if he understood. “Yeah. I think I could use a medpac.”
She sat down beside him. “You'll be well soon, ball-sized device that looked like a water-smoothed stone. She fooled with it for a moment, giving him a chance to study her clothing: a white blouse with a huge roll collar and a deeply cut neckline and six pearly buttons on each long cuff, brief shorts the color of wet pimentos so thin that they might have been sprayed onto her, and boots which snugly encased her feet and half her calves. She had long brown legs, perfect and elegant as any he had ever seen.
When she returned to the bed she put the stone on his chest and touched a clearly defined discoloration on the top of it. The stone came alive and fed microscopic tendrils into him, diagnosed his current condition, and administered whatever drugs it deemed suitable. It withdrew its tendrils and was still. She had explained what it was doing when she saw the confusion and fear in his eyes, and now she removed the device and put it on the covers beside him.
“Medpac,” he said.
She looked at him curiously.
“What a hell of a thing,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He looked around the room, pleased by what he saw. Wood paneling, teak or something as dark as teak. A low ceiling with antique light fixtures. Emerald green velvet drapes. Heavy furniture: a dresser with six drawers, two full-length mirrors in ornate frames, a nightstand with a black and red marble top, a richly carved and curlicued chest which doubled as a dressing table, two bookcases well stocked with leatherette bound volumes the titles of which he could not quite see.
She sat down beside him. “You'll be well soon, darling.” Her voice was firm, yet feminine, soothing, cool.
Those few words drew his attention back to her, and he could not imagine why he had ever looked away from her in the first place.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The frail smile vanished. A frown took its place. Her wandering fingers froze as they smoothed down his hair. Who am I? You don't know me?”
“No.”
“Oh my,” she said.
“So tell me.”
“You fell and struck your head. Doctor Harttle said there was a possibility of amnesia, but we—”
“Wait,” he said. The drugs had begun to take effect; the bed began another slow revolution under him.
“Darling?”
Joel licked his lips, fought the drugs. “The man without a face…”
“Who?” She sounded perplexed.
“The faceless man,” he repeated. “The one who—”
“Joel, you were dreaming. What a terrible dream you must have had!” She leaned closer to him, took his face in both her hands and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“It wasn't a dream,” he said.
“Certainly it was.”
“No.”
“Men without faces? Oh, Joel, just a bad dream. But don't be frightened. I'll be here with you. I won't leave you. I'll be here while you sleep.”
As she bent closer to him, he saw the full curves of her breasts in the deep vee-neck of her blouse. Her hair brushed his face; it smelled fresh and clean, soapy. Then, dammit, he fell asleep.
This time when he woke a man stood over him. The stranger was almost as tall as Joel, fifty-five or sixty years old, white-haired. His face was deeply wrinkled but undeniably strong. His laugh lines were like saber slashes. His eyes were wrinkled with dark crinkled skin. His face had character and authority.
“So you don't remember me either,” he said.
“No, sir,” Joel said.
“I don't believe you.”
Joel shook his head. He still felt drugged. “I'm sorry, but it's true.”
The stranger sighed, looked at the ceiling, looked at his fingernails, finally turned his eyes on Joel again. “We've sent for Harttle, of course. If you can be helped, he's the one to set you right.”
Joel sensed the old man's undisguised dislike for him and also understood, somehow, that the antipathy was supposed to be mutual. The old man wanted to be hated. He expected it. Joel struggled with sheets and blankets, sat up, surprised to find that most of his strength had returned. He leaned against the headboard. “Sir, do you think you could bring me into the picture? Who is the woman? And yourself?
The old man wiped at his eyes and brought his hand away from his face as if he had captured his weariness in it. He said, “The woman is Allison, as you very well know.”
“I don't know,” Joel insisted.
“She's your wife. You were married a year ago last month — against my wishes.”
“You?”
“Must we play this game?”
“I wish you would.”
The old man sighed. “I'm her uncle, Henry Galing, her father's only brother.” He puffed up with pride at the mention of his name. “You're Joel Amslow,” he said with no pride at all. More like disdain. Or disgust. “You're a beach bum, a no account, and probably more than a little bit of a gigolo. You're twenty-eight and have never held a full-time job in your life. The only thing you've accomplished is a college degree in literature and a legal marriage to my niece.”
Joel ignored the challenge. He saw stark, cold hatred in the old man's eyes, but he didn't want to respond to it. He only wanted to get as much information as possible without bogging down in petty arguments. Besides, the hard-jawed old bastard might be telling the truth. He said, “But I must be working now, with a wife to support —”
Gailing's lips grew taut as bow strings. “You're managing Allison's estate, as you so glibly describe your loafing about.”
“Estate?”
“Come off it, Amslow.”
“No, really—”
“This whole thing is a trick of some kind,” Galing said curtly. “I don't see the purpose. But you've always been a cunning sonofabitch. I suppose I'll know what you're doing soon enough — when you get whatever else it is you're after.”
“It's no trick,” Joel said.
“What isn't?” Allison asked. She stepped through the open bedroom door with a tray of silver dishes all covered with silver lids. A set of silverware was wrapped in a white linen napkin and laid next to a squat, cut crystal goblet that was half-filled with what appeared to be wine.
“Nothing,” Henry Galing said fiercely. His eyes, as dark as Allison's eyes were blue, were hard, piercing. “It's between Joel and me.” He glanced at his watch and gruffly excused himself, closing the door as he left.
Unaware of the ugly crosscurrents into which she had stepped, the girl placed the tray across Joel's lap, removed the lids from the dishes, and unrolled the napkin from the silverware. She gave him a dazzling smile and said, “Dinner's everything that you like.”
The food graced the elegant plates like oil on a master's canvas. She had brought him an enormous steak browned just enough to let him feel civilized, a baked potato, creamed corn, tossed salad, and wine. He had not been hungry until the food was before him, but now he was ravenous. He consumed every morsel and was not content until he leaned back against the headboard and surveyed the empty plates.
In all that time neither of them had spoken, but Allison had time to think. She said, “Was Uncle Henry going at you again?”
“Going at me?”
“You know what I mean.”
