He smiled delightedly. 'Why, how'd you know? Just what I wanted.'
'Tony's a friend of mine, Brinkman,' I said quietly.
'Wouldn't be the first time a man crossed up a friend.' He sniffed at my gun. 'Could even be you had a good reason.'
'The gun's been fired,' I said. 'At the car.'
'At the car.' He nodded. 'Now tell me the whole story.'
I told him. It was a short story. Donnelly, dismissed, didn't move, but sat gaping at the excitement he'd missed.
'And, of course,' Brinkman said when I'd finished, 'you have no idea who might be shooting at Antonelli, or at you. Do you, city boy?'
I told him what I'd told MacGregor. His response surprised me. 'Frank Grice,' he said. 'You and me, that's something we think the same on.'
'Then what's this shit about me shooting Tony?'
'Well, that was mostly to get a rise out of you,' he grinned. 'See, the way I look at it, anybody’d rather shoot you than him.'
'Brinkman,' I said carefully, 'it's been a long, long day. If you're through, I'd appreciate it if you'd go to hell.'
But he wasn't quite through. First he took a statement from Eve. Her calm, low voice was like a warm place to watch a storm from. Then he wanted to hear about the car, so I told him about the car. Then he asked me where Jimmy Antonelli was.
'You think Jimmy shot Tony?' I asked.
'It would make me happy.'
'Making you happy isn't high on my list, Brinkman, or Jimmy's either.'
'Maybe he's dead,' he said thoughtfully. 'Maybe that's why I can't find him.'
'Well,' I said, 'maybe if he's dead, he'll come looking for you.'
That made Donnelly laugh. It made Brinkman narrow his beady eyes and scowl. 'When I find him,' he said, 'and he tells me you knew where he was all along, that'll make my day.'
'Glad to help,' I said.
Then he gave me the usual warnings about not leaving the area, about making myself available. Then he left, about a year after he'd come, with my .38 in his hand and Donnelly trailing behind him.
The waiting area was very, very quiet without cops. I stood. 'You want coffee?' I asked Eve.
'Yes, I suppose I do.'
I got coffee and peanut butter crackers from the vending machines. 'Dinner,' I said. She smiled and we ate crackers and drank coffee and said nothing.
I spent the night in Tony's hospital room. It had been close to an hour before Lydia had arrived, and another half hour after that until the surgeon, discreetly triumphant in a red streaked green gown, had pushed through the doors to tell us Tony had lived through surgery and had a good chance of staying alive.
Eve had been willing to go home then. While she was in the ladies' room, Lydia asked me, 'What do you want me to do?'
'What you came here for: keep an eye on Eve.'
'This doesn't change things?'
'I don't know what this does. I feel as though I've been working blindfolded for days. Every time I think I'm close, something happens I don't understand.'
'Think about it,' Lydia said slowly, 'as though you didn't know these people. As though you really were an outsider.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, I'm not sure. It's just—I can't lose the feeling there's something you're not seeing. I wish I could see it, Bill. I wish I could help.'
I gave her a tired grin. 'Just standing there, you help.'
'God, you're impossible. If you didn't look so pathetic I'd slug you.'
'That's why I practice looking like this. Actually I feel great.'
Eve came back, asked me to call her in the morning. I promised I would. I watched through the glass doors as they crossed the parking lot together, saw Eve incline her head to catch Lydia's words, saw Lydia's smile flash as she unlocked her car.
After they'd driven away I sat back down, thought about what Lydia had said. My mind chased ideas around like a greyhound after a whole pack of mechanical rabbits, until I finally gave up and got up to talk to the nurse.
Tony didn't wake that night. Because it was a country hospital, the nurses found a cot for me—'From Pediatrics,' they confided—and pillows and blankets and even a toothbrush in a cellophane wrapper. Because it was a hospital, I didn't sleep well anyway. Nurses came and went all night, checking Tony's tubes and bandages, his temperature and his breathing. I woke each time, and then lay awake, breathing the bitter, antiseptic air, watching the moon, tired but dutiful, move across the sky. It finally gave up and set, discouraged.
A long time after the moon had set, the sky began to show streaks of red and iron blue, like a slow-to-develop
