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A lamp burned on a table by the wall. A shadowy figure was pouring soup out of a can into a pot by a hot plate. Clete tried to raise himself and fell back on the pillow. “What are you doing here?”
“A bad man knows where you are,” Smiley said. “His name is Jaime O’Banion. You know him?”
Yes, Clete thought, but he was too weak to say the word. The night chain on the door had been snipped in half, the electric lock probably opened with a key card from a compliant desk clerk. Clete closed his eyes and breathed slowly in and out, his forehead sweating, cold as ice water.
“I need to get you away from here,” Smiley said.
“No,” Clete said.
“Yes. Do not argue.”
“Don’t talk to me that way,” Clete said.
Smiley didn’t reply. Clete could smell the soup heating in the pan; then he heard Smiley take the pan off the hot plate and pour it into the cup of an army-surplus mess kit. Smiley pulled up a chair next
to the bed and filled a spoon with the soup.
“Eat.”
“No.”
“If you don’t eat, your liver will be hurt.”
“It’s already a football.”
“Open.”
Clete got up on one elbow and took the spoon out of Smiley’s hand and drank the soup off the spoon. He fell back on the pillow. “Where’s O’Banion?”
“He’s gone now. But he’ll be back about an hour after the bars close.”
Clete didn’t try to answer. Smiley knew the culture: The pavement princesses and the truckers on the prowl and anyone hooking up late would be doing the dirty bop by three a.m.
“Have some more,” Smiley said. He held out the aluminum cup so Clete could dip the soup from it. Clete dropped the spoon onto the rug. Smiley washed it in the sink. Clete reached for the drawer of the nightstand.
“What are you doing?” Smiley said.
“My piece is in there.”
“Not now, it isn’t.”
Clete lay back on the pillow, his arm over his eyes. “You need to go. I’ll call 911 for an ambulance.”
“He’s close by. He may be in the next room.”
“I’d rather be dead than have whatever is inside me.”
The room was quiet a long time. The pain was like glass twisting inside him. Then, when he thought he could stand it no longer, a strange transformation happened in his metabolism. The pincers that seemed to be tearing his intestines apart turned to snowmelt flooding his body. His head sagged as though his spinal cord has been severed; he felt himself drifting into a dark, safe place beneath the earth. Someone cupped his forehead, taking his temperature, and then the same person folded Clete’s .38 in his hand and placed his hand and weapon on his chest as though arranging a corpse in a coffin. Clete heard the door open and click shut, then he fell asleep.
When he woke, the room was completely dark, and his throat was so dry he couldn’t swallow. He fumbled for his cell phone and hit the speed dial. Come on, Streak, answer your phone.
“Clete?” a voice said.
“Yeah,” he rasped. “Mayday.”
“What?”
“I feel like I died. Remember when I told you we might be living among dead people?”
