Memory (Hard Case Crime)

by Donald E. Westlake

The doctor had asked. Lieutenant Murray told. Cole said, “Could you crank the bed up? I can’t see you this way.”

  “I’ll get a nurse.”

  It took a few minutes, but then a nurse—a different one, a new one—cranked the bed up so he was sitting again. It was a private room, small and very clean. There was sky beyond the window. The two chairs—in one of which Lieutenant Murray sat—were covered in green leatherette.

  Lieutenant Murray began again, reading everything as before, and now Cole could see that he held a clipboard in his lap, with several forms and sheets of paper on it, with neat black typewriting on the top sheet, the one from which Lieutenant Murray was reading.

  When Lieutenant Murray asked him again if that information was all correct, he said, “Yes, it is.”

  “Remembered your sister’s married name yet?”

  “No.” He frowned, but all he could remember was her husband’s red hair. He couldn’t remember the husband’s name at all, first or last.

  “No matter.” Lieutenant Murray tossed the clipboard onto the bed, next to his knees. “You won’t die.”

  He smiled faintly, but didn’t say anything.

  Lieutenant Murray said, “How much do you know about the situation?”

  “I’m in a hospital. I guess I was beaten up.”

  “I guess you were. All right, let me tell you where you stand. You were having intercourse with a married woman. Her husband caught you in the act, and beat the crap out of you. Legally, you have the right to swear out a warrant against him for assault, but legally he has the right to swear out three or four warrants against you. For adultery, for instance. It’s illegal in this state, as it is in most states. I can’t remember anybody in this state ever going before a judge on it, but there’s always a first time.”

  Cole, watching Lieutenant Murray’s mouth, understood that the policeman hated him. There were many reasons why, most of them in Lieutenant Murray’s discontented face and harsh voice.

  Lieutenant Murray said, “I’ve talked to the husband. As far as I’m concerned, he had every right to slug you, but he went too far. Unwritten law is a lot of crap. Here’s the deal. He doesn’t make any complaints against you legally, and you don’t make any complaints against him legally. You stay away from him, and you stay away from his wife, and you pay your own bills in the hospital here.”

  “No.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Who put me in a private room?”

  “How do I know? Listen, you’re being offered a good deal. We could make life rough on you if we wanted. The lady’s husband could make life rough on you. And the hotel could make life rough on you. Now, the husband’s going to pay for the damage to the hotel room, and you’re going to pay your own hospital bill.”

  “Half. I pay half.”

  “Nobody’s bargaining with you, sonny. It’s take it or leave it.”

  “What happens to the wife?” he said. He felt very mean and angry, all at once, and didn’t care why. As though it were the only way to penetrate the fabric of the world enough to be seen.

  “What do you mean, what happens to the wife? You stay away from her, that’s all you have to do.”

  “She goes home. He goes home. I sit here under this ceiling, and you come in and hate me.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? I’m doing a job, I don’t give a damn about you one way or the other.”

  Cole smiled, and cocked his head to one side. “Would you have kicked her out of bed?”

  “I’m a happily married man.”

  “I’ll pay half.”

  Lieutenant Murray got to his feet. “You aren’t in New York now,” he said. He went away.

  You get on the subway at West 4th Street. The D train will take you to Sixth Avenue, and the A train will take you to Eighth Avenue. The token is smaller than a dime, and brass-colored, and has holes in it. The trains are very loud, and the platforms are gray concrete. In the summer it is very hot and in the winter it is very wet. If you go the other way, the trains scream and rush and come up to air in Brooklyn. Fred Crawford lives in Brooklyn, and sometimes has parties.

  The doctor came again, and asked more questions, and shined a pencil flash in his eyes. Later, the nurse with the shining teeth came back, and was very jolly, and then two men in starched white jackets came in with a wheeled stretcher and lifted him and set him down on the stretcher, and rolled him out of the room. He felt as though he could walk with no trouble, but they said nothing to him so he said nothing to them.

  The corridor ceiling was marked at regular distances by white globes containing light bulbs. He watched them go by, feeling like an artistic traveling shot in a motion picture, and then he was brought into a room where they took x-rays of his head. He said to the technician, “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t ask me. I just work here.”

  “Why do they have to take x-rays of my head?”

  “Don’t ask me. I just work here.”

  They took him back to the small neat room and put him on the bed again, and left. The bed was cranked down, and all he could look at was the ceiling. He felt lethargic, but with a dull anger, as though he had been cheated in a card game and couldn’t understand how it had been done. It wasn’t the cheating, it was his own stupidity.

  The nurse with the shining teeth came in and cranked the bed up and gave him a copy of the Saturday Evening Post that was a year and a half old. He asked her what her name was, and she told him it was May, and smiled brilliantly, but didn’t say anything about the merry month.

  He looked at the cartoons in the magazine, then read the advertising. While he was reading about death in an insurance company ad Lieutenant Murray came back and said, “He’ll pay half.”

  “Oh. I should have said I wouldn’t pay any.”

  “I advised him to refuse, but he feels responsible.”

  “He does?”

  “Maybe in New York you think adultery is smart, but around here we think it’s disgusting.”

  Lieutenant Murray went away again, and Cole sat there with the magazine closed on his lap. He wondered where the company was now. Tuesday. Where were they booked for Tuesday night? He couldn’t remember; all the towns were the same. They came, they played one performance, they went on. The bus was white, with blue lettering on the side, telling everyone this was the National Touring Company of My Soul To Keep, which had recently been a Hit on Broadway.

  Now Danny Kirkpatrick would move up from his small role to replace him, and the assistant stage manager, Matt Willard, would take Danny’s part. And in New York someone would turn the pages of Player’s Guide, and find a face and form and experience which approximated those of Paul Cole, and someone would be hired, and given a plane ticket, and by next week he would have the part, and Paul Cole himself would be unable to tell whether or not that was him up there on the stage.

  The window of sky went dark. When the lighting came on, at the impulse of some unseen hand far away in some dark control room, it was indirect, coming from troughs along the walls, near the ceiling. Like a bar, like a tavern. But the lights were not red and amber and green, they were all white.

  His supper was brought to him. Grey slices of beef, covered with brown gravy. Mashed potatoes, still retaining the shape of the ice-cream scoop. Boiled carrots. A thick glass containing milk. He ate it all, and again he wanted a cigarette, but this time he didn’t ask.

  He fell asleep, and when he awoke the lights were turned off and the bed was cranked down. His chest was itching, but he couldn’t scratch it through the bandages. He felt very sad, as though something tremendously important had been lost while he slept, but the feeling was too vague, and he couldn’t understand what it was he’d lost. Gradually he sank into sleep again.

  2

  It was a Monday when they brought his suitcase to him; he had been there thirteen days. He was down at the end of the corridor, in the solarium, looking out past the plants and through the window at the world outside. He stood in
a room on the seventh floor, out on the skin of the building. Down below there was a busy street, with a busline on it. Across the road, amid green grounds and autumn-orange trees, was a gray stone building like a monastery, which they’d told him was a teacher’s college. The fall semester had just recently started, and sometimes he could see the young girls with red and white scarves around their necks, walking along the gravel paths, embracing their books. There were a few male students, too; they all wore unbuttoned sweaters, and carried a single book in their right hands, and kept their left hands in their trouser pockets, and looked as though they played basketball.

  He had gone to college, too, but he didn’t think he had played basketball. None of that was very clear now.

  On this side there was a curved drive from the street, passing the hospital entrance and then curving back to the street again, leaving a green oval concrete-lined island in the center. There was a large white wooden sign on the island, but he could only see the back of it. He’d asked several times what the front of the sign said, and they had always told him, but he couldn’t remember right now. He could ask again, but it embarrassed him to have to keep asking.

  There were other male patients in the solarium, sitting around the sofas and reading magazines. He had tried to read magazines at first, but he couldn’t concentrate on them. His mind kept wandering away in the middle of a paragraph. He sometimes sat with a copy of the Saturday Evening Post, looking at the cartoons and reading the advertisements. He liked the Saturday Evening Post best, because so many of the advertisements were in color. But most of the time, since they’d let him out of bed, he just stood at the window and watched the street. He watched the cars, and the green buses, and the pedestrians, and the young girls across the way.

  The nurse with the shining teeth came into the room and called his name, and when he turned she said, “They’ve brought up your things.”

  He said, “Thanks, May.” He always said her name when he remembered it, and was always irritated by how happy she was at his remembering.

  He went down the long corridor to his room, and May said, “When you’re ready, Doctor Croft wants to see you. Just go downstairs and ask at the desk. They’ll tell you where to find his office.”

  He thanked her again, and she went away. He went over and stood beside the bed, and looked at his possessions. They were lying on the bed: a suitcase, a small canvas bag, and a large manila envelope.

  He opened the envelope first. Inside, there were wallet and watch and Zippo lighter and a stale pack of cigarettes and a ballpoint pen and thirty-five cents in change. Everything that had been in his clothes, he guessed. He picked up the wallet and emptied everything out of it. There was a ten dollar bill, and two five dollar bills, and three one dollar bills. There was a driver’s license from the State of New York, with the name Paul Edwin Cole on it, and his sex, and the color of eyes, and date of birth, and weight, and height, and color of hair, and an address: 50 Grove Street, New York, N.Y. There were membership cards for three actors’ unions—Actors Equity and SAG and AFTRA. There was a reduced laminated photostat of an Honorable Discharge from the United States Army, which gave his name and rank and serial number. There was a Social Security card. There was a card from the Wittburg Blood Bank that had his blood type as O positive; this card stirred echoes of college, and he thought that once he had sold a pint of blood for money. He felt a sudden intense yearning to know who had received that pint of blood, to meet that person, talk with him, become good friends with him. Then he shook his head, and put everything back in the wallet.

  He looked next in the canvas bag. There was a zipper which, when he opened it, made a ragged sound. Inside there was a pair of slipper socks, and some clean underwear, and a paperback novel, and a cardboard box of contraceptives, and a deck of playing cards, and a pair of black shoes in need of a shine. He took all the things out, touching them, feeling them like a blind man seeing with his hands, and spreading them all out on the bed. When they were all out there, spread out, he stood looking at them, counting the objects and thinking about them. Then he put everything back into the canvas bag except the shoes and a set of underwear and socks.

  The suitcase had just clothing. There was a pair of brown slacks, neatly folded. There were two belts, all rolled up and held that way with rubber bands. There were white shirts and sport shirts, and a green wool pullover sweater. There were socks rolled into little balls, Army fashion. There were three ties rolled up and stuffed in a row into one of the side pockets. In the other side pocket was a tin of aspirin, and a pair of cufflinks, and two keys connected together with a twist of thick wire. The small key must be for the suitcase, and the large key for 50 Grove Street, New York, N.Y.

  When he had touched everything, he stood there dissatisfied. Something was missing, but he didn’t know what. His fingers itched for a cigarette; it would help him think.

  Looking around the room, befuddled, vague and beginning to grow angry, he noticed a gray suit hanging on the back of the door. He stood studying it, quizzically, and then smiled at it.

  He dressed quickly, and filled his pockets with his possessions, and closed up the canvas bag and the suitcase. The gray robe and white nightgown he left on the bed; they belonged to the hospital.

  He asked someone where the elevator was, and walked down the corridor. At the end, across from the elevator, was a kind of bazaar counter, like a shooting gallery, but with desks behind it, and nurses, one of whom was May. She smiled and waved to him, and called something he didn’t hear, and he nodded gravely. He was distracted because he was making himself remember the doctor’s name: Doctor Croft. Doctor Croft. Doctor Croft.

  There was a woman in a gray uniform operating the elevator. It was a deep elevator, and some people in back were clustered around an ancient woman in a wheelchair.

  He felt very strange, coming down and not remembering going up. He had never seen this lobby before, and he stepped out to it from the elevator slowly, looking at it. A soft impatient voice said, “Excuse me, please,” and he moved over for the wheelchair and all the people to go by.

  Near the front entrance was a railing, and behind the railing a gleaming wooden desk, and at the desk a woman in a nurse’s uniform. He went over there and said, “Doctor Croft’s office, please.”

  “Your name?” She was a narrow, jealous woman.

  He told her his name, and she used her telephone, and then gave him directions. There was another corridor to walk along, and then he found the right door, with Doctor Croft’s name in gold letters on the glass. He hesitated, and then knocked. A voice called to him to come in, and he pushed open the door and entered.

  The room was longish, and very narrow, with a broad window at the far end taking up almost the whole wall. There was a green carpet on the floor, and a gray metal desk, and a black leather sofa, and a black leather chair, and a green metal filing cabinet, and a hat rack. Framed diplomas were on the pale green walls.

  Doctor Croft, with his spectacles and his thin frame and his soft decayed face, was standing behind the desk, and a stocky florid man was sitting on the sofa. Cole recognized the stocky florid man, but couldn’t remember the circumstances in which he’d known him.

  Doctor Croft said, “You remember Lieutenant Murray,” and then he did.

  He said, “Yes. How do you do?”

  “Let’s get this over with,” said Lieutenant Murray, and looked at his watch.

  Doctor Croft said, “Sit down, Paul,” and motioned at the leather chair. “This won’t take long,” he said. “Just leave your luggage on the floor there.”

  Cole sat in the leather chair. He noticed that Doctor Croft was smoking; there was a filter cigarette burning on the edge of the ashtray on the doctor’s desk. He said, “May I have a cigarette? The ones in my clothes were stale.”

  “Oh. Certainly.” The doctor sat down, and took the pack from the handkerchief pocket of his suit jacket. He handed the whole pack over, and pushed a table lighter closer across th
e desk. The table lighter was gold-colored and Greek in style.

  Cole lit a cigarette, and made a face. The smoke was hot and harsh in his throat. He said, “They didn’t used to taste like that.”

  “Oh, of course. You haven’t been smoking the last two weeks. You’ve lost the taste.” Doctor Croft nodded and said, “You’ll never have a better opportunity to give them up. The nicotine withdrawal is finished now; the rest is just psychological.”

  “I don’t want to give them up.”

  “Ah. I do; I wish I could.” Doctor Croft picked up his cigarette and looked at it. “It’s an unhealthy habit,” he said, and took a drag. He blew smoke luxuriously, and said, “I suppose you’d like to know about damages, financial and medical, eh?” He smiled without humor. “We’ll take the medical damages first,” he said. “Your ribs have come along nicely, and if you avoid an excess of physical activity for a few weeks, you’ll be all right in that department. As to the head injury, it was superficial, and essentially slight. The x-rays show no brain damage whatsoever. I understand your memory processes are still a bit under par, but that shouldn’t be a permanent condition. As it is now, it’s too slight even to be termed partial amnesia. You have a bad memory at the moment, that’s all. I imagine you’ll have trouble remembering phone numbers, addresses, things like that. But it shouldn’t last. The condition should clear up with time. Other than that, there are no problems at all.” He smiled again. “You’re probably the healthiest man in the hospital,” he said.

  “Good.”

  “Now, as to financial damages.” He flipped open a folder on his desk. “As was explained to you, you couldn’t be moved from the private room because the wards were full, but we agreed to charge you at ward rate. Fifteen days at seventeen seventy-five a day, two hundred sixty-six dollars and twenty-five cents. Then there are drugs, and ambulance, and other fees— Here’s an itemized list, you can see it for yourself.”

  Cole took the piece of paper from him. It was thin paper, full of printing and typing. The number in the bottom right hand corner was $488.62. He said, “That’s a lot of money.”