Must have been a hard night. LaVerne's breathing slowed, her hands twitched a few times and were still. Within moments she was snoring.
"Love you," I told her.
Boudleaux had picked up whatever jobs stumbled towards me, handling most of them himself, farming out others to Sam Brown, still with SeCure as consultant but mostly freelancing now.
Once the thought came, I realized it had been at the back of my mind for some time. I tripped the call button.
Moments later a nurse's aide entered. "Yes, Mr. Griffin?"
I held out the card I'd fishedfrom the nightstand.
"Cindy, can you have a look at this, let me know if it's Lee Gardner's card, New York?"
She stepped close to take the card. Her body smelled faintly of garlic and recent sex. It occurred to me that with a peculiar sort of intimacy I knew her voice-and absolutely nothing else about her. Was she twenty, forty? Fat, thin? Plain, pretty? Did she live alone, have a family, kids? Happy to go home at the end of the day, or were nights and days alike just things somehow to be gotten through, endured?
I think that was when (though still I could discern only light and shadow, movement, mass) I knew I was back. Hello world. Miss me?
"Park Avenue. Yes, sir." She read off die number for me. "Would you like me to get it for you, Mr. Griffin?"
About to say I could manage, I thought better. "If you don't mind."
"No sir, I don't mind at all." I sensed her bending beside me for the phone, could see the darkness of her body move against window light. She spoke briefly to the hospital operator then dialed, handing the phone to me.
"Thanks, Cindy. I appreciate it."
"What they all say."
Without visual cues, even the most ordinary social interactions could become problematic. What, exacdy, was intended, implied? Confusion must have shown in my face.
"Joshing you, Mr. Griffin. Don't you pay me any mind. I'll check in on you later."
I'd have continued, but just then someone with a clarinet voice said thank you for calling Icarus Books, could she help me.
"Lee Gardner please."
A pause.
"I'm afraid Mr. Gardner is no longer with Icarus Books, sir. Would you care to speak with another editor?"
No.
I see. Well.
Might there be anodier number at which I could reach him?
Well. Unofficially, of course, you might try reaching Mr. Gardner at 827-7342. Thank you for calling Icarus Books.
Alto sax this time, reed gone bad: "Popular Publications."
"Lee Gardner please."
"May I say who's calling?"
I told her.
"Hang on, Mr. Griffin. Lee's probably at lunch. Most everyone is. But I'll give it a shot." She clicked off the line and back on. "Hey. You're in luck." Then her voice sank towards some phonal purgatory, half there, half not: "A Mr. Griffin for you on line two, Lee."
"Yes?"
I didn't often have a phone those days, phones requiring such middle-class imponderables as references and credit, but when I did, I often answered the same way. Or else I'd just pick the thing up and wait.
"How are you, Mr. Gardner?"
"Busy, thank you."
Nothing more forthcoming. Momentsticked like tiny bombs on the wire. I heard his radio move from the Second Brandenburg with screaming pocket trumpets to a jazz station, vintage Miles from the sound of it. Pure jazz stations still existed back then.
"Lew Griffin. We met here in New Orleans. You were looking for one of your writers. Amonas, Amana, something like that."
A brief pause. "Latin."
"Guess it does sound that way, now you mention it."
"You hate Latin much as I did?"
"Never had a chance to. They stopped teaching it the year I hit high school. Stopped teacliing all languages that year. No money for it, they claimed. No money, no teachers, no interest. Has to be some advantage in knowing what words like tenable really mean, though. Not many do."
"Hell, most don't even have a clue where commas and periods go. Let alone that subjects and verbs should agree."
We fell silent. His radio spun combinations: news, country, rock, something Perry Comoish. Finally came to rest on what sounded like an adaptation of Karel Capek's R.U.R. Back a few years, I listened to programs like that every night. Still remembered one about this doctor treating lepers on an isolated island, trying to atone for wrongs he's done. I'd fallen asleep halfway through and, three in the morning, still half drunk, woke to its conclusion, when a ship comes to retrieve the doctor and he sees in the faces of its crew that he's become a leper.
"Ray Amano," Gardner said.
Behind him on the radio someone said "You've cleared this with the family, I assume," someone else "But he is long dead, in the war."
"Just a moment. Let me jot this down. There. For a project of mine, images of war in popular culture." The radio shut off. Gardner's voice seemed of a sudden eerily loud. "I'm afraid that I don't represent Mr. Amano anymore. Or publish him, for that matter."
When he stopped speaking, static rushed in tofill the quiet.
I waited.
"I do know he's still not been heard from. Kid name of Gilden's editing an edition of Bury All Towers for one of those subscriber-only paperback clubs, talking about doing others. He's called me up a couple of times. The Hollywood interest is long gone, of course."
"Can't be too long gone. Everybody in such a hurry to let go?"
"It's been almost two months. Burners cool quickly in this business, Mr. Griffin."
"You could have told me," I said.
"I did tell you, Lew. I told you, the doctors told you, LaVerne told you, Hosie told you. We told you two or three hundred times. Every other way, you were fine, but you just couldn't hold on to time. Time passed right through you, left nothing behind. Doctors say it's the kind of thing that can happen with concussion, severe trauma-or with hypoxia. One of the rounds nicked your femoral artery, Lew, you remember that? You'd bled out pretty bad by the time the paramedics got there."
"Of course I remember." Remembered them telling me about it, anyway.
"Physically, you were well enough to be released some time back."
"But it's only been a few days, a week at the most. I know that."
"That's how it seems, Lew. To you-which is precisely the problem."
I'd been Doo-Wopped. Every day was today. I was on Hopi Mean Time.
"Doctors held off discharging you because of that. They say usually the sensorium rights itself, gets back on track without much help from diem. Just a matter of time.
Or in the case of hypoxia, other parts of the brain learn to take over."
"Or maybe they don't."
"Yeah," Don said. "Maybe."
After a moment I tripped the call bell. Cindy responded.
"I'm leaving, Cindy. Any paperwork has to be signed, they need to get it up here."
"Head nurse'll flip out over this, Mr. Griffin." Her tone suggested that this was not an altogether unwelcome prospect. "Course, she flips out over almost anything."
"Closet's to your right, about five paces," Don said once Cindy was gone.
I found it and fumbled the door open, one of those push hard and let go affairs. "Anything in there?"
'Ten or twelve empty hangers. Clothes-T-shirts, jeans-folded and stacked on the shelf above, to the left. Socks and underwear right."
"Thanks, Don. I don't suppose there'd be a suitcase, anything like that?"
"Matter of fact there is. Same shelf, far right. I brought one up a couple of days ago. Had a feeling you might be needing it soon."
Within moments clothes were stowed away. Retrieving razor, shaving cream, toothbrush and toothpaste from the phonebooth-size bathroom-not to mention a fifth of Scotch Hosie had smuggled in-I threw them into Don's suitcase and zipped it shut. The suitcase bumped against my leg as I started for the door and walked into the corner of the nightstand. I'd go on collecting bruises for some time.