Kennedy cocked his head. "Why do you… oh, you don't remember the attack, do you? You were telling the detectives the truth."

Kurtz waited.

"All right," said Kennedy. "Give me a call at the Buffalo number on the card whenever you're ready to…"

"Today," said Kurtz. "This afternoon."

Kennedy paused at the door and smiled that cynical, bemused James Bond smile. "I don't think you'll be…" he began and then paused to look at Kurtz. "All right, Mr. Kurtz," he said, "it certainly won't please the investigating officers if they ever discover I've done this, but we'll have the tape ready to show you when you stop by our offices this afternoon. I guess you've earned the right to see it."

Kennedy started through the door but then stopped and turned back again. "Peg and I are engaged," he said softly. "We'd planned to get married in April."

Then he was gone and a nurse was bustling in with a bedpan jug and something that might be breakfast.

It's bloody Grand Central Station here, thought Kurtz. Dr. Singh came in—after Kurtz had ignored everything on the breakfast tray except the knife—to shine a penlight in his eyes, check under the bandages, tut-tut at all the bleeding visible—Kurtz didn't mention the cuff in the head from Mr. Wheelchair—to direct the nurse in replacing the gauze and tape, to tell Kurtz that they'd be keeping him another twenty-four hours for observation, and to order more X rays of his skull. And finally Singh said that the officer who had been guarding this end of the hall was gone.

"When did he leave?" asked Kurtz. Sitting propped up against the pillows, he found it was easier to focus his eyes this morning. The pain in his head continued like a heavy sleet-storm against a metal roof, but that was better than the steel spikes being driven into his skull the night before. Red and yellow circles of pain from the penlight exercise still danced in his vision.