“Why doesn’t Mattieux wake him up? Perhaps just a little ammonia, perhaps no more and he would wake up.”

“Doctor Mattieux said, perhaps he is in this coma because he needs to be.”

“You know, Renee, he doesn’t look gentle today. He looks very much as if he were suffering.”

They watched how he tried to turn in his sleep…

He did not dream of the good times, the times when he had reached out and touched success; only the failures became important. He didn’t dream how he had gone ahead and split the organization right down the middle, the sweet sight of the power running right out of Ryder’s hands, the sweet sight of Ryder himself full of threatening talk, sweet silence from Ryder while he, Quinn, felt the better man, because he was worse than Ryder.

He dreamt how he tried to turn in his bed and couldn’t.

“Who in hell…”

“Lie still.”

“That’s all right,” said another voice from across the dark room. “Let him get up. So he’ll know.”

Quinn knew who it was even before he was out of the bed and before he could see well enough. He said, “Ryder, you son of a bitch! Ah, there’s two more? The strong arm? You don’t think…”

“I don’t have to, Quinn, and as for you, it won’t do you any good.”

“You have those goons lay a hand on me, Ryder, and you think I don’t have the set-up to make you float down the river by six in the morning?”

“Tut, tut, such violence. Show him, Jimmy.”

There were, after all, two of them and they hadn’t just woken up. They got him without a punch. A silent, panting affair. A wrestler. Not one punch but all wrestler, and the other one could murder me any place, any way, with his buddy’s grip crippling me out of shape. And he’s just standing there, doing what “Ryder, listen to me. I’ve got a call coming in, five in the morning, and if I don’t answer…”

“I’m not interested, Quinn. Whyn’t you watch what he’s doing?”