answer the question, please?'
The question. I searched my mind for it. 'Uh, out drinking?' I said lamely. Where was that quiet confidence now that I was awake?
'The three of you had several brandies at the Nepentha. I would like to know why.'
'Why? Why did we have several brandies? Well, we were old friends, and it was the first time we'd seen each other in a while.'
'Who suggested it?'
I thought back. My mind was beginning to clear. 'Ugo. To celebrate old times.'
'And are you all really such good friends as that?'
'As what?' I think a note of irritation must have crept into my voice. Even half-zonked on whatever the doctors had been sticking in my arm, I could see where he was leading: If Max had been set up, then wasn't it likely that it had been by one of the two people he'd left the restaurant with? And if it wasn't me, he was thinking, then it must have been Ugo.
I suppose I would have been in contention, too, had I not been fortunate enough to have nearly gotten killed in the melee myself. I shifted my shoulders with a grimace. The clear headedness was coming at a price. I was starting to ache at every joint, and a few other places, too. I thought of asking the cops to get a nurse to give me something but decided I'd be better off undoped for the rest of the interview. It had already occurred to me that I couldn't be in a very serious condition. For one thing, there were no bandages, no tubes going in or out of me, no oxygen tent. For another, the hospital had permitted the police to interview me.
What I thought the young cop was thinking didn't make me happy. Ugo Scoccimarro was probably the most straightforward, aboveboard person I knew. Coarse sometimes, ignorant sometimes—how could he not be, with four years of schooling all told?—but unfailingly honest and openhearted.
'Yes,' I said, 'we're good friends.' We had, in fact, met perhaps half a dozen times.
'Did you ever go out drinking together before, or was this the first time?'
I didn't like this 'go out drinking' business either. I began to object, but caught myself as a chorus of '0 Sole Mio' in the Piazza Maggiore flashed before my eyes. Maybe the guy had a point.
'Well, this is the first time that it was just the three of us, as I recall, but—'
'Tell me, did you actually see signor Scoccimarro leave Bologna?'
'We walked him right to the train station.'
'But did you actually see him leave?'
I tried to recall. Things had been pretty muddled by then. 'Yes,' I said, finally remembering. 'He was on the 1:04. '
We had gone to the wrong platform first, and Ugo had almost boarded a train heading toward Rome. Then we had found the train to Milan, helped him up the steps of the first- class car, and seen him fall happily into a seat. His next breath had been a snore, and Max and I had left.
'Then you didn't actually watch the train leave?' the officer persisted.
I thought it over. 'No, I guess not, but the man was sound asleep when we left.' What was he suggesting? That Ugo, soused as he was, had hired the two thugs and crept back to town to mastermind the attack? Perhaps even that he had been behind the wheel of the car? What for? Surely Ugo wasn't on Max's list of five.
'I don't understand why you're concentrating on Ugo. Fifty other people could have overheard Max talking about going to the police. Max was practically shouting— '
The other policeman, older and softer, held up his pencil and shook his head. He looked tired. 'You have told us already.'
Gingerly I readjusted myself on the pillow. I was tired, too. And I was beginning to hurt quite a lot. My joints were like wood when I moved them, and my teeth felt as if they'd all gone through root canal explorations. Maybe another shot wouldn't be a bad idea after all.
Even as I was thinking it the curtains around my bed parted and a nurse came in with a broad smile and a hypodermic at the ready. The staff was all very happy here. I was ready enough for her, but I hesitated. 'Maybe I'd better finish answering these gentlemen's questions,' I said.
But at a nod from the younger man the soft one had closed up his pad and was reaching for the STOP button on the tape recorder. 'We have everything we need, signore. You've been very helpful. We'll bring a transcript of this for you to see, and if you can think of something else you can tell us at the time.'
By then it didn't matter very much. The needle had been eased in and I was already four feet above the bed, on my way to the soft, white clouds. I felt my chin touch my chest.
'It's really not so amazing,' Dr. Tolomeo explained pleasantly. 'Generally speaking, an adult pedestrian hit by an automobile is not run
'Oh,' I said, not very graciously. By this time—it was one o'clock in the afternoon–I had convinced myself that my escape from certain death by vaulting over an onrushing automobile had been a feat of iron nerves, extraordinary coordination, and lightning-quick reactions. In an inspired moment I had just described it to him as having been something like the remarkable bull-vaulting paintings that have come down to us from the Cretans. And here he was telling me it had nothing to do with me at all; it was merely an example of the inalterable laws of physics. The same thing would have happened to me if I'd been a sack of potatoes, given a high enough center of gravity.
Dr. Tolomeo was a man highly sensitive to the needs of his patients. 'Of course,' he added quickly, 'it was miraculous that you were able to land on your feet and escape with no more than a mild concussion and a few strains. Usually, it is the other end that hits the road. There are terrible spinal injuries, and scalp and facial skin is often shredded from road friction. And often, from being thrown onto the hood, there is tearing of the fatty tissue, with perforations of—'
With a grimace I held up my hand. That kind of solace I could do without. I was still in my hospital room. Dr. Tolomeo had come in a few minutes before to tell me that the prodding of my bodily parts and the analysis of my bodily functions had revealed no serious injury. I was free to get out of bed, get dressed, and go. There might be a little lingering achiness, but he had prescribed something for that And he would advise bed rest for at least a day. My body needed time to compose itself.
'I don't suppose you know if they caught the two men? Three men, rather,' I added, thinking of the car's driver.
'No,' he said, then added with some eagerness, 'but I know that there was a terrific chase across Bologna, with two police cars in pursuit, guns blazing. You heard none of it?'
I shook my head. 'Just a siren. How is Max . . . Massimiliano Caboto doing?'
The doctor's round, sunny face darkened. 'Your friend will be all right in time. He will adjust.'
'Adjust?' I stared at him with a sudden, sick twisting in my abdomen. I'd asked some of the other staff about him earlier, but they had just shrugged and gone on with their work. I'd taken it to mean that he was all right, that he'd already been sent home. 'What's the matter with him?'
'His legs,' Dr. Tolomeo said softly. 'They—'
'Legs—!' All I'd seen was the one punch to his face. I hadn't known there'd been anything else. But now I remembered that boneless, flaccid look below his hips. I also remembered the piece of pipe in Franco's hand. 'They .. . smashed them with that pipe?' I asked. My chest was tight and empty.
'Apparently so. The abraded margins of the wounds, the compacted underlying tissue, the smashed bones, all suggest such a weapon.'
'My God,' I said to Dr. Tolomeo, 'I've got to see him. Where is he?'
The physician shook his head. 'Not today. He just came from surgery, and it was a difficult procedure. Perhaps tomorrow. Better yet, the day after.'
'When you say 'smashed,' ' I said slowly to Dr. Tolomeo, 'how bad. . . ?'
'The knee is an extremely delicate joint,' Dr. Tolomeo said gently. 'Even under the normal stresses of life it often fails. In a case like this—' He spread his hands. 'Each leg was brutally struck several times. The fractures are multiple and complex, and there was much damage to the cartilages and soft tissue. The patellas themselves... '
