6

Mary called, "Hey!"

Grofield was on the roof in the sunlight, with shingles and nails and a hammer. He looked down. "What?"

"He's awake."

"Delirious?"

"No, really awake this time. He wants to talk to you."

"I just get started on something-" Grofield grumbled, and shook his head. "I'll be right there. Soon as I finish this one I started."

She was keeping the sun from her eyes with one hand, and now she waved the other and moved off, disappearing from his sight when she approached the building.

It was two days since they'd brought Dan in, bleeding from four knife wounds, and put him to bed on an Army cot in the men's dressing room. Mary, afraid he'd die, had wanted to call the First Aid Squad ambulance to take him to the hospital, but Grofield had known that would be bad for everybody and had insisted they could nurse Dan themselves. Mary had gotten the first aid book from the box-office down at ground level under the rear theater seats and they'd followed its instruction. And apparently it was working out.

Grofield finished with the shingle he'd been putting in, hooked the hammer over a nail partway driven into the roof, made sure the rest of the new shingles and the bag of nails weren't going to slide off, and then made his way down the slanting roof to the ladder, and then to the ground.

Dan looked very pale, but he was awake. He said, "You got a beautiful wife."

Mary looked pleased. Grofield said, "And you've only got eight more lives."

"How'd you know where to find me?"

"You came knocking at the door. Don't you remember?"

Dan frowned. "Are you putting me on?"

"No. You came here and crawled up the steps out front and beat your head against the door till we let you in. Don't you remember any of it?"

"The last thing I remember is Myers with that knife."

"Where the hell did he get a knife?"

"From the car. It was his car, you know, he had one in a sheath under the dash. I left it there, I didn't need any knife."

There was a folding chair closed up and leaning against the wall. Grofield opened it and sat down. "Tell me what happened," he said. "From the beginning."

"I took your goddam advice," Dan said. "That's what happened."

"You let him go."

"I underestimate the bastard. I do it every time. I took him back to where I had him tell you the story, and I let him go there."

"Thanks a lot. You couldn't take him a few hundred miles first."

"I was sore," Dan said. "I just wanted to get rid of him."

"Not around me."

"You're right. I wasn't thinking. Anyway, he didn't come here."

"That's lucky for you, he might have finished the job. Will you tell me what happened?"

"I got him out of the trunk, and took off the cuffs, and he got a lucky kick in at my head. He got me down and hit me with a rock, and I was out for a few seconds or a minute or something, and when I was getting up he came back around the car with the knife and let me have it. I thought I was dead."

"And that's it?"

"Till I opened my eyes and saw your wife. It beats me how I got here."

"It beats me," Grofield said, "that you weren't seen."

Dan reached up a shaky hand and wiped his mouth. He was still very weak; the talking had worn him, and he was beginning to breathe hard. He said, "Can I stay? I know how you feel about-" He let the sentence lapse.

Grofield shook his head. "There's no choice," he said. "Naturally you'll stay."

"Only for a few days, till I get my strength back."

It would be more than that, but Grofield didn't say so. "Sure," he said, and got to his feet. "Your wallet looked pretty fat when I undressed you. I'll want you to pay your way."

"Sure," Dan said. "Take what you want."

"Just your expenses," Grofield said. "Ordinarily I wouldn't, but we're running kind of tight."

Mary said, "Do you like minestrone? Canned, I mean."

"Sure."

"Rest for a while," she said, "and I'll make it. Come on, Alan, let him rest."

They went out and shut the door, and Grofield said, "I'm sorry about this."

"That's all right. We'll say he's my cousin that came to visit and caught a cold on the trip and has to stay in bed for a while."

Grofield grinned at her. "Okay."