"So? That is that, yah? Yah, I think so. I thank you all for your attention. Guten Abend und auf wiedersehen! Miss Nichswander?"
When I looked back up she was wheeling him through the velveteen slot.
The Bellevue Revue couldn't understand why their crazyhouse hilarity received even less laughs than it deserved, which was damned little. My leftover lobster was funnier than they were; I was sorry when the waiter took it away. After the banquet broke up, however, the conventioneers set about dispelling the heavy pall the best way they could, by trying to make light of it. The remainder of the evening was spent drinking hard and listening to a lot of lampoons of the Woofner address. His heavy accent made him easy prey to parody. The joking got so uproarious in the wide-open hospitality suite the La Bouche Laboratories had reserved that kindhearted Dr. Mortimer fretted the old man might hear.
"All this ridicule, this loud laughing – what if the poor fellow happened to come by? It could be injurious to someone in his condition."
"This isn't laughing," Joe said. "This is whistling in the graveyard."
It was long after midnight before the revelers wore it out and Mortimer got everybody quieted down enough to listen to Dr. Toocter play his harp. It was the perfect soporific. Within minutes people were yawning good nights and stumbling off toward their rooms.
As much as I'd drunk I was sure I'd drop straight off when I hit the bed, but I didn't. The air of our room seemed too close, the pitchy dark full of racket. The air conditioning throbbed brokenly and Mortimer snored along. I was so tired and dehydrated I could barely think, not even about Woofner. I'll think about him tomorrow. I'll look him up in the morning for a quick hello, then get on the first thing I can find flying west. Tonight all I want is a little sleep and a lot of liquid.
On one of my trips to the bathroom to refill my water glass, I met Joe coming out carrying his. He frowned at me from the crack of light.
"Christ, man, do you really feel it that bad?"
"Not quite," I said. "But I feel it coming."
Joe took me by the arm and pulled me into the bathroom and shut the door. He gave me a big pink tablet from his shaving kit.
"Remedy number one," he prescribed, "is to duck it. Before it hits."
I took the pill without asking any questions. After that I got up only once more, to get rid of some of that liquid. The room was still black but still at last. The broken throbbing had been fixed and Mortimer's bed was quiet as a church. It seemed I had just lain back down when he shook me awake and told me it was Sunday.
"Sunday?" I squinted at the light. My head hammered. "What happened to Saturday?"
"You looked so wasted we decided to let you rest," Joe explained. He was drawing open the drapes. In the cruel light my two roommates looked pretty wasted themselves. Mortimer said I must be hungry but there would be time for a bite of breakfast before our flight; we'd better hurry.
I didn't feel hungry or rested either. I just had a cup of airport coffee and bought a box of Aspergum to have in my shoulder bag – the hammering in my head promised to get louder. Boarding the airplane I confided to Joe that whatever I had ducked seemed to be swinging back for another shot. He sympathized but said that big pink pill had been his last. He gave me a peek in his sample case, though; he'd managed to buy a quart of black rum from one of the Cuban maids.
"Remedy number two: if you can't duck it, try to keep ahead of it."
It was a long sober return flight even with the rum. While Mortimer slept, Joe and I drank steadily, trying to keep ahead of the thing. The rum was gone before we got to Denver. Joe looked at the empty bottle mournfully.
"Yuh done somethin' t' the booze, Hickey," he muttered in a thirties dialect. "What yuh done t' da booze?"
The mutter was for my benefit, but Dr. Mortimer was roused from his doze by the window.
"What's that, Joe?"
"Nothing, Doctor." Joe slid the bottle out of sight. "Just a line that came to me from O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. It's in the last act, after Hickey's given them all 'The Word,' so to speak, and one of the barflies says something to the effect of 'The booze ain't got no kick t' it no more, Hickey. What yuh done t' da booze?' "
"I see," Mortimer answered, and dug his head back into the little airplane pillow. He saw about as well as anybody did, I guessed.
With the help of Aspergum and overpriced airline cocktails I was still in front of the thing when we landed in Portland, but it was closing fast. The banging in my skull heralded it like the rising toll of a storm bell. Mortimer phoned his wife from the airport to have her meet him at the big Standard station on the edge of the hospital grounds. He said he simply did not have the energy to check on the ward just now. Joe said he would do it. Dr. Mortimer gave Joe a grateful smile but allowed as how the nuts had been cracking right along without either of them for two days and nights now; another night probably wouldn't hurt.
"Besides, our guest has to be driven home," he added. "Unless he'd like to lay over a night with us. Devlin? It would give you an opportunity to study the set sketches the producers sent up."
"Yeah, why don't you?" Joe put it. "You can check out my collection of bad religious art from Ireland."
I shook my head. "I promised I'd be back. My dad was scheduled for a spinal this morning. I thought about phoning from Denver," I said, "but you know how it is."
They both nodded that they did and no more was said about it.
We dropped Dr. Mortimer off at the gas station. His wife was nowhere in sight, but we might not have seen her; there was still a jam of cars stretching around the corner of the block both ways. Joe began to fret as soon as the looming complex of the hospital came into sight. "I think I ought to swing in, anyway," he said. "We can make a quick round while they're gassing us up at the motor pool."
He braked to make the turn and the guard at the gate waved us on. He pulled to the NO STOPPING curb in front and motioned the aide sweeping the lobby to come out.
"Mr. Gonzales? Would you mind driving this bomb around back and filling it up?"
Gonzales didn't mind a bit. Grinning at his good fortune, he gave Joe the broom and took the wheel. Joe shouldered it and marched around to my door.
"Come on," he implored, "you can stand it if I can." He even added an enticement. "Maybe I can scrounge up another pink pill."
I could see he was needing the company; the hopeful glow had gone out of his eyes, leaving a gloomy smudge. I caught the strap of my shoulder bag and followed him toward the lobby, resolved to stand it.