Warlord

linen trousers.

'How are you feeling, Alex?'

'Me? Hell, I feel like a million bucks. Old Confederate bills, buried six feet underground.'

'Haven't lost your sense of humor,' Prestwicke said with a smile.

'Mind if I smoke?' Hawke asked, his tobacco-cured vocal cords rasping in this small, bleached, sunlit doctor's office. He shook a fresh one from his pack and stuck it in the corner of his mouth.

'Mind? Of course I mind. Those things will kill you, Alex.'

'In that case, thanks awfully, don't mind if I do,' he said with a smile, lighting up. He had the old hand's ability to talk with a cigarette between his lips. 'Lovely. I think of them as a sort of disinfectant, if you know what I mean.'

'Any health issues I should know about, Alex?'

'I'm quite sure you, being the expert, would know those things far better than I,' Hawke said, taking another puff, throwing his head back and exhaling toward the ceiling. 'Otherwise, why in God's holy name would I be here instead of out there? Wherever there is, but certainly preferable to here at any rate.'

It was clear the man had been drinking, and it was only two o'clock in the afternoon.

Prestwicke sat back and regarded his patient carefully. He had always known Hawke to be a gentleman, unfailingly polite, in that slightly mannered way of a bygone era that one associated with capes and walking sticks. This, sadly, was an Alex Hawke he had never seen before; he had the eyes of a man trapped in a torture chamber who longs for the tomb.

Hawke knew he was acting every bit the ass, but his mood was black and he'd never had much tolerance for doctors or hospitals anyway. Hospital was where one went to get sick these days, as far as he was concerned. Filthy places inhabited by dunces. Go in with a minor scratch, come out with a major staph infection had been his experience. Absolute bollocks, the lot of them, these bloody doctors and their nasty, disease-ridden hospitals. A nurse had told him once most doctors never washed their hands between patients unless shamed into it by their nurses.

Dr. Prestwicke, ever the gent, smiled and extracted a flimsy sheaf of papers from a blue folder with Hawke's name on it. 'Let's get right to it then, shall we? The results of your physical examination? Your blood work?'

Hawke answered yes with an impatient circular wave of his noxiously fuming cigarette.

'How is the drinking, Alex?'

'Fabulous. Never better, in fact.'

'Not according to these results. Alex, your triglycerides are through the roof. You've already begun to develop severely impaired liver function. I am telling you now that you simply have to stop. And stop now. Or face very serious consequences.'

'I don't want to stop.' Alex took another puff and turned his gaze toward the window, transfixed, it seemed, by lightning flashes of iridescent green, a tiny songbird darting about the white bougainvillea branches, brushing against Dr. Prestwicke's windowpane. 'And frankly I don't intend to stop.'

'Why is that, may I ask?' Prestwicke asked, all the false bonhomie flown from his countenance now. Replaced by God knew what. Concern? Duty? Professional responsibility? Fear of the wrath of Sir David Trulove? All of the above? 'Why is that, Alex?'

'You want to know something, Doc? Diana Mars took me to some shrink over in Hamilton. This, this Freudian or whatever had the cheek to ask me what I thought the secret of life was. Care to know my response?'

'Indeed.'

'I said, 'Simple, Doc. Learn young about hard work and good manners-and you'll be through the whole bloody mess and nicely dead before you even know it.'

Alex stubbed out his cigarette and leaned forward across the desk, looking the man in the eye. Hawke's glacial eyes could still, at such times, assume the steel-blue glint of a loaded gun.

'Listen closely: I don't want to be here anymore, Dr. Prestwicke.'

'Now, Alex-'

'Do you understand what I'm saying? I don't like it here. The bloody bottle is the only way out for me. And I do want out. There is something irreparably broken in the works-my will, perhaps. And that's the bloody end of it.'

'It will be the end of your life if you don't heed my advice.'

'Your point being?'

Prestwicke leaned forward over his desk, made a temple of his fingers, and rested his chin upon it.

'Do you feel suicidal, Alex?'

'I don't feel anything. That's the whole idea, isn't it?'

'Your dear friend Chief Inspector Congreve was in to see me the other day. Terribly concerned. As is his fiancee, Lady Mars. I'll be honest with you. They're going back to London shortly to make preparations for their impending wedding. But they've asked me to organize an intervention.'

'Ah, yes, the rubber room. Good luck.'

'Meaning?'

'You'll never take me alive. I'm quite serious.'

'Alex, please listen a moment. I know you've suffered a shock, a profoundly terrible shock. One that few men could survive intact. The death of your first wife. And now the death of the woman you loved. Carrying your unborn child. I can only imagine how you must be feeling-'

Hawke stopped listening to these platitudes, feeling he'd heard them all somewhere before. When he could stand no more, he interrupted.

'You have no bloody idea how I'm feeling, Prestwicke. Look here. I don't mean to be rude. But the last thing I need right now is your tea and sympathy and more amateur psychiatry. I know damn well what's wrong with me. It's hardly an original story. I've lost everything I've ever loved in my life. My parents were murdered before my eyes when I was seven years old. I met a wonderful woman, the first I'd ever wanted to marry. She died in my arms on the steps of the chapel where we'd just been wed. And then, Dr. Prestwicke, the truly unbelievable happened. I fell in love again. We were to be married. She was carrying my…my child-and then-'

Hawke sat back and puffed furiously on his cigarette, struggling for control in the presence of this stranger. He had never once let even his closest friends get this close, and now-this, this what, this bloody doctor-

'Alex, please. Don't do this to yourself. The tragedy in Sweden wasn't your fault, for heaven's sake. Everyone knows that.'

'It wasn't my fault? Is that what you said? I killed her! Good God, man, I did it myself! Killed the woman I loved and killed my son. My own son! She'd had a sonogram just that morning and so we already knew the child's sex-I just can't…I just can't stick it any longer…'

Hawke, his eyes welling with tears, knew he was dangerously close to losing it. He took a deep breath, willed himself back to composure, and cast his eyes toward the window in a vain search for the little green bird, unable to face the physician.

A long silence ensued as Hawke quietly gathered himself up and Prestwicke allowed him time to do so. Finally, Hawke looked back at the doctor, shrugging his shoulders. He had no more to say. He was empty.

'Alex, please, let me give you something to calm you down. You need sleep. Perhaps you should stay here at King Edward's a few days. Get yourself some bed rest and-'

Hawke leaned forward in his chair and, inhaling deeply, finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray Prestwicke had fished out of a drawer for him. Composed now, Alex maintained eye contact with the doctor as he spoke.

'Forgive me. I'm terribly sorry. You've been very kind and patient with me. But I have to leave now. I won't trouble you any further. Thanks for your time. I'm sure you're quite good at what you do. And give my regards to Sir David, will you? That old devil. He's always been like-oh, hell-a father to me. Sorry.'

Hawke stood up and turned for the door. He was about to start for it, but he paused a moment and looked back at Prestwicke.

'Whatever happens, please remember this. It was not your fault.'

'Alex, please let me try to help you to-'

'The handwriting is already on the wall, Prestwicke. You simply haven't read it yet.'

He vanished.