building.
A straw touched his lips. He drank. The water moistened his throat and tongue.
'A mistake?' Stella asked.
'I'm in heaven being served by an angel,' he said. 'That is certainly a mistake. I belong elsewhere. I'm not complaining, mind you, but if the system fails at this level, than how far behind is total chaos in the universe? I assure you my question is philosophical and not rhetorical.'
'You like to talk,' said Stella, standing above him.
'It's cultural and genetic,' he said. 'Most of the people in the inbred town I came from in Australia like to talk, take pride in it, get little work done because they're so enamored of their voices and words.'
'Good,' she said. 'We have a lot to talk about.'
'I'd prefer to wait till dawn,' he said. 'I can promise a greater coherence and willingness then.'
'I'd prefer you less coherent and less willing at the moment,' she said.
'Let me guess. Irish and Italian,' Connor tried.
'I'm Italian and Greek,' she said. 'And you are not Australian, you're Irish and in trouble.'
'Ah, when was I not? How is the good doctor?'
'Doctor Hawkes is fine,' she said.
'Send him my regards.'
'I'll let you do that yourself tomorrow. Want to tell me what happened?'
'By 'what happened' I assume you mean the murky events of this morning before I was swallowed by the sullen earth.'
'That's right.'
'Memory fails me,' he said, flexing his fingers, starting to feel life in them. 'Trauma does that sometimes. I fear I'll never remember. Selective amnesia.'
'Then I'll tell you,' she said, sitting in an uncomfortable blue naugahide chair.
Custus tried to turn his head toward her, but she was now just out of sight. He could hear her voice as he had in the rain-filled hole, in the darkness just hours ago. Was it hours? How long had he been here? Damn. He was waking up. There would be pain now unless he got more medication, agonizing pain in his broken ankle, numbing pain in his side.
'I'll listen better with something to quell the coming pain in my broken limb and wounded body.'
'When I finish,' Stella said.
'You're tired,' said Custus.
'I'm tired,' she agreed. 'Want to hear my story?'
'Bedtime story?'
'Something like that.'
'Then by all means, though the promise of a powerful narcotic would make me a much more attentive listener,' he said. 'And I gather that's what you want.'
'It's what I want,' she said. 'I'll call the nurse when I'm done.'
'Then by all means launch into your tale.'
'You were hired by Doohan to blow up the bar,' she said. 'He told you the bar would be empty in the morning, that it usually was except for the cook and that the days of rain would keep even determined morning drinkers away. Worse case, Doohan said he'd get rid of the customers, tell the cook to go home because of the weather.'
She looked at Custus, who said, 'Not quite, but close enough if it were reality and not a tale.'
'You planted the explosives the night before. Why didn't you bring the bar down then?'
'If I were telling this fanciful tale,' Custus said, 'I would say that Mr. Doohan had no alibi for the night, but he had a perfectly good one for the morning when he was supposed to be sitting in the barbaric chair of his dentist, whom he had called with an emergency. The telling touch would be that the dentist would confirm that Doohan did, indeed, have an emergency, a missing filling, an open nerve.'
'But…?' said Stella.
'Ah, let's see,' said Custus. 'What if the dentist were not in, what if the storm of the century canceled his office hours?'
'What if?'
'He might go to the bar as he did every day,' said Custus. 'He might, if the tale were true, wait for me to come, try to stop me, get me to put off the sweet experience for another day.'
'But he didn't,' said Stella.
'Let's, to keep the conversation going and not deprive me of the company of a beautiful woman, let's assume he did not? Water?'
Stella reached over, took the water-filled paper cup from the bedside table and held it out to Custus who pursed his dry lips over the straw.
'Refreshing,' he said. 'So, we return to the tale?'
'So, alibi gone, Doohan hurried back to the bar knowing you were going to bring the place down. You argued in the street. He had a gun, the one Doctor Hawkes found you with. It's registered to Doohan. I'd guess he kept it behind the bar. The two of you argued. You went into the bar. He shot you. You took the gun from him and shot him. A shot hit the wet dynamite. Wet dynamite has been known to go off at the slightest spark, sometimes even spontaneously.'
'A bit too fanciful here for me,' said Custus. 'I believe I'm falling asleep.'
'I'll keep you awake,' Stella said. 'The story gets better, much better.'
'How could it?'
'You had talked Doohan into hiring you to blow up the bar,' she said. 'You probably gave him a very good price for your services. My guess is you tricked him into providing a paper trail, probably increasing his insurance.'
'Why would I do that?'
'Because you weren't doing it for the money he was paying you.'
'I didn't do it at all,' he said. 'I just like talking, imagining that- '
'Detonators?' she said. 'You purchased detonator caps through a low-level drug dealer named DJ Riggs. He can identify you.'
'A drug dealer,' Custus mused. 'They make fine witnesses, I'm told.'
'This one's a hero. Saved a baby's life this morning.'
'You have the imagination of Rabelais. Down a dark and winding road into a forest wherein dwells an avatar, an avenging angel by the name of Stella. Now, if you would, I'd like that medication and a long sleep. And in the morning, I should like to open my eyes and see not your beauty but the face of an attorney assigned to defend me. In any case, much as I love talking, I'm going to close my eyes and dream of you.'
'Connor Custus,' she said, 'you are under arrest for the murder of…'
And even without the comfort of medication, he closed his eyes and was asleep.
Ellen Janecek went to the door of the hotel room.
She checked the dead bolt and resisted the urge to look through the small glass circle in the door. She had seen a movie in which a man had put his eye to one of those peepholes. A single shot had come through the hole and burrowed into his brain. She had also seen a television episode in which a man had gone to a door after someone knocked and was torn to pieces by a shotgun volley through the thick wood panels.
Ellen stood at the side of the door and said, 'Who is it?'
'Message from the front desk,' came a male voice.
'What is it?'
'I don't know. An envelope dropped at the desk. Man asked that it be delivered to you.'
'What man?'
'I wasn't on the desk when it came.'
'Slip it under the door,' she said.
