Lemons Never Lie

'Beat the crap out of me right here,' Grofield said. 'I hurt too much to sit up.'

Doubt creased Dan's forehead. 'Are you putting me on?'

Grofield had gently touched his fingertips to the back of his head, and hadn't liked it at all. Now he looked at his hand and saw brownish-red smears on the balls of his fingers. 'Sure I'm putting you on,' he said, and turned his hand around to show it to Dan. 'You want ketchup for your hamburger?'

Dan was having trouble changing from a conviction he'd been happy with. 'If it wasn't you,' he said, 'how'd they get to me?'

'You'll have to give me a minute on questions like that.'

'Listen, let me get you up on the bed.'

'Who's fighting?'

Dan picked him up, and Grofield tried to keep his head from flopping around. Dan put him down on the bed and said, 'Can you roll over on your side? I wanna see your head.'

'Sure,' Grofield said. He rolled over, and bitterly studied the wall while Dan was out of sight, seeing to his head.

Dan said, 'A cut, that's all… not deep.' He touched Grofield's head, which stung like fury. 'Nothing broken. It'll hurt, though.'

'You sure?'

'Definitely,' Dan said. He had no sense of humor at all. He said, 'Roll back over now, we got to talk.'

Grofield rolled back over. Dan pulled up a chair, as though he were a visitor in a hospital, and sat there with his elbows on the edge of the bed. His face was very close to Grofield's. He said, 'You wanna know what happened to me?'

Grofield moved his head slightly so he could see Dan with both eyes and said, 'Two guys in raincoats and shotguns took your money away.'

'That's right.'

'They were here, too.'

'I know that,' Dan said. 'They thought it was funny. They picked the wrong guy first, followed you home instead of me.'

'Very funny,' Grofield said.

'But then they corrected their mistake,' Dan said.

'I know.'

'And that's what I got to thank you for,' Dan said. 'Head or no head, blood or no blood, that's still what I got to thank you for.'

'You think I sent them to you?'

'Who else? What other way are they gonna get to me? They followed you, they didn't follow me. The only way they get to me is if you tell them where I'm staying.'

'Wrong,' Grofield said.

'What do you mean, wrong? They followed you, not-'

'No, they didn't.'

Dan frowned, trying very hard to understand. 'Cough it out,' he said.

'They didn't follow anybody,' Grofield said. 'Didn't you recognize them? It was Myers and the guy you knocked out.'

Dan stared. 'Are you crazy?'

'They muffled their voices behind those masks,' Grofield said, 'But I recognized them anyway. The bouncer, at any rate.' He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

'You're sure it was them.'

'I know definitely it was them. Even if I didn't recognize them, and I did, I know I didn't tell them where you were staying. They didn't even ask. The fat one said something about picking the wrong one, and Myers told him he meant they'd followed the wrong one. Trying to cover a slip of the tongue.'

'They hijacked me,' Dan said, as though he couldn't believe it. 'Called me here to this lousy town for a caper, come up with a heist out of the comic books, and then hijack me.'

'That's right.'

Dan got to his feet. 'They need to learn some things,' he said. He was suddenly in a hurry to go somewhere.

'Manners, for instance,' Grofield said. Experimentally he lifted his head from the pillow, and it didn't seem to hurt as much.

'I've gotta go talk to them,' Dan said, and turned toward the door. The lock was still broken, but the door had been pushed all the way closed.