"It wasn't"
"No, alas, true enough. It wasn't. But still in my own way, it was close enough. I even got to say the words, C-Bird. "I am dying, Egypt. Dying…" which was satisfying."
"Who was there to hear them?"
"You know."
I tried a different tack. "Did you fight, Cleo?"
"I always fought, C-Bird. My whole sorry goddamn life was a fight."
"But did you fight the Angel, Cleo?"
She grinned and waved the Ping-Pong paddle in the air, rearranging the smoke from her cigarette. "Of course I did, C-Bird. You knew me. I wasn't going down easy."
"He killed you?"
"No. Not exactly. But sort of, as well. It was like everything in the hospital, C-Bird. The truth was crazy and complicated and as mad as we all were."
"I thought so," I answered.
She laughed a little. "I knew you could see it. Tell them now, like you tried to tell them back then. It would have been easier if they'd listened to you. But then, who ever wants to listen to the crazy people?"
This observation made us both smile, for it was the closest thing to the truth that either of us could muster in that moment.
I took a deep breath. I could feel a great welling loss, like a vacuum within me.
"I miss you, Cleo."
"I miss you, too, C-Bird. I miss living. How about a game of Ping-Pong? I'll even spot you a couple of points."
She smiled before she faded away.
I sighed, and turned back to the wall. A shadow seemed to have slithered over it, and the next sound I heard was the voice I wanted to forget.
"Little C-Bird wants answers before he dies, doesn't he?"
Each word was confusing, a little like a pounding headache, as if there were someone banging against the door of my imagination. I rocked back and wondered if there was someone actually trying to break in, and I cowered, hiding from the darkness that crept through the room. Within my heart I searched for brave words to respond with, but they were elusive. I could feel my hand quiver, and thought I was on the verge of some great pain, but from some recess I found a reply.
"I have all the answers," I said. "I always did."
But this was as harsh an understanding as any that had ever come to me unbidden. It frightened me almost as much as the sound of the Angel's voice. I pressed back, and as I cowered, I heard the telephone ringing in the next room. The jangling only added to my nervousness. After a moment, it stopped, and I heard the answering machine that my sisters had purchased for me click on. "Mister Petrel? Are you there?" The voice seemed distant, but familiar. "It's Mister Klein at the Wellness Center. You have not arrived for the appointment that you promised you would attend. Please pick up the telephone. Mister Petrel? Francis? Please contact this office as soon as you get this message, otherwise I will be forced to take some action…"
I remained rooted in my spot.
"They will come for you," I heard the Angel say. "Can't you see, C-Bird? You're in a box and you can't get out."
I closed my eyes, but it did no good. It was as if sounds increased in volume.
"They will come for you, Francis, and this time they will want to take you away forever. They will think: No more little apartment. No more job counting fish for the wildlife survey. No more Francis walking the streets getting in the way of everyday life. No more burden for your sisters or your elderly parents, Francis, who never loved you all that much anyway, after they saw what you would become. No, they will want to shut Francis away for the rest of his days. Locked up, strait jacketed drooling mess. That's what you will become, Francis. Surely you can see that…"
The Angel laughed a little before adding:"… Unless, of course, I kill you first."
These words were as sharp as any knife blade.
I wanted to say "What are you waiting for?" but instead, shifted about, and crawling like a baby, tears dripping down my face, crossed the floor toward the wall of words. He was right with me, every step, and I didn't understand yet why he had not seized hold of me. I tried to block out his presence, as if memory was my only salvation, and remembering Lucy's authoritative demand that seemed to cut across the years.
Lucy strode forward. "No one should touch a thing," she demanded. "This is a crime scene!"
Mister Evans seemed confused by her appearance and stuttered some reply that didn't make immediate sense. Doctor Gulptilil, also taken aback by her outward change, shook his head, and stepped just slightly into her path, as if he could slow her pace down by forming some sort of obstacle. The security guards and Big Black and Little Black all shifted about uncomfortably.
"She's right," Peter said forcefully. "The police should be called."
The Fireman's voice seemed to penetrate past Evans's surprise, and he pivoted toward Peter, saying, "What the hell do you know?"
Gulptilil held up his hand and neither shook his head negatively, nor nodded in agreement. Instead, he shifted about in his place, as if switching his pear-shaped body amoeba-like from one position into another. "I would not be all that persuaded," he said calmly. "Did we not just go through this sort of discussion with the prior death in this ward?"
Lucy Jones snorted. "Yes, I believe we did."
"Ah, of course. An elderly patient who passed away from sudden heart failure. Which, I recall, you also wanted to investigate as a homicide."
Lucy gestured toward Cleo's misshapen body, still hanging grotesquely in the stairwell. "This, I doubt, could be attributed to sudden heart failure."
"Nor does it have the earmarks of your cases," Gulp-a-pill replied.
"Yes it does," Peter said briskly. "The severed thumb."
The doctor pivoted about and spent a few seconds staring at Cleo's hand, and then down at the macabre sight on the floor. He shook his head, as he often did, but replied, "Perhaps. But then, Miss Jones, prior to engaging the local police, and all the trouble that act implies, we should examine the death ourselves, and see if we can reach some consensus. For my initial inspection does not suggest this is a homicide in the slightest."
Lucy Jones looked askance, started to say one thing, then stopped. "As you wish, Doctor," she said. "Let's take a look at the scene. As you wish."
Lucy followed the physician into the stairwell. Peter and Francis moved aside, watching them as they progressed into the small area. Mister Evil trailed after them, as well, after fixing Peter with a snarling gaze, but the others all hovered in the doorway area, as if getting much closer would somehow increase the potency of the image in front of them. Francis saw nervousness and fear in more than one set of eyes, and thought the portrait of Cleo's death managed to transcend the ordinary boundaries of sanity and insanity; it was equally unsettling to the normal and the mad, just the same.