“Maybe I do.” He found he was rubbing his temples with his fingertips. “Everything’s so crazy.”
Sheng chuckled. “We joke for gods. Relax, enjoy, laugh too. Do not do mean. Mean not belong joke. Die, drink wine with gods, laugh more.”
Dr. Pille said, “The pressures of life become too much for all of us now and then.”
It occurred to him that North might come up the stairs at any moment and kill them all. It seemed there was not much he could do about it.
“You tell,” Sheng said. “Nephew very wise. Sheng fool, but old fool, see much. Even fool learn at last.”
When he did not answer, Sheng continued in a tone that was almost coaxing. “Say Dr. Pille. Your doctor. Sheng listen.”
“All right. To start with, that name. What sort of world is it when you wake up in the hospital and they tell you you’re being treated by Dr. Pille?”
The doctor smiled, hiding his mouth behind his hand. “Is that all? You see, my family name is Di; but when I was in med school it struck me that it wasn’t quite the thing for a young physician, so I changed it. I’ve often regretted that change, I admit; I fear I retained an undergraduate sense of humor when I made it. But now Pille is on all my diplomas and licenses, and it would be a great deal of trouble to change back.”
“Am I really an alcoholic?”
“I doubt it. But if you think you might be, you’d better cut down on your drinking.”
Sheng said, “Drink tea,” and poured steaming brown liquid into his cup.
“If I’m not an alcoholic, why did you say I was when they brought me in? It was on my chart.”
Dr. Pille looked grave. “The woman preferred charges, and my uncle here had asked me to look out for you. He had seen you fall, you see. Breach of promise is quite serious, as you must know. If I had said you were sound except for your concussion, you’d have been taken to another hospital, and eventually to prison. By classifying you as an alcoholic, I was able to keep you at United and keep you off psychoactive drugs.”
“All right.” He nodded; it seemed too much to assimilate all at once. “Mr. Sheng, I was in this theater. I went into a magician’s cabinet, and I fell down what I guess was a trap door onto some old mattresses. But when the man I was with lit his cigarette lighter, we were in your basement.”
“Building belong theater. Sheng rent store, good tenant, always pay. Theater not need all room underground, let Sheng store merchandise, give Sheng key.”
Dr. Pille said something to Sheng in rapid Chinese, then asked, “Who is this man who was with you?”
“North.”
“He’s very dangerous. Are you aware of that?”
“Yes, I know,” he said.
“If he’s really in my uncle’s basement, I must inform the authorities. You should have—”
At that instant there was an explosion beneath their feet, rapidly followed by another. A demon, an alien being, a thing of flame having nothing to do with the life of earth (that yet seemed to live), roared up the stair, crashed into a wall, and veered into the room where they were drinking tea.
There was a third explosion.
He was in the street, sitting up and drinking tea. No, coffee. A cop in a tight blue overcoat held the mug, a thick, cracked one of white china. A white-coated medic crouched on the other side.
“See?” the cop said. “He’s coming around.”
A building was on fire. Men from two fire trucks sprayed it with water. He asked, “Is Mr. Sheng all right?”
The medic said, “You were in the Chinese shop? Okay, that explains it.”
The cop said, “They took him to the hospital already. He was pretty shaken up.”
The medic said, “We’ll take you there too as soon as we get another ambulance.”
He shook his head. “I’m not hurt. Dizzy, a little, that’s all. What happened?”
The cop said, “There was a panic in the theater next door. Some Feds tried to bust some of the actors, and there was a lot of shooting. Something started a fire—probably a stray bullet messing up the high voltage for the lights.”
The medic said, “We thought that everybody got out of the theater before the fire got too bad. Then we saw you.”
The cop said, “You’re out at the Grand, right? We found your room key in your pocket.”
He nodded.
“We found your car keys too, but I don’t want you to drive tonight. If you don’t want to go to the hospital, I’ll get a cab to take you back to your hotel, understand? You can pick up your car tomorrow.”
The medic asked, “Do you think you can stand up?”
He proved it by standing. His knees were a little weak, but he was able to walk. “I guess my coat’s ruined.”
“Yeah,” the cop said. “You’ll have to buy yourself a new one. That reminds me, I want you to check while Fred and I are here, so you’ll know we didn’t take anything.”
Feeling foolish he got out his wallet and carefully counted the money while another screeching fire truck
