'I suppose.' the older doctor said, 'my colleague's reason for telling you all this is to give you a sense of the caution you need to take.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Just that the mayor insists on seeing you; he's a stubborn man. and arguing with him on the subject will cause the very sort of excitement that we would like to avoid. So we're acquiescing to his wishes, where you're concerned.'
'I'll take it easy with him. Doc. How are the other victims?'
'Only Mrs. Gill was seriously wounded,' the younger one said. 'She's in critical condition. The other four sustained only minor wounds.'
The older doctor said, 'Why don't you go on in.'
I put my hand on the door to push it open and, just before I went in, said to Miller, as if noticing him for the first time, 'Oh? Do you still work here?'
Cermak, propped up in bed- an older, nontrainee nurse hovering at his side- looked at me and managed a lopsided smile. His skin was gray, his eyes half-closed, his lips pallid. His hands were folded over his belly. All around the room, and in an adjoining sunroom where the other two bodyguards sat.
were flowers.
'I haven't seen so many flowers since Dion O'Bannion got killed,' I said.
He laughed at that, just a little, and the nurse frowned at me, then at him.
I was at his bedside now. 'How you feeling. Mayor?'
He shrugged with his face. 'I wouldn't buy me if I was for sale,' he said. His voice was breathy. 'We need to talk.'
'Fine.'
He turned his head toward the nurse; it was an effort, but he did it. 'Get out,' he said.
She didn't think that was at all friendly, but she didn't bother arguing the point. She'd already spent some time with His Honor, apparently, and knew the futility of fighting him.
When she had gone, he said, 'Shut the sunroom door for me, Heller.'
I did that.
'And the window,' he said.
I did that, too: two uniformed cops were standing outside the first-floor room, and they turned and danced at me as I brought the window down.
Then I went to his bedside; on the stand next to the bed was a stack of telegrams, thick as a book. The one on top was from the mayor of Prague.
'You know, Heller,' he said, 'I didn't know I'd been shot. I felt something stun me, like a jolt of electricity. But I didn't hear the shots, what with the noise of the crowd. Then my chest felt like the center of it was on fire.'
'He got away, Your Honor.'
'I was told they got him.'
'I mean the blond.'
'Oh.'
'Assassins work in teams, usually. One of them shoots, the other is simply backup. The blond was the backup. Only if the assassin had missed you would the backup have started shooting, and probably would've got away with it, too, since the crowd's attention was on the little man emptying his gun at the president's car. The blond probably had a silenced gun, or was planning to pass himself off as a cop or Secret Service man in the confusion. He's worked a crowd before. Anyway, I made the mistake, because I knew he'd pulled a trigger in the past, of assuming he'd pull the trigger this time. I was wrong.'
'You did what you could. If the other people working for me had done as good as you… well. They didn't, did they?'
'You'll get no argument from me on that score.'
'I guess ultimately I got myself to blame.'
I wouldn't have argued with him on that score, either, but didn't say so. Instead I said. 'Have you seen the papers?'
'They haven't shown them to me.' Cermak said. 'I've been told the basics. Zangara? Is that the name?'
'That's the name.'
'Italian, they say.'
'That's right.'
'What do the papers say exactly?'
'That this guy Zangara was trying to shoot Roosevelt.'
He smiled a little. 'Good.'
'I thought maybe you'd feel that way. That's one of the reasons why I've been keeping my trap shut.'
'About what?'
