“You are John B. Sweet, Executive Vice President of Mickey’s Jawbreakers Incorporated?”
“Oh, him. Jesus, I’d forgotten about him. Don’t call him. No, I meant the candy bars. People call me Candy, see? So I always say those are my cards. I leave the wrappers behind, anyhow.”
“But you had no real identification.”
“I used to have one of those little cards that come with the wallet, but I lost it.”
“Can you drive a car, Candy?”
“Uh huh.”
“You didn’t have a driver’s license in your purse.”
“I got ripped off once. He took everything—my money, my license, all that crap. I never got another one. What for? I don’t have a car.”
“I had a friend in college who went to Italy. He stayed in a very nice hotel in Sorrento, and the bellboy there told him he could get him a girl. Do you know what I mean, Candy? For so many hundred lira or thousand lira or whatever it was.”
“I know what you mean, all right. I guess better than you do.”
“So my friend said okay, and the bellboy came back with a very beautiful Italian girl … .”
“And when he woke up next morning his wallet was gone.”
“Yes, it was. His passport too. How did you know?”
“How would anybody know? The woman needed some extra money, or she didn’t like the way it had gone the night before or something. What are you after, advice for next time? You shouldn’t have gone to sleep while she was still in the room. You shouldn’t have done it at all.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Really. I never knocked on anybody’s hotel room door late at night either. One of my friends told me about it. Anyway, ever since it happened, you think the john’s the only one that ever gets ripped off. Bullshit. There isn’t a damn thing a woman carries with her that I haven’t got stolen from me one time or another—my purse, my shoes, my clothes, you name it. I’ve been slapped around plenty. I’ve had enough guns and knives pointed at me to start a war.”
The door opened; a woman’s voice said, “A Dr. Makee to see you, Dr. Roberts.”
Simple Assault
The room in which Barnes and Dr. Makee waited was much like the one in which Dr. Bob had talked to Candy, though it was not the same room. An examination table with restraining straps had been pushed to one side. There were several very light folding chairs. Barnes sat primly, knees together, hands clasped in lap, his sample case half hidden behind the chair. Dr. Makee almost sprawled, his old brown tweed overcoat cast off and gaping behind him, his old gray herringbone jacket open to show his tattersall shirt and black string tie.
A nurse with a clipboard looked in. “Dr, Make-ee?”
“Makee. Say it like ma’s key, then leave off the S.”
The nurse nodded and wrote something on her clipboard. “You’re the patient’s personal physician?”
“I was the last to treat him, I believe, before he got sent here. I’m not sure he has a personal physician.”
“And when was that?”
“Yesterday. I told all this to Dr. Roberts.”
“I know, but I have to have it for his record. Did he show signs of anxiety or confusion when you examined him?”
Dr. Makee shrugged. “He was anxious about his condition. He’d had a head injury, and he was afraid it might be serious. I didn’t think it was, and I told him so. That seemed to reassure him. I wouldn’t have said he was confused.”
When the nurse was gone, Barnes said, “Well, Doc?”
“Well what? I haven’t seen him yet.”
The door opened again, and a tall, red-faced man with a long nose peered through. “Shipmate!” he hissed.
Barnes glanced up.
“Remember me? Seaman Reeder?”
Barnes nodded. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The sailor stepped inside and shut the door. He wore the soiled white pajamas of a patient. “I got picked up. I was in a bar—cuttin’ up pretty silly, I guess.”
“And they brought you here?”
“I been in the brig a lot—it wouldn’t have been much fun to go again. So I just kept on cuttin’ up—sillier, even —and they brought me here. The food’s better, a little.”
Dr. Makee said, “Stretch out both hands, young man.”
Reeder did.
“Pronounced tremor. How long had you been drinking?”
