“I’m not trying to be mean, telling you this next part, but you might want to remember a couple of things: you haven’t been officially released by Dr. Hayes, you’re still considered a danger to yourself and maybe others, and as far as the law is concerned, that makes you no different than someone who escapes from jail. You take off on me, I’ll have the police after you in a heartbeat. We’ve got your address, the license number of your car, we know where you work . . . you take off, the police will find you, and when they do, they’ll bring you back here in handcuffs, and you’ll be staying the whole ten days. But that’s not the worst of it.”

“No?”

“No. The worst of it is, you’ll have abused my trust, and hurt my feelings, and probably gotten me chewed out by a couple of different people. In short: I will be irked at you, Martin. And I’m kinda like The Incredible Hulk that way; don’t irk me; you wouldn’t like me when I’m irked.”

Martin smiled. “Damn, Ethel, I like you.”

“Then prove it by keeping your word.” She started back to the nurses’ station. “Okay, I’m gonna buzz you out.”

“Thanks.”

He was out the door and into the night before it occurred to him (and probably Ethel, as well) that he hadn’t promised her anything one way or the other.

Okay, as moral loopholes went, it was fairly underhanded, but he took it.

Now, the question of the moment was: where did Dr. Hayes park his car? He had maybe five minutes before Ethel called the ER to check on him, tack on another three if she called the police right away, which, being irked, she would undoubtedly do, so . . .

It was not in the first place he checked: The Center’s parking lot.

It was, however, in the second place he looked: across the street from The Center and down a little ways.

Looking over his shoulder, he froze when he saw Ethel’s face peering from the small square window of The Center’s door.

Shit, shit, shit!

He took off running, looking back in time to see Ethel’s face move away from the window. The throbbing ache in his head wasn’t helped any by his running—every time his foot hit the ground, it sent shockwaves of near-blinding pain into the center of his skull—but he managed to make it to his car, unlock the door, and start the engine before he caught a peripheral glimpse of someone very large and very male and very strong in a very white uniform running out of the ER and directly toward him.

“I’m sorry, Ethel,” he said.

Then floored the gas pedal and tore away in a smoking squeal.

7

Once the most exclusive and expensive hotel in Cedar Hill, the last fifty years had seen the Taft slide not-so-slowly into disrepair and decay (as had many of the buildings in this unpopular area near the East End), becoming nothing more than a glorified flop-house where those who’ve reached the end of their rope could crawl into poverty’s shadow and just give up. Martin thought it looked like some mangy, dying animal left by the road. The rusted fire escape twisted around the exterior like a piece of barbed wire, and were it not for the low-wattage lights seen in a few of the dirtier, cracked, and duct-taped windows, you’d swear it was an abandoned ruin waiting for the wrecking ball to put it out of its misery.

He stood at the front doors, readying himself for whatever waited inside.

He’d left his car three blocks away, in the city’s only parking garage. It had cost him all the money he had to get through the gate, but at least it wasn’t on the street and in easy view of any cops who might cruise past; he supposed he ought to count himself lucky none had driven by while he was walking over here: the last two things he’d done before leaving his car was tear off one shirt sleeve to use as a makeshift bandage for his head (the knot had begun bleeding—not a lot, but just enough to start dripping into his eye), and taken a crowbar out of the trunk, sliding it up his coat sleeve. A full half of the serious crime committed in Cedar Hill occurred in this area, and he wanted to be able to defend himself if it came to that.

Martin, however, could not see himself; some of the blood from the wound had spattered onto both his shirt and coat, had even left a thin trail down the side of his face; the bandage around his head was ragged, too tight, and already stained with fresh blood that was also soaking into stray strands of his hair; his face was far too pale (he did have a minor concussion, though he didn’t know it), and his eyes appeared to be sinking farther and farther into the dark circles around them; add to this the manner in which he walked—fast and hard, a man in a hurry—and that even a nearsighted ninety-year-old grandmother could tell he was carrying a crowbar up his sleeve, and you had a picture of someone you did not. Want to. Fuck with.

Martin pulled in a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway. It was lighted (as were all of them) by naked bulbs that hung too low and cast too many shadows.

He shook his arm, letting the crowbar drop a little farther into his grip, and started up the groaning stairs. Christ, he’d almost swear he could hear the rats gnawing at the woodwork, or roaches scuttling across dishes left too long unwashed.

Somewhere outside, in back of the building, a trashcan was knocked over.

He hurried his step.

If the looks and sounds of the place weren’t bad enough, the smells made up for it: rot, filth, the ghost of recently-mopped vomit, the sickly sweet aroma of urine and old human feces, all of it mixing with the thin mist rising from the outside sewers that added its own olfactory panache to the evening. He began breathing through his mouth so as not to gag. He hit the fourth-floor landing and stepped into something moist and spongy, but didn’t look down to see what it was. All he could see was the door a few feet away from him. 401. He approached it, raised his hand to knock (out of habit), then tried the knob. Locked.

He pulled the crowbar from his sleeve, tried to reach the bulb hanging nearest him with his hand, couldn’t, so stepped back, jumped up, swung the crowbar, and shattered the damn thing. Hitting the floor, he hunched down in the new shadows and waited for someone to come investigate the noise. No one did. Of course not; no one would, not here.

He rose up and pressed his shoulder against the door, forced the hooked end of the crowbar into the jamb, tightened both hands around it, and yanked back.

The doorjamb splintered apart in a shower of semi-soft flakes and the sound of a rotten tooth being torn from infected gums. Not looking to see if anyone was watching, Martin stepped into the room and closed the door behind him; it wouldn’t latch (he’d taken care of that for good), so he looked around, saw a crate stuffed with books and newspapers and painting supplies, and dragged it over to hold the door in place.

He then heard something from elsewhere in the room; the pulling in of a deep, slow, ragged breath, thick with mucus, that made a sickening rattle-wheeze-pop! at the end, an equally terrible sound when exhaled.

He walked toward the nearly used-up old man lying in the shabby, half-broken bed, his body covered by tattered blankets.

No, not just some old man—Bob.

This was him.

It was really him. Martin recognized him from that day outside DeVito’s; his face was all but collapsed now, barely more than a skeleton covered in a tissue-thin layer of flesh, but it was him.

A hundred different questions came to him simultaneously: how long had Bob lain here in this condition? How had he managed to keep himself alive? How long had he lived here, anyway? Didn’t he have any friends who might have come by to check on him?