interested in a dinner, movie?”
“No.”
Her smile froze.
“Sorry,” he said.
He folded the copies of the work orders and put them in his jacket
pocket from which earlier he had withdrawn a business card.
She was glaring at him, and he realized he’d hurt her feelings.
Searching for something to say, all he could come up with was, “I’m
gay.”
She blinked and shook her head as if recovering from a stunning blow.
Like sun piercing clouds, her smile broke through the gloom on her face.
“Had to be to resist this package, I guess.”
“Sorry.”
“Hey, it’s not your fault. We are what we are, huh?”
He went into the rain again. It was getting colder. The sky looked
like the ruins of a burned-out building to which the fire department had
arrived too late:
wet ashes, dripping cinders.
AS NIGHT fell on that rainy Monday, Bobby Dakota stood at the hospital
window and said, “Not much of a view, Frank. Unless you’re keen on
parking lots.”
He turned and surveyed the small, white room. Hospitals always gave him
the creeps, but he did not express his true feeling to Frank.
“The decor sure won’t be featured in Architectural Digest anytime soon,
but it’s comfy enough. You’ve got TV, nurses, and three meals a day in
bed. I noticed that some of the nurses are real lookers, too, but
please try to keep your hands off the nuns, okay?”
Frank was paler than ever. The dark circles around his eyes had grown
like spreading inkblots. He not only looked like he belonged in a
hospital but as if he had been there already. He used the power
controls to tilt the bed up.
“Are these tests really necessary?”
“Your amnesia might have a physical cause,” said Julie. “You heard
Doctor Freeborn. They’ll look for cerebral abscesses, neoplasms, cysts,
clots, all kinds of things.”
“I’m not sure about this Freeborn,” Frank said.
Sanford Freeborn was Bobby and Julie’s friend, as well as their
physician. A few years ago years ago they had helped him get his
brother out of deep trouble.
“Why? What’s wrong with Sandy?”
Frank said, “I don’t know him.”
“You don’t know anybody,” Bobby said.
“That’s your line. Remember? You’re an amnesiac.”
After accepting Frank as a client, they had taken him directly to Sandy
Freeborn’s office for a preliminary examination. All Sandy knew was
that Frank could remember nothing but his name. They had not told him
about the bags of money the blood, black sand, red gems, the weird
insect, or any of the rest of it. Sandy didn’t ask why Frank had come
to them instead of the police or why they had accepted a case so far
outside their usual purview; one of the things that made him a good
friend was his reliable discretion.
Nervously adjusting the sheets, Frank said, “You think a private room is
really necessary?”
Julie nodded.
“You also want us to find out what you do at night, where you go, which
means monitoring you, tight security.”
“A private room’s expensive,” Frank said.
“You can afford the finest care,” Bobby said.
“The money in those bags might not be mine.”
Bobby shrugged.
“Then you’ll have to work off your hospital bill-change a few hundred
beds, empty a few thousand bedpans, perform some brain surgery free of
charge. You might be a brain surgeon. Who knows? With amnesia, it’s
just as likely you’ve forgotten that you’re a surgeon as that you’re a
used-car salesman. Worth a try. Get a bone saw, cut off the top of
some guy’s head, have a peek in there, see if anything looks familiar.”
Leaning against the bed rail, Julie said, “When you’re not in radiology
or some other department, undergoing tests, we’ll have a man with you,
watching over you. Tonight it’s Hal.”
Hal Yamataka had already taken his station. He was to one side of the
bed, between Frank and the door, in a position to watch both his charge
and, if Frank was in the mood, the wall-mounted television. Hal
resembled a Japanese version of Clint Karaghiosis : about five foot
seven or eight, broad in the shoulders and chest, as solid-looking as if