The checked flannel shirt was missing two buttons,and the jeans were too big in the waist, but they would do. He found his pocket knife, calk, hoof pick, and some change in his nightstand drawer. His boots were beneath it. The laborious task of stooping down to get them and the agony of actually pulling them on unmanned him fora time. He sat on the edge of that flat white bed, trying to breathe the pain away in deep slow breaths. He wiped the sweat from his face with the corner of the sheet. He wasn't going to get very far under his own power. The few dollars he had would buy him a short cab ride.Wheride.Where? his cheap room, where Daniel, perhaps,was still waiting? That might be best. Then Daniel could find Raymond. He briefly considered going back to Madam Moria's. But the thought that she might once more shut the door in his face decided him.
Getting out of the hospital was easier than he had expected. Even walking crabbed over, with one hand pressed against the bandages under his shirt, he drew little attention. The three nurses he saw were all tired and harassed. He got past them by asking for himself and being told that visiting hours were over, whereupon he sighed and went back out; none of them noticed that he'd come from the wrong direction. The area around the admissions desk looked like a bus station. A man held a bloody cloth to the side of his head while his woman chattered earnestly at the admissions nurse in a language the Coachman didn't recognize. A heavy woman sat rocking a screaming baby while three small children clustered around her. Two teenage boys sat next to a girl who stared straight ahead, eyes all pupils. The Coachman threaded his way out into the dark and cold.
The air on his face helped him push aside the confusion the pain medication made, but the chill tightened his skin. He was aware of the too-large jeans rasping against the bandage on his thigh with every step he took. The hospital was on a hill, and the surrounding neighborhood was dark. He walked two painful blocks past the hospital's park-like "quiet" zone before he felt the telltale warmth begin on his stomach. He walked another two blocks, counting each painful step, before he came to the bus-stop. It boasted a roofed enclosure, a single yellow bulb of light encased in a heavy metal cage, and a pay telephone with no handset. The Coachman sat down heavily on the cold concrete bench. The next bus, he promised himself and Raymond, no matter where it was going. He'd get on the next bus, into light and warmth, and get off when he was in some section of town that was still awake. He pressed his fist gently against his stomach wound and tried not to cough.
A drop, a rise. a jump, a spin;
Let the music lead you.
Keep the sunlight at your back;
There's someone there who needs you.
"GYPSY DANCE"
"I think there's a piece of glass in here… What the hell did he hit you with, anyway?"
The gypsy who called himself Daniel didn't answer. Stepovich glanced back into Ed's kitchen,thinking that the scene looked like something from a bad movie. Daniel sat in one of Ed's straight-backed kitchen chairs, his hands still cuffed behind him. His dark head drooped exhaustedly forward on his chest.Blchest.Blood down the back of his neck and stained his green shirt. Anyone who walked in here, Stepovich thought, would think we were torturing him. But Ed's big hands handled the tweezers as if he were tying fishing flies. Durand's face showed only a mild queasiness as he held the flashlight. Twice now, Durand had raised questions about the legality of what they were doing, in frantic whispers that Daniel wasn't supposed to hear. Twice Ed had growled and shut him up.
"Dammit, kid, get a haircut," Ed muttered, and Durand tried to grin appreciatively.
The gypsy said nothing.
"For Christ's sake, uncuff him, Ed. I promise I won't touch him."
"He's been telling you the truth." Ed said it matter-of-factly, his big blunt fingers sorting through the gypsy's hair.
"1 just don't…" For an instant, all the dizzying shock of the gypsy's tale hit him again. Laurie in that sleazy bar, a place he wouldn't even go himself. Laurie tarted up like a whore. Stepovich gripped his coffee mug with both hands, raised it, forced himself to drink from it. None of that was the gypsy's fault. But when he talked about Laurie, the way he called her Lore lei, and the quiet warmth he put into her name made Stepovich want to punch his lights out. Damnit,she couldn't be that old yet. Couldn't be. And even if she was, the gypsy wasn't what Stepovich had planned for his daughter. Some high school jock with a letterman's jacket and a beat-up old car, or some nerdy boy with thick glasses and penny loafers, even some punk with an earring and half his head shaved-those were the boys Laurie should be looking at, flirting with in the hallways at school. Not some sorrow-eyed street fiddler who knew the world from the seamy side out.
But he was the one. She'd chosen Daniel to confide in, Daniel to shelter behind when she got in over her head. She'd trusted him. And he'd been worthy of her trust. Ironically, that was what he couldn't forgive. That Daniel had been there for her, as Stepovich hadn't. Damn. Ed was watching him. Stepovich looked aside, forced the jealousy from his face. "1mean it, Ed. I'm cool. Uncuff him."
Ed glanced over at him, and gave Durand a barely perceptible nod. Durand set down the flashlight and fished the key out of his pocket.
"Gonna unlock you, kid. But I'm warning you, you make any kinda funny move, you got all three of us on top of you. Understand?" Durand was going to have to work on his style. Then again, maybe if Durand had felt better about what he was doing tonight,he'd have put more conviction into his words.
"I understand," Daniel answered in the same clear but exhausted voice he had used to answer all their questions. Or almost answer, Stepovich thought to himself as he watched the cuffs come off. Daniel maintained the same posture, only pulling his hands forward into his lap and gently massaging his wrists. No complaints. No threats of police brutality charges,no demands to know on what grounds he was being held. None of it added, not the way he had shrugged off Ed's offer of a trip to the emergency room, nor the way he had constantly asked them to clarify their questions. Hell, Daniel had asked more questions than he'd answered. He and Ed had had a fine time,questioning each other, dodging and weaving like boxers in a ring. Did Daniel know the scarred Gypsy?Well, he wasn't sure. What kind of scars were on his face? Oh? And was he a sickly old man? No? In good health, then? The gypsy he was with, did he have a tambourine? Oh, he was alone then? And on and on.
Stepovich wasn't sure Ed had had the best of it. And none of it added up. Anybody could look at him and see he was related to the scarred Gypsy. It was in the cheekbones and the eyes, in the hooked nose and narrow chin. He had to know something about the man, but whatever it was, he was hiding it behind shrugs and blank stares, and "I don't understand"s. But he wasn't hostile, he wasn't defiant. He was waiting for something, content to remain in their hands to see what happened next.
What happened next that Ed said, "Got it!" and flicked a chunk of glass the size of a nickel onto the kitchen table. In the next instant he was pressing a dish towel to the back of the gypsy's head, staunching the flow of blood, so red against the black curling hair. "Oh," Durand breathed, and Stepovich understood. The sight of it dizzied Stepovich for an instant,as the sight and smell of blood did sometimes, and he found himself grinning hard to hold off the weakness.
"Boy's got enough hair," Ed muttered, and Stepovich registered that Ed had already classified him as"the kid" and "boy." Meaning that Ed had already made his personal judgment that Daniel was okay.Otherwise he'd have been "the punk" and "dick head."