Davidson came around to see me after breakfast. “Heard you were here,” he said. He was wearing shorts and nothing else, except that his left arm was covered by a dressing.
“More than I’ve heard,” I complained. “What happened to you?”
“Bee stung me.”
I dropped that subject; if he didn’t want to tell how he had gotten burned, that was his business. I went on, “The Old Man was in here yesterday, getting my report, when he left very suddenly. Seen him since?”
“Yep.”
“Well?” I answered.
“Well, how about you? Are you straightened out? Have the psych boys cleared you for classified matters, or not?”
“Is there any doubt about it?”
“You’re darn tootin’ there’s doubt. Poor old Jarvis never did pull out of it.”
“Huh?” I hadn’t thought about Jarvis. “How is he now?”
“He isn’t. Never did get right in his head. Dropped into a coma and died the next day—the day after you left. I mean the day after you were captured. No apparent reason—just died.” Davidson looked me over. “You must be tough.”
I did not feel tough. I felt tears of weakness welling up again and I blinked them back. Davidson pretended not to see and went on conversationally, “You should have seen the ruckus after you gave us the slip. The Old Man took out after you wearing nothing but a gun and a look of grim determination. He would have caught you, too, my money says—but the civil police picked him up and we had to get him out of hock.” Davidson grinned.
I grinned feebly myself. There was something both gallant and silly about the Old Man charging out to save the world single-handed dressed in his birthday suit. “Sorry I missed it. But what else has happened—lately?”
Davidson looked me over carefully, then said, “Wait a minute.” He stepped out of the room and was gone a short time. When he came back, he said, “The Old Man says it’s all right. What do you want to know?”
“Everything! What happened yesterday?”
“I was in on that one,” he answered, “That’s how I got this.” He waved his damaged wing at me, “I was lucky,” he added, “three agents were killed. Quite a fracas.”
“But how did it come out? How about the President? Was he—”
Doris hustled into the room. “Oh, there you are!” she said to Davidson. “I told you to stay in bed. You’re due in prosthetics at Mercy Hospital right now. The ambulance has been waiting for ten minutes.”
He stood up, grinned at her, and pinched her cheek with his good hand. “The party can’t start until I get there.”
“Well, hurry!”
“Coming.” He started out the door with her.
I called out, “Hey! How about the President?”
Davidson paused and looked back over his shoulder. “Oh, him? He’s all right—not a scratch on him.” He went on.
Doris came back a few minutes later, fuming. “Patients!” she said, like a swear word. “Do you know why they call them ‘patients’? Because it’s patience you have to have to put up with them. I should have had at least twenty minutes for his injection to take hold; as it was I gave it to him when he got into the ambulance.”
“Injection for what?”
“Didn’t he tell you?”
“No.”
“Well . . . no reason not to tell you. Amputation and graft, lower left arm.”
“Oh.” Well, I thought, I won’t hear the end of the story from Davidson; grafting on a new limb is a shock. They usually keep the patient hopped up for at least ten days. I wondered about the Old Man: had he come out of it alive? Of course he had, I reminded myself; Davidson checked with him before he talked.
But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been wounded. I tackled Doris again. “How about the Old Man? Is he on the sick list? Or would it be a violation of your sacred run-around rules to tell me?”
“You talk too much,” she answered. “It’s time for your morning nourishment and your nap.” She produced a glass of milky slop, magician fashion.
“Speak up, wench, or I’ll spit it back in your face.”