Текст книги "Nameless"

Автор книги: Sam Starbuck

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"You going to tell your parents?"

That stopped him bouncing, at least. He frowned.

"Yeah. Before we go. After Nolan takes his inheritance out," he added.

"Are you sure you want to leave Low Ferry? I know what small towns are like, I do, but Chicago's pretty far. Pretty big."

Michael shrugged. "We'll get by."

"Just – don't be too much of a stranger, huh? Being away...changes things," I said. "You lose things when you leave."

"Good."

"You say that now," I said, but I smiled too. "Listen, if you do need money, let me know. And..." I took out a pen and uncapped it, scribbling the address of Eighth Rare Books on the ticket envelope. "The owner's a friend of mine. She'll give you a hand if you ask."

"That's decent of you," he said, studying it before tucking the tickets away. "See you round, Christopher," he added, and walked out. I held up a finger and pointed it at Nameless as soon as he'd gone.

"Don't even think about saying anything," I said. He huffed indignantly. "You keep that well to yourself, and don't talk to me about it. You and I have other things to discuss."

Nameless eased his head down onto his legs, cocking it slightly. I walked around the counter to where he lay and sat down on the floor next to him.

"You should tell the boy yourself, if you don't feel like tutoring," I said. He whined and rested his head on my knee. "That wasn't very polite, and definitely irresponsible."

He inched forward and heaved another sigh. I scratched the ruff of fur just above his shoulders.

"Some days it's easier to be a dog," I continued. "But don't forget you're not. You were human first, and you'll always be human. You can try as hard as you like to lose it, but all you'll do is bury it, and that isn't the kind of thing you can bury forever."

I wish I had not said those words. I was trying to help him, because he seemed lost to me, stuck between a human craving love and an animal who was loved for a lie. I was trying to cajole him out of his silence. I was doing what I thought was right for my friend, who was confused and afraid.

I wish I had stayed silent and stroked his fur and let him be, or at least pretended that his seeming was the same as his being, that the change meant something beneath the surface. Perhaps it wouldn't have made any difference in the end, but I wish I had kept my damn mouth shut.

I got up and went back to the counter, where I had been pricing books before I was interrupted. After a moment, there was the sound of a throat being cleared.

"I couldn't face them today," he said, and it was Lucas sitting by the fire, legs pulled up to his chest, chin on his knees, bare toes curled against the floor. The mask lay next to him, face-down. "It takes so much effort sometimes, and I've never run away before. I think I'm allowed, just once."

"Of course you are," I agreed. "But you could have left a note for them."

"Sorry. I didn't want to make you lie for me."

I shrugged. "I chose to lie. I could have just said I hadn't seen you, and it would have been truth of a sort."

He rubbed his eyes. "It's so easy to be Nameless, and so difficult to be Lucas sometimes. People love dogs."

"No-one hates you, Lucas."

"My words are all wrong."

"I didn't mean – "

"No, I didn't either," he said quickly, apologetically. "I don't end up finding very good words for things. The words are more difficult. People are so complicated."

"And dogs are so simple?"

"No, but – dogs are simple to people – you see?" he said, frustrated. "But I am sorry, and I'll make it up to them."

I glanced at the door, then reached out and turned the sign to Closed. "Come upstairs. I'll make you a drink."

He followed me into my kitchen, sitting quietly while I put a kettle on the stove.

"Lucas...can I ask you something?" I said, setting out mugs and tea bags. "We don't have to talk about it anymore, but I'd like to know."

He spread his hands, indicating I should continue.

"How'd you manage it? Did you get the idea from the Straw Bear?"

He shook his head. "I knew before I came here. The book I wanted from Chicago, I used to make masks from the pictures. I just liked the designs. Strange things used to happen to those," he added, with an odd nostalgic look. "I think because I believed in it. Or didn't disbelieve, anyway. Most people, when they read a book, they decide to believe it or...um, not. I never have. Whether it was true didn't matter to me, as long as it got me away for a little while."

"Away? From what?"

"Everything. You're a reader, you can't possibly misunderstand that."

"No," I said. "I guess I can't."

"When you're in the city it's hard to think clearly about things. I knew I wanted somewhere small, somewhere I could be alone to think," he said. "So I came here, because I could be alone, because traditions aren't quite dead here....men still turn into animals."

"The Straw Bear."

He nodded. We were quiet until the kettle whistled and I poured the water into the mugs. I offered him a spoon with his and he stirred, watching as the tea tinted it slowly.

"I thought...." he closed his eyes. "I began to look at animals, how effortless it is for them to accept affection, how much they offer in return. Nobody suspects a dog of ulterior motives."

"Everyone loves Nameless," I said.

"Wouldn't you strive for that, if you didn't have it?" he asked, voice strained.

"Do you suppose that I do have it?"

"It's easy for you; you talk to people, shake hands, flirt with them, hug them, you know everything about them – it's so simple for you. It's so simple for them," he said, stretching out his hand to point out the window towards the street below. "The boy – you should see him and the others. I don't understand how they can be so close, how they always think of – of things to talk about, games to play – how they never bore each other. I don't know how people do that, and sometimes it's just...difficult to watch."

"But he idolizes you. He wants to be like you."

"I want to be like him," Lucas replied. "Or like you."

"It's not easy for me either," I said. "Not always, anyway. I don't think it is for anyone, at times. You'll figure it out, Lucas, you're a smart man."

"Thanks," he said. He pushed back from the table, standing up. "I think...I'm going to go home for a while. Would you uh...turn around?"

"Okay," I answered, and turned away. There was a soft noise, and then the scratch of claws on wood. I led Nameless down the stairs, gave him an affectionate nudge with my knee, and opened the door so he could get out.

From the doorway I watched him lope through the last of the winter's snow, dodging around late-afternoon shoppers and the occasional schoolchild.

***

Two days later, I heard a car pull up outside my shop and looked out the window to see a familiar battered pickup with a camper hitched to it. I hadn't expected the Friendly, but it made sense; a final thaw was sweeping south and they were following it for as long as it lasted. Gwen practically leaped out of the truck and was up on the porch by the time I had the door open. She threw herself into my arms, laughing.

"Hello!" I called to Tommy, who saluted from the street and came up the path with a little more dignity. "Hello," I added to Gwen, who kissed my cheek and let me go. "You're awfully close to civilization, miss Friendly."

"Came in for a hot meal," Tommy explained, leaning on the porch rail. "Gwen insisted."

"It's good food," she retorted. "And we're not here long."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Just for tonight. I wanted to make sure I saw you."

"Why the rush?"

"Construction work down south," Tommy answered. "Good money while it's on."

"Can't argue with that," I said, as Gwen wrapped an arm around my waist and leaned against me. "How's the family?"

"Christopher sends his greetings. Stuck in bed right now, sciatica's actin' up. Couple of the boys got married, lost one of 'em to a landowner. Otherwise can't complain."

"How's Low Ferry?" Gwen asked.

"Better for having you in it," I replied.

"And Lucas? We're going up to see him tonight, after dinner."

I smiled. "That'll do him some good. He hasn't been himself lately."

Gwen gave me a searching look. "Yeah. Didn't think he would be."

"Why's that?"

"We know things. I'd like to tell him thank you, though."

"Thank you? What for?"

She and Tommy exchanged a glance, hesitant, almost conspiratorial.

"You had good weather going north, huh?" I asked, and Tommy looked relieved.

"Told you then, did he?" he said. I realized, with a pang of jealousy and guilt, that they'd known. He'd told them, or they'd figured it out. And they'd believed him. No shouting, no dismissal. The Friendly had known what craziness Lucas was up to and they'd believed him, long before I ever had.

"He did a little more than tell me," I answered. "Did you know he succeeded?"

"No!" Gwen looked pleased. "But I'm glad he did."

Tommy didn't look quite so joyful. "How's he find it?"

"You'd have to ask him that."

"Didja know he can make it rain?" Gwen said. "Come on, Saint! Fetch me some books and I'll pay you. We made a little pile up north with those masks."

After they left, I turned over this new information in my mind all afternoon, trying to decide what I thought of it. In the end, it seemed like a small thing, compared to the rest. I hoped that night Nameless would get some choice scraps from the Friendly cooking fires.

I didn't see Lucas the next day, but I figured he was probably visiting with the Friendly before they left – I planned to ask him how Christopher was, next time he was in town.

As it turned out, I saw him before he came to town.

Around four o'clock that day, the boy came running into my shop. He was out of breath, and he looked like hell was chasing him.

"He isn't here, is he?" he demanded.

"Who, Lucas? No," I said. "What's the matter?"

"He's missed tutoring again and he's not answering his phone, and I think you'd better go see what's wrong."

"I'm sure it's just temporary," I replied. "Maybe his phone died. Might be some mud on the road. The Friendly are back, did you – "

"You should go. Now."

I looked up at him sharply. No child in the village had ever spoken to me that way, but his stare was direct and he looked so much older than he was that I automatically moved to obey. I was putting on my coat before I realized what I was doing.

"I'll come with you," he offered, when I paused again. "But you have to go see what's wrong with him."

I looked outside. It had been sunny all day, even if it hadn't been very warm. Now clouds were gathering, almost too quickly to be believed, and rain was beginning to streak the window.

"Fuck," I said under my breath, and flipped the sign to Closed. "Come on."

The rain got harder even as we stepped outside – the most miserable kind of rain, intense and merciless. It fell straight down with no wind to soften it and had wet the pavement within minutes, washing dirt out of gardens and piling it in gutters for innocent pedestrians to slip on. The boy started running to keep up with me, and then I started running, dodging around muddy patches and darting across streets with hardly a look to see if there were cars coming. Other villagers, taken by surprise in the rain, stood under awnings or hurried into shops to find shelter. There were more than a few puzzled looks as we went racing past.

I didn't think we'd be able to run the entire way there, but as long as the boy was running, I could. We turned on the road leading out to The Pines and kept going, even though my breath was hitching and I figured any moment my heart would probably decide it'd had quite enough of this nonsense.

By the time we reached the rutted dirt road we were both wet to the skin. Rain ran down the back of my neck and soaked my coat, flattened my hair, dripped off my eyebrows onto my cheeks. The boy didn't complain even once, though the fields we were running through were perilously slippery. It seemed like whenever he slipped and was about to fall he'd catch himself, and the speed carried us both along, though the mud splashed around our ankles and flicked up at times to coat our pants as well.

I couldn't even see The Pines through the curtain of rain around us, and I tried not to think about what Lucas might have done to cause this. Instead I thought of anything else. My life in the city, full of trains and small apartments, street markets in the summer, the spires of the downtown buildings and the sharp wind that blew between them. I thought of my shop, warm and brightly lit. I thought of the titles on the literature shelf, the chaos of the children's' books. I thought about the comic books and the magazines.

The hill loomed up suddenly before us, so abruptly in the storm that I skidded to a stop in the muddy tracks left by the Friendly, already gone again. I couldn't quite keep my balance and I fell, scrambling to get up again in the mud. The boy thrust his shoulder under my arm to help, and together we staggered up the slick path to the kitchen door.

"It's locked," I said, leaning against the door for what meager shelter the wall provided from the rain.

"Try it again," he urged.

"Did you hear me? It's locked – " But even as I said the words, I jiggled the knob and the door opened.

I staggered inside and was met with an odd silence. The rain had been pelting my body for so long that to be free of it was almost like silence in itself, though it still drummed on the roof.

"Lucas?" I called, dripping mud on the floor. "Lucas? "

The boy ran under my arm, into the kitchen and through the door that led to the living room. I followed cautiously.

The living room had changed drastically. No light or heat danced in the fireplace. Most of the furniture had been pushed back into its proper place. The worktables were gone, the masks piled haphazardly into boxes in a corner. Even the little planter-box on the window-sill was empty.

In front of the bare fireplace sat a battered sofa. There was a body lying on it, and for a moment the world stopped.

Then I saw his hands, artist's hands with calluses and paint-marks and cuts, twitching convulsively against the blanket he was wrapped in. They clutched and released uncontrollably, in time with spasms that were shaking his body.

"Go to the telephone," I said without thinking. "Call 911. Tell them to contact any hospital in Chicago and have them send a helicopter. Can you give them directions?"

The boy ran into the kitchen while I grabbed Lucas by the soft white shirt he wore and pulled him up into a sitting position. His eyes were rolled up in his head.

I glanced at the window-box again. The empty window-box, where he'd been growing hemlock for Socrates.

"You bastard," I said.

A year before, two of Leon's horses had died from eating hemlock that was growing wild in a field near his farm. I knew the symptoms well enough. I'd heard them described every day for a week after it happened.

Two good horses lost. Should have seen them shake. Teeth chattering, kept falling over – couldn't puke it up and too late for charcoal. Such a mercy when they finally dropped. Two good horses.

I got an arm around his chest and lifted him to his feet, dragging him into the kitchen. The boy danced anxiously around us as I bent the limp body over the sink.

"Look for a first-aid kit," I said, turning on the taps.

"I've called the hospital."

"Good, now find me a first-aid kit. Look for ipecac or something labeled emetic. Ee em ee tee eye see. Or charcoal," I added, bracing Lucas against the sink and lifting his head up slightly with one hand.

"What's happened? What are you doing?"

"He's taken hemlock," I said, and the boy's eyes widened. "Go find the damn ipecac!" I shouted, wrapping my right arm around Lucas's forehead. His teeth were chattering but his jaw wasn't yet so tense I couldn't work my hand into his mouth.

I pushed my fingers past his tongue, as far back as they would go. His teeth latched into my palm and he bit me, hard enough to draw blood. I waited until his jaw loosened, jerked my hand away from his teeth, and pushed again. This time, his jaw couldn't close as tightly and he gagged. I could feel the spasm low in his chest – once, twice, and then he heaved and finally threw up. He shuddered and his hands came forward, gripping the edges of the sink as bile and grit and flecks of green landed wetly in the swirling water.

I took my hand out of his mouth and held it under the tap, gritting my teeth as the cold water poured into the bloody bite-mark. The imprint in the skin looked oddly canine, a sharp crescent across the back of my hand.

Lucas heaved again, and there was another sickening wet smack as more hemlock came up. It smelled vicious and foul, and I had no doubt some of it had gotten into the wound, but I couldn't be bothered to care just then.

"I can't find anything!" the boy wailed, running back into the kitchen. Lucas, now half-conscious, was mumbling curses under his breath.

"Get out of here; go as fast as you can back to Low Ferry and find Charles," I said. "Tell him what's happened and that I'm going to the hospital with Lucas. Ask him to close up my shop. Then go home and stay there, all right?"

He nodded and ran for the door. I turned my attention back to Lucas, whose twitching convulsions were subsiding. I cupped my uninjured hand under the tap and brought water up to his mouth, but it leaked back out again. I tried a second time, but his legs gave out so suddenly that I had to lunge to catch him.

We fell to the kitchen floor in a heap, his legs loosely splayed, my arms around his chest, his head knocking against mine. We were both smeared with the mud I'd fallen in and I was shivering with cold; I pushed myself up against the cabinets below the sink and held him across my lap. He'd passed out, but at least the terrible shaking had stopped.

I counted ten breaths, then loosened my death grip on his chest and made sure he was breathing too. That done, I eased him down to the floor and turned him on his side, shedding my coat and sliding it, mud and all, under his head for a pillow. When I was sure he wouldn't roll over and choke if he threw up again, I staggered into the living room.

His sculpture supplies were in an open box next to the masks, including strips of burlap he used for reinforcing plaster castings. I soaked one with liquid soap from the kitchen and tied it around my hand as well as I could, then looped another around the first.

Then there was silence of another sort, and I looked up through the kitchen window.

The rain had stopped.

There was snow in its place, falling peacefully to the ground in little eddies but increasing in speed every second. It wasn't normal or rational or natural, but then neither had the world been, not since – since New Year's, since Halloween, since Lucas.

I didn't dare turn around to see if he was still alive. The thaw and the rain had both been his doing, and this wasn't the kind of snow we should be seeing this late in the year. I didn't know what it meant, but either way I couldn't turn around.

I stood at the window, watching the snow fall, until I heard the hospital helicopter in the distance – until the paramedics began to pound on the kitchen door.

At the hospital in Chicago they took the makeshift bandages off my hand and disinfected it, then stitched up the worst of the ripped flesh. I didn't see what had happened to Lucas, but I assumed they were doing whatever it was they did to poison victims. The doctor in the emergency room, once he saw the shape of the bite mark, ordered them to give me three or four bruising injections, including a Rabies vaccine. They took my muddy shirt away but left me my pants and my dignity, more or less.

I nursed my needle-wounds for a while, my hand wrapped in a proper white bandage and throbbing distantly through the painkillers, until someone brought me a scrub shirt. I put it on, then slipped away from the exam bed and found a pay-phone.

I called Charles in Low Ferry, intending to let him know where we were, but nobody answered to accept charges. I tried Paula and then Richard but I guessed the phones had gone down when the snow blew in. I tried Eighth Rare Books and got no answer there either, which was surprising until I checked a clock on the wall and found it was past eight in the evening.

After wracking my brain I managed to remember Marjorie's home number. To my relief, she answered the phone and accepted the collect-call charge.

"Christopher, is that you?" she asked in greeting. "Why are you calling collect?"

"I'm at the hospital," I said.

"Oh, my god, your heart – "

"It's not my heart."

"Well..." she trailed off. "Were you mugged?"

"I wasn't mugged," I said. "I'm fine, Marj, just shaken up."

"You sound exhausted. I didn't know you were in Chicago."

I laughed, which probably sounded horrible. "I wasn't, this afternoon. I was airlifted in."

"What do you need? Money? A ride home? If you need a kidney, sweetheart, I'm good for it."

"No, Marj, nothing like that. Can you come down?"

"Of course. What hospital? I'll leave now."

"Can you bring me a book?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

"Did you just ask me for a book?" she asked.

"Yeah. Sorry – "

"Any particular book?" she said sharply.

"Yeah, um. Plato. Anything with Phaedo in an English translation. Please."

"Christopher, what – " she started, but I was already hanging up. It must have frightened her, and I still feel bad about that, but I wasn't trying to be rude or obscure. I was tired, and I didn't have the mental strength to explain any further.

A young doctor with a clipboard in her hand was standing nearby, watching me patiently. When I let go of the receiver, she smiled.

"Mr. Dusk?"

"That's me."

"I have good news," she said. "Your friend's in intensive care. They've pumped his stomach for good measure, but he should be fine."

I slumped onto a nearby bench, suddenly finding it difficult to stand. "Well, that's something," I said. She frowned, then dismissed it.

"You're fast," she continued. "The paramedics said you told them you made him vomit, which was smart. Although I have to say, it doesn't seem like you were very gentle about it. He has some bruising on his chest and face."

"I was more worried about the poison."

"Well, that's good thinking. I hate to have to ask this right now, but..." she tapped her pen against her clipboard. "Are you his next-of-kin?"

"I doubt it," I said. "Don't you have this stuff on file somewhere?"

"Well, that's the thing. He hasn't got any ID on him, so we haven't been able to find his records yet. If you could fill out his information, that would be really helpful."

She held out the clipboard and I took it, looking down at the admission form. Height and weight I could estimate, hair and eye color I knew, and I was pretty sure he didn't have any allergies. It was the bit at the top that was giving me trouble.

"I don't know his last name," I said finally.

"But you do know him?" she asked.

"We're friends. I thought we were, anyway."

"What about his address?"

"He doesn't really have one. He was living outside of town, he never got any mail. I don't know what his address in Chicago was, but he used to live here. I can find out," I added, when she tried to take the clipboard back. She let go when she saw I wasn't going to release it. We sat in silence for a while.

"Mr. Dusk, he didn't eat that hemlock accidentally, did he?" she asked.

It wasn't that I didn't want to admit what he'd done. He was going to get an earful about it from me when he woke up, and I was the reason he was going to wake up at all. Well, really the boy was. But the point was that I wasn't in denial. I just didn't want to make any trouble for him.

"Do we need to put him on a suicide watch?" she asked gently.

"He's shy," I said. "He's private, he doesn't like people bothering him. I don't want them to try and commit him. He's not crazy. He's just a little messed up."

"You'd be surprised how often I hear that," she said. "Though not usually from someone who nearly lost a thumb being heroic. I'll have the nurses keep an eye on him, how's that sound?"

"Good," I said. "I'll...fill this out and give it back to you."

She patted my arm and left me there, pen clenched in my fingers, cheap plastic clipboard resting on my knee. Nearby, in the waiting room for the ER, a shabbily-dressed man was sleeping in a chair and a woman with three small children was plying the older ones with crackers and trying to rock the younger one to sleep. I set the pen down and twisted the hospital bracelet around and around on my wrist. I didn't really have any confidence that I could find someone who knew anything more about Lucas than I did – and I didn't think the doctor believed I could either. If I didn't know his last name, who in Low Ferry would?

Marjorie arrived while I was still pondering it. She looked worried and a little furious as she swooped down on me, hugged me, forced me back into the seat I'd just stood up from, and picked up my left hand, cradling it carefully.

"My poor Christopher," she said, wrapping her other arm around my shoulders. "What happened?"

"I was bitten," I said, wiggling my thumb. It burned a little.

"By what?" she asked. "A horse?"

"Another person," I answered.

"For god's sake, what do they do in that evil little village? I hope you've had all your shots."

"Yeah, they gave me a bunch," I said. "It's not what you think."

"Good, because my first thought on hearing that a presumable adult bit you in the hand is that you were nearly a sacrifice in some kind of ghastly Satanic rite," she replied.

"Did you bring the book?" I asked. She sighed, rummaged in a bag slung over one shoulder, and produced a small, paperback copy of Plato's Phaedo. I turned through the pages, searching for the passage I thought I remembered.

He walked about until, as he had told us, his legs began to fail. Then he lay on his back in the way he had been told, and the man who had given him the poison examined his feet and legs. Soon he pressed his foot hard and asked him if he could feel it, and Socrates said "No"; then he pressed his leg, and so upwards, showing us that he was cold and stiff.

And then Socrates felt for himself, and said "When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end."

"Fool," I muttered. "Classics for why to kill yourself; botany for how."

"Kill yourself?" Marjorie asked, really alarmed now.

"Lucas – the history scholar, I ordered that werewolf book for him for Christmas? He tried to. Kill himself. I think," I said.

"Oh, dear me." Marjorie looked stricken.

"It's a little more violent than Plato thinks it is," I added, closing the book and turning to meet her eyes for the first time. "I had to make him throw up, hence..." I held up my hand.

"You..." she pointed a finger at her open mouth. I nodded. "That requires a certain amount of fortitude. Not that I thought you'd have anything less," she said. "Will he be all right?"

"According to the doctors. He might not be once I get through with him," I said grimly. Marjorie laid a hand on my arm.

"Christopher, let me buy you something to eat," she said. "Somewhere away from here."

"I should stay with Lucas, I'm the only one he knows. Besides, I have to find out what his name is," I said.

"His name?"

"His last name, I mean, I don't know it and they need it for..." I gestured at the clipboard. She waved dismissively.

"They just want to know what insurance to charge. I imagine he hasn't got any."

"God, I don't know..." I rested my face in one hand, the injured one still half-holding the book. I have never felt so at sea – not after my father died, not when I first came to Low Ferry, not during the long malaise that was my life in the city.

If Lucas, who could control the rain and snow, who could grow ice where he walked, who spent his whole life making beautiful things – if Nameless saw the world so darkly that death was preferable...

"Come along, Christopher," Marjorie said. "Just for a few minutes. You've done enough for him."

She took my arm and led me out of the hospital, across the wet early-evening street to the warm yellow circle of a street-lamp. I stopped for a minute and turned my head to look up, but I'd forgotten that the light of the city eclipses the stars. Marjorie threaded her fingers in mine and tugged me gently onward.

We ate in a cheap sandwich shop near the hospital, drinking acidic coffee and speaking very little. I don't know what she must have thought, but my own thoughts were taken up with an endless cycle – he was in a hospital bed and not a morgue drawer, and I was proud to be the one who'd saved him. But at the same time I wondered if he wouldn't hate me for it. And I believed – I still do – in allowing another person to make their own decisions. Always within reason, of course, but that night I was so confused and tired and hurt that I didn't know where suicide fell on the scale of "within reason" anymore.

There was no doubt he was chronically shy and awkward, but not as Nameless; no doubt he stammered and fumbled for words, but Nameless was never required to speak. And these things, you know, are not things to kill oneself over. But the other dogs avoided Nameless, and even the people...

No one had tried to put a collar on him. No one had tried to own him. Not even me. I'd tried not to, actually.

When we returned to the hospital, Marjorie gave me a hug at the entry door.

"Do you want me to stay with you?" she said. "I have a guest room you could – "

"No," I said. "Thanks, Marj. I'm staying here tonight."

"Are you sure?"

"I need to," I said.

"I'll come by tomorrow," she replied, and patted my cheek before she walked away.

Inside, I found a police officer outside Lucas's door, and another one inside rolling ink on his unresponsive fingers to take prints. They looked at me suspiciously as they left.

I settled onto a vinyl-upholstered bench in the hallway, curled up with the side of my head resting against the wall, and read Plato for hours.

***

I fell asleep while reading the Republic, and when I woke up it was to soft voices nearby. I opened my eyes and saw a new doctor, standing in front of Lucas's door and speaking to a middle-aged couple: a neat man in khakis and an oxford shirt, a tidy woman with fashionable hair and subtle makeup, even at whatever-time it was in the morning.

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