the New York flight who fit the description he had been given.
“You al-Hassan?”
Al-Hassan eyed the shabby man with distaste. “You are from the detective agency?”
“You got that right.”