“No. And if you don’t keep the other one to yourself, I’ll take it too.”
He groped for a way to prolong the conversation; it seemed dangerous to let it lapse. “I don’t think alcoholism’s lucky.”
“Could have been acute manic schizophrenia. How’d you like that? Know what the stuff they do to you for acute manic schiz does to you? Do you?”
“No,” he said. “No, I don’t.”
“Drives you crazy. Want to read what it says on my chart?”
“Sure, but I’ll have to turn on the light.”
“I’ll tell you. Acute manic schizophrenia. Ask me the President’s name.”
“Okay,” he said. It seemed to him that the room was colder than his own had been; he shivered in his thin hospital pajamas. There was an odor like almond blossoms.
“Go on, ask! ‘Who is the President of the United States?”’
Obediently he said, “Who’s President of the United States?”
“Now how about letting go of my wrist?”
“You admit, you concede, that Richard Milhous Nixon is our President?”
He hesitated, fearful of some trap. “Well, they still call him President Nixon on the news.”
There was a long silence, a stillness that throbbed with the blood in his ears.
“He isn’t President any more?” the occupant of the room whispered. “But he was?”
“He was, sure. He resigned.”
“For the good of the nation, right? That would be just like him—give it up if he had to for the good of the nation. He was a patriot. A real patriot.”
He said diplomatically, “I suppose he still is. He’s still alive, I think.”
There was another long silence while the occupant digested this fact. He heard someone walk past, shuffling down the hall, passing the doorless doorway; he wondered if he should yell for help, but he did not even turn his head to look.
At last the occupant said, “Why didn’t you give it to that skater?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me!” The grip on his wrist tightened again.
“It just didn’t seem right. I’ve got a—” he groped for a word. “Somebody I care a lot about.”
“Girlfriend or boyfriend?”
“My girlfriend; I’m not gay. Lara. I’m looking for her.” Unable to help himself, he added, “She was gone this morning when I woke up.”
The occupant grunted. “And you know about the President. Tell me something—how about yesterday morning? Was she there when you woke up then?”
“Sure,” he said. “We had breakfast together, then I went to work and Lara went to look for a job.”
“You were shacking up.”
That was an old term, and it struck him that the occupant was older than he had thought, ten years older than he was at least. He said carefully, “We’ve been living together for the past few days. With no job, Lara couldn’t pay her rent.” The memory of his message, which had been driven from his mind by the occupant’s grip on his wrist and all the talk about Nixon, returned. He said, “I was supposed to tell somebody that Gloria Brooks did it to Al Bailey tonight. Billy North went into Al’s room to borrow a cigarette, and he caught her at it.”
The palm of the occupant’s hand slapped his right cheek with a forehand, twisting his head so far that the returning backhand struck him across the lips.
“My name’s William T. North,” the occupant told him softly. “You refer to me as Mr. William T. North or Mr. North. Get it?”
He jabbed for North’s face with his free hand, and though he could not get much weight behind the punch, he felt North’s nose give under his knuckles in a satisfactory way.
“Say, that was all right.” North’s voice was so calm they might have been discussing the weather. “I’d break your neck for you, but they’d put me in the violent ward. I’ve been there, and it’s no fun. Besides, I’ve got a little thing cooking. You want out of here?”
“Not without my clothes.”
“Right. Absolutely right. In hospital rags they’d spot us in half a minute, just in time to keep us from freezing to death. But if you could take your clothes?”
“Hell, yes.”
“Can you drive?”
“Sure,” he said. It had been a long time—he was not sure just how long—since he had driven.
“Now I’m going to let go of your wrist. If you don’t want to get out, all you’ve got to do is duck through that door. But if you want to come—well, you’ve got some guts and you’re
