I WAS THINKING fast when I came out of the phone booth. To tell Dana or not to tell her, that was the question. I decided I’d better. She’d find out soon enough, anyway.
She took it standing up. She drew in her breath sharply and her eyes got wide. She said, “Something else?” and I knew what she meant. I was thinking the same thing.
We walked out of the club and stood on the curb while the doorman tried to flag a taxi. It was a tough job because the night was bad. What had been snow had turned to slush; what had been rain had become sleet. A freezing wind swept up from the river and chilled me all the way through.
A taxi swung into the curb and disgorged two men and a woman. I grabbed the taxi and said, “McKinley Hospital, and step on it, Bud.” We slid and lurched westward. I took Dana’s hand. It was almost as cold as mine.
She asked, “Is he dead?”
“I don’t know. That’s all the girl said: that he’d been shot.”
She didn’t ask any more questions. We skidded on dirty snow through dirty streets. My mind flashed back to Wednesday night: Arthur Maybank having the time of his life, being somebody in a place where there were a lot of somebodies. Letting himself go over a woman. Taking her out last night with my twenty dollars. Stretched out now in his own hospital, victim of a shooting. That’s all I knew, but it was enough to make me feel ill.
We stopped at the curb in front of the main entrance. I gave the driver a dollar bill and told him to keep the change. We went into the dingy lobby and spoke to the dingy girl at the receptionist’s desk. We told her we were friends of Dr. Arthur Maybank and wanted to see him. She jerked her head toward the old-fashioned iron grillwork of the elevator and forgot all about us. We went up to the fourth floor.
It was better up there, but still not good. People walked around, some dressed as we were and some in white. This was a private room floor. So they were treating Arthur all right. I was glad.
A girl approached us. She was slim and dark and had a clear olive complexion. Her black eyes looked frightened. She had on a little hat and a brown dress. The sheared beaver coat she wore was open. That’s how I could see the brown dress.
Agnes Sheridan said, “I’m glad you’re here. I thought you might be at the club, Mr. Douglas. I suggested they phone you.”
I said, “How bad is it?”
“Not bad. But that isn’t the point. Somebody shot at him.”
“When?”
“Less than an hour ago. I had a date with him. I was in the little restaurant near the corner, and he was supposed to join me there for a cup of coffee and some doughnuts. When he didn’t show up, I came over to see what was detaining him. They told me what had happened.”
“What did they tell you?”
“That he had slipped his overcoat on over his whites and told the other interne he’d be back in a few minutes. He went across the parking space, and somebody fired at him from among the parked cars.”
“Did they catch him?”
“No.”
“Has Arthur any idea . . .”
“No. It just happened. He was unconscious, but only for a little while. He was hit in the arm. The resident surgeon says he’ll be up and around by tomorrow. But if somebody shot at him deliberately, they might try it again.”
I said, “You’re really fond of him, aren’t you?”
“I like him. He’s different from anybody I’ve ever met.”
That made sense. There was a lot of emotion bottled up in this Sheridan woman. She was shaking now, and Dana put a hand on her arm to steady her. Agnes went right on talking, as though it made her feel better to get things off her chest.
“They called the police. The cops talked to him as soon as he came down from the operating room. They left just a few minutes ago.”
“Can we see him?”
“I think so. I’ll ask the hall nurse.”
She knew just where she was going. She’d been working at the McKinley quite a while as a nurse’s aide. She returned in a few seconds and led us into a room which was clean enough, provided you were too sick to care about details.
Arthur smiled when we came in. It was a brave effort, but not too successful. This wasn’t the Arthur of Wednesday night. He looked sick and frightened. There was something behind his eyes that disturbed me, as though he knew that the end was not yet.
Dana went over to the bed and said something nice. He took her hand and said, “Thanks.” There was real warmth in the smile he gave Agnes Sheridan.
I asked him how he was feeling and he said, “Fine.” He told me it was nothing at all, just a flesh wound in the arm. He said he’d be on the job next day, as usual—or, at the latest, the day after that. He was trying to be the big brave boy, and he wasn’t getting away with it.
I pulled up a chair. I asked him to tell me about it. He said, “There isn’t much to tell. I was walking across the parking lot. Something hit me. I couldn’t even swear I heard the shot. Next thing I knew they were rolling me into the operating room.”
I smiled brightly. “Probably an accident.”
“I’d like to think so. But I don’t.”
Dana said, “Why would anybody want to shoot you?”
“I can’t figure that one, either. It may have been some screwball who used to be a patient. Maybe someone who took a dislike to me.”
“But that isn’t what you think, is it?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
He told me about the cops being there. From his description, they were a couple of detectives from the same division the hospital is in. According to him, they asked all sorts of questions, and promised to stick with it. He said, “But there’s nothing to stick with. I couldn’t think of anybody who would want to shoot me, so what chance have they got?”
He wasn’t badly hurt. But he’d been shaken up plenty. He was jittery. We sat around and talked. We talked mostly about how lucky he was; what an escape he’d had. He agreed with us, but he wasn’t happy. He was thinking that there’d likely be a next time, and he might not be so lucky then.
Time passed faster than we knew. Dana looked at her watch and seemed troubled. I said I’d run her back to the club for the supper show. She wouldn’t hear of it. Arthur begged Agnes to go home. He was pitifully grateful to her.
She said she intended to stay, but Arthur argued her down. She finally agreed to go with Dana. She’d drop Dana at the club and keep the same taxi. We said good night. Agnes leaned over the bed and brushed her lips over Arthur’s. He seemed to like it.
It was almost midnight. Arthur and I were alone. From the corridor came the usual hushed sounds of a hospital. The elevator made the only real noise. Its door banged every time it opened, every time it closed. Arthur didn’t seem to notice.
I was feeling lousy. I fumbled for a cigarette, then stowed it away again. Arthur said, “Go ahead. Give me one, too.” We lighted up. It seemed to help both of us.
I said, “Is it all right to talk?”
“Sure. I’m okay. Scared—that’s all.”
I said, “You told the police you didn’t have any idea who might have done it. Is that true?”
“Yes. I wish it weren’t.”
“I don’t get it. An attempted murder almost out in the open . . .”
“It was a good safe place.” He smiled wanly. “And it’s a pretty bad night.”
“You didn’t see the person who shot at you?”
“No.” He hesitated. “That is . . . well, I don’t think so.”
“What does that mean?”
“Something like that happens, Kirk—and you’re liable to remember things that never occurred. While they had me in the operating room I had a hazy remembrance of seeing a man running out from among the parked cars. I’d say a tall man, wearing a felt hat and an overcoat. But I couldn’t swear to it. It may have been imagination entirely.”
I kept on probing. Maybe there was something important that he wouldn’t recognize as important. I asked the questions, but he didn’t seem to have the answers. The resident physician came in and chatted with us. He gave Arthur a colorless liquid in a little glass. He said, “That’ll give you a good night’s rest.” Then he suggested that I probably needed some sleep, it being already two o’clock.
I told Arthur I’d see him the first thing the next morning. He said there wasn’t anything he wanted. I hoped the medicine was going to knock him cold. I didn’t want him to lie awake all night with nothing but his thoughts for company.
I walked to my apartment. I undressed and slipped under the covers. I kept the light on and lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling.
At three o’clock I telephoned Dana’s apartment. She answered so quickly that I knew she must have been waiting for the call. Her voice was far from steady. I told her Arthur was right as rain. I said that it might have been an accident. I didn’t press that point too far, because then she wouldn’t have believed me. I just planted the idea.
She asked me things which I couldn’t answer. I told her if she weren’t able to sleep she must call me. She promised. We said good night and hung up. I felt more lonely, more worried, than ever.
Facts were marching around in my brain like little wooden soldiers. They added up to one unpleasant conclusion.
Several inexplicable things had happened recently.
Some unknown person had deposited one hundred thousand dollars to my credit at the bank.
A woman named Ethel Brower, whom I had never seen nor heard of, had been murdered in my apartment.
A very spectacular young lady named Candy Livingston had returned from being kidnaped and had apparently made a deliberate effort to impress herself on me.
Dr. Arthur Maybank had been shot at—probably, but not certainly—by a man who obviously had intended to kill him.
Four major happenings without rhyme or reason. Four occurrences which had only one thing in common.
That thing was me. My bank account, my apartment, my personality, my friend. I felt certain that Arthur had been shot simply because he was a friend of mine. It made no sense. But there it was. I, Kirk Douglas, was the common denominator.
I turned out the light and knew I wouldn’t sleep.
I also knew that the answer to the puzzle was a long way off. I remembered a line written by a war correspondent. I felt that it fitted this situation.
The line was:
“Things will get much worse before they get better.”