“Sure,” I said.
“Good. Any questions? Excellent,” beamed the man, rolling up the sheet of paper. “Now, as long as they do not put the iron mask back on my head this afternoon, and I doubt if they will, since it caused a strawberry rash last time and they had to work on me for days so I could be viewed without consequence by the Swiss legation and the Red Cross. Gentlemen, until midnight.”
The little man removed the robe and climbed into bed after puffing up the pillow. He began to snore before Sklodovich reached the door. We left quietly, closing the door behind us.
“Is that.45 of his loaded?” I asked.
“No mechanism,” said Sklodovich, looking down the hall.
“Does he really expect us to come back tonight to escape?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter since he wouldn’t leave anyway. Besides, I don’t want to go. I like it here.”
“What do you mean ‘he wouldn’t leave here anyway?’”
“Dealer can leave whenever he wants to. His door is open. He just won’t go out unless a doctor or nurse actually holds his hand and leads him out. He thinks the floor will give way and he’ll shoot four floors to the ground. That’s his problem.”
Leaning against the wall, Sklodovich pulled a key from his pocket.
“A passkey,” he said. “Might come in very handy. Dealer slipped it to me.”
“I thought you were both idiots,” I sighed.
“There’s a difference between being insane and being stupid. We aren’t stupid.”
“I didn’t mean …”
“No offense taken,” said Sklodovich, smiling.
The fluorescent corridor was empty and quiet except for a distant muffle of voices. Sklodovich turned toward the door leading to the roof and I had a sinking, tired feeling down to my knees which were ready to give way.
“I don’t think I can make it over the roof,” I whispered, grabbing his arm.
Sklodovich winked and, with a nod of his head, indicated that I should follow him. In a quick-paced follow- the-leader, we by-passed the roof door and make a quick turn to the left down a short corridor with a door at the end. My guide turned the handle with a hairy hand. We walked through the door after he peeped on the other side and found ourselves standing no more than twenty steps from our room, which I had assumed was a gruesome odyssey away.
“Why didn’t we just come through there in the first place?” I shouted as I plodded barefoot behind him into the room. “I was almost killed crawling up shafts and onto ledges.” He placed the key in the closet on a shelf and covered it with a sheet. I fell exhausted on my bed. I was almost dry by now and wanted to sleep for at least a day, but I was angry enough to glare at the man who had led me on again.
“Many ways of doing things,” he said. “Always an easy way, and most people go through life doing things the easy way because it’s the only sensible way, but the easy way doesn’t always mean anything. To have meaning, things have to be done the hard way, physically, emotionally. If not, you go through life like a vegetable, cooked carrots. Mentally,” he said, pointing to his head, “there is no hard way for me anymore, so I do it physically. And hell, I didn’t even take you the hardest way. I could have made you slide down a wire in nurse’s disguise, but I didn’t think you’d make it. Next time, we’ll try something a little different. You’ll remember that trip for the rest of your life.”
“I’ll remember every minute here for the rest of my life,” I mumbled, placing my arm over my eyes. “Right now I’ve got a headache and I want some sleep. How much time till midnight?”
“About two hours.”
Maybe I fell asleep. Maybe not. It makes little difference because it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes later that I removed my arm from my face and saw M.C. next to my bed.
“Checking on you,” he said. “Just stay put.”
“Five dollars says I can beat you arm-wrestling,” said Sklodovich. M.C. watched me ease off the bed and said nothing.
“Five dollars if I lose,” Sklodovich went on, going for the money in the closet where he had placed the key. “You don’t have to put up a thing.”
M.C. glanced casually at the five bills that Sklodovich placed on the night table.
“Five dollars cash,” said Sklodovich.
M.C. looked at his watch, walked to the door, and locked it from the inside. A wild, eager flash came into Sklodovich’s eyes as he rushed to the closet and searched for something while I watched with curiosity and M.C. paid no attention, but moved the night table out between the two beds.
Sklodovich found what he was looking for and moved to the table, whistling “Beseme Mucho” and grinning. He had two candles in his hand, the kind you use when a fuse blows, and he quickly lighted them and let a little wax drip from each one so they could be placed firmly at two ends of the table.
Whatever he was doing, it didn’t surprise M.C., who watched the procedure as if it were a ritual viewed daily.
Sklodovich got into position. Seated on his bed, he placed his right elbow on the table between the two burning candles. M.C. did the same, and their hands clapped together and held. Arm perpendicular between the candles, Sklodovich stopped whistling.
“Say ‘go,’ Toby,” he said, shifting his weight slightly.
Protest would have been useless, and besides, I was fascinated.
“Go.”
The smooth, black arm and the orangish-white and hairy arm bulged into taut knots, but neither moved. Sklodovich continued to smile happily while M.C. looked neither bored nor interested. If it weren’t for the expanding cords of muscle under the tight skin, it would have looked like two men exchanging a strange fraternal grip.
The candles flickered, and one seemed about to go out. I felt that if the flame died, I would roll helplessly onto the floor and under the bed. Whatever they had filled me with was hard to shake.
Time passed, maybe a minute, and a few tiny drops of perspiration appeared on Sklodovich’s still happy face, flickering with light from the candles. More time passed, and I thought I heard a sound, a grunt, a sigh from M.C. Still the arms pointed upward. At first I wasn’t sure, so I concentrated intently on a point in space a fraction of an inch behind M.C.’s jagged knuckles. A few seconds later I was sure. M.C.’s hand was moving very slowly toward the candle, giving way a fraction of space each second. I saw the flame shine brightly against the black back of his hand only an inch away from the dancing heat. M.C. closed his eyes, the only facial movement he had made. Then, suddenly, the struggle turned and it was Sklodovich who was giving way. When the quivering arms were again pointing toward the ceiling, Sklodovich closed his eyes for another effort. But he still smiled. The table vibrated as the back of Sklodovich’s hand slowly approached the flame of the second candle. When the hand was no more than paper thickness from the flame, I could see the dark hairs singeing. Sklodovich said nothing, made no sound as he watched the back of his hand dip into the flame.
M.C. released his hand, snuffed out the two candles with his palm, and stood up.
“We’ll have to try that again soon,” said Sklodovich, examining his burnt hand. “I’ll practice. Don’t forget your five dollars.”
M.C. turned to Sklodovich and for the first time since I had met him, M.C. smiled.
Sklodovich returned the smile and put the five dollars in the night table.
CHAPTER 13
I don’t know how much time passed before the door began to open and the hall light cast the shadow of a man on the floor at the foot of our beds. The shadow’s body whispered from the door in Sklodovich’s familiar voice.
“Toby, get up. It’s time.”
He pulled open a package and handed crumpled clothing to me. Sklodovich turned the beam toward me so I could put on the white uniform. When I was dressed, he handed me a stethoscope, which I put around my neck, a
