“I’ve been listening, and I keep hearing sirens.”
“Put wax in your ears.”
“I already got wax in my ears.”
“Doesn’t help, huh?”
“Somebody help him, or we’ll be driven on the rocks! Doctor! Doctor! Where the hell are the doctors?”
“Where do you think? They’re right here with us.”
“They are us.”
“We has met the enema—”
“Somebody said he was Dr. Bob.”
“That wasn’t him. I know his voice.”
“Didn’t he get bit on the arm?”
“That was Alma-Mae Jackson.”
“I didn’t think she’d bite anybody.”
“She might slap them around a little.”
“That’s different.”
“Listen to the sirens … .”
“I want to get out.”
“Are you kidding? It’s a madhouse out there.”
“Me too. This is Stubb—Jim Stubb, the private investigator. Who are you?”
“Gypsy Pete.”
“Hey, I want to join the Gypsies.”
“You don’t join the Gypsies. The Gypsies are like a family. You got to be born.”
“I’ve heard of people that joined the Gypsies. The Gypsies like them, see, and they say, come on, be a Gypsy. And they do.”
“That’s different. Sure, that way you can join the Gypsies.”
“Hey, Pete, you like this guy?”
“Hell, no!”
“No way!”
“Get lost!”
“None of those were Pete,” Stubb said. “Pete, you still here?”
“Yes!”
“No!”
“I heard once how the Gypsies steal kids.”
“That’s fairies!”
“We do not!”
“My God, listen to those sirens … .”
“Yeah.”
“I thought this only happened in the summer. Because of the air conditioning.”
“Is it going to last all night?”
“It could.”
“Probably not.”
“It could last two nights, easy. How the hell do we know what’s wrong?”
“Yeah, why don’t we all go back to our rooms and sleep?”
“That was a doctor! Or maybe an orderly. I got him!”
“Hey, let go!”
“So what? They’re bound to be mixed in.”
“He’ll have keys! They gotta have keys to the stairs in case there’s a fire. Help me, somebody!”
“I got him!”
“That’s me—let go!”
“Where’d he go?”
