17

THE LIGHTS SNAPPED on, and Sam jolted out of sleep and darkness. Where was she?

Then she tried to move her arms, and she remembered. She was lying facedown in the boxing ring, trussed like a stupid chicken.

She called into the bright silence, “Hey! Kris Kringle, is that you? Are you here?”

Nothing. Well, if he hit her again, she was going to pee all over the mat. But, who knew, that kind of thing might be right up his alley. Jeetz, she hoped not.

What was this place anyway? She wanted to know.

She had to know. Suddenly her location seemed terribly important. She grunted and rolled herself over, and she was staring up into the lights. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the glare, and she could see a few details. Could that be stained glass in the ceiling? She made out what looked like the figure of a swimmer in the colored glass. The panel was surrounded by a double crown molding of creamy plaster. You saw this kind of detail in buildings from the twenties, in the lobbies of big hotels. But did either the Palace or the Arlington have a gym? She didn’t know.

But wait a minute. Today, yesterday, somebody had said something about a gym in Hot Springs. A gym and boxing. She closed her eyes and willed the words back. A gym. Joe Louis himself worked out there. Joe, the Brown Bomber. People in Harlem had danced in the streets when he won the title. What was there today that would make folks do that? Nothing. The days of that kind of joy were long gone. But wait, wait. She was drifting off. She probably had brain damage from that lick on the chin. Now, who had said that about Joe Louis? The voice, yes, that was June talking, June with the skin so rich and smooth it had reminded her of chocolate. They’d been talking about the baths and—yes, that was it. She had it. June had said one of the bathhouses—Sam slid over the name that was out of her grasp, trying not to stop the flow—had been made into a museum, and that was the one with the gym where Joe Louis, and who else, yes, the Dallas Cowboys had trained. The Forsythe. No, Fordyce! She was in the Fordyce Bathhouse!

Maybe. And maybe she wasn’t. And if she was, so what? She was still trussed, ready for the oven. Or whatever fate the big man had in mind.

“Mickey, it’s very important for me to know what Doc’s doing in town.”

What? She could have jumped out of her skin, if she hadn’t been tied up, his voice coming out of the darkness at her like that.

“I understand that just because you’re partners doesn’t mean you know everything about Doc. But I’m sure you’re in on whatever’s going down here. Just tell me what that is.”

“I told you, Kris, I don’t know any Doc. And I have to pee something awful.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” He really did sound sorry. “I didn’t think about that. Wait right there.”

Sure.

But he wasn’t joking. He was back in a few minutes with a five-gallon stockpot—which made her think. Maybe this wasn’t a bathhouse after all.

“I’ll untie you, and then I’ll walk away over here and turn my back.”

“That’s your best offer?”

“That’s my only offer.”

“How do you know I won’t hit you in the head with the pot?”

He laughed. “It’s a thought.”

The release was sweet even if the cold rim of the pot made her shiver. Too bad she didn’t have any tissue. But maybe she did, in her jeans pockets.

She asked.

He held the jeans up, pilfered through the pockets. “I suppose if I were any kind of gentleman, I’d let you do this yourself.”

“A gentleman wouldn’t have taken my jeans in the first place.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Here, this is all I can find.” He was holding up Harry’s fax, handing it to her.

She unfolded it and read a line.…sure you’re having a great time there without me, but I…

“Perfect,” she said.