I also became aware that a thick-set man was sitting beside me. His hat rested on the back
of his head, and he chewed a tooth pick, a bored, tired expression on his fleshy, unshaven
face. He had copper written all over him.
After a while he noticed my eyes were open, and he shifted forward to peer at me.
“I wouldn’t win a dime with a double-headed coin,” he said in disgust. “Talk about luck!
So you have to come to the surface just when I’m signing off.”
A nurse appeared from behind the screen. She also peered at me: not the fat nurse. This one
was blonde and pretty.
“Hello,” I said, and my voice sounded miles away.
“You mustn’t talk,” she said severely. “Just lie still and try to sleep.”
“Sleep — hell!” the copper said. “He’s gotta talk. Keep out of this, nurse. He wants to talk,
don’t you, pal?”
“Hello, copper,” I said, and closed my eyes. When I opened them again the thin guy in
45
white was standing over me.
“How am I doing, doc?” I asked.
“You’re doing fine,” he told me. “You’re a miracle.”
I blinked him into focus. He was young and eager and interested. I liked him.
“Where am I?” I asked, and tried to lift my head, but it was too heavy.
“You’ve had an accident. Just take it easy. You’re coming along fine.”
The copper appeared from behind him.
“Can I talk to him?” he asked, an exasperated note in his voice. “Just one or two questions.
That can’t hurt him.”
“Make it short,” the doctor said. “He has a bad concussion.”
He stood aside and the copper took his place. He had a notebook in his hand and an inch of
blunt pencil in his thick fingers.
“What’s your name, pal?” he asked. “Don’t bear down on it. We just want to get things
straightened out.”
“John Farrar,” I told him.
“Address?”
“I haven’t one.”
“You gotta sleep somewhere, haven’t you?”
“I was hitch-hiking.”
He blew out his fat cheeks and looked up at the ceiling as if he were praying.
“Well, okay, you were hitch-hiking. Got a father or a mother or a wife or someone?”
“No.”
He turned and looked at the doctor.
“Now do you believe I never have any luck? Of all the guys who get snarled up in a car
smash I have to pick me an orphan.”
“You’d better cut this short,” the doctor said, his fingers on my pulse. “He’s not fit to talk
yet.”
46
“Wait a minute; wait a minute,” the copper said, licking his pencil. “I’ve got to get this
straightened out.” He turned to me again. “Okay, pal. So there’s no one to claim you. Well,
how about the dame you was with? Who was she?”
A picture of her floated into my mind with her jet-black hair, her hungry look and the shape
she had on her.
“I don’t know. ‘Call me Della if you must call me something That’s what she said.’ She
didn’t tell me her other name.”
The copper groaned.
