So Like Sleep Read Free Page A

that?”
    “The one who did the hypnotizing. The one where … where …” She reached for a napkin and mumbled she was sorry, exactly as I was saying it was all right.
    Mrs. Daniels sniffled for a moment or two. I waited.
    “Can I tell you anything else?” she asked.
    “Not now. I have to read some reports first, talk with William’s lawyer. I’ll need you to call the lawyer, tell him I’m working for your son.”
    She nodded vigorously, reached for a handbag sitting on a nearby chair. “I have money. I took more out of the bank when Rob … Lieutenant Murphy told me you’d be coming. He said—”
    “Mrs. Daniels. No money, please.”
    She looked up with the “c’mon” expression again. “ ’Cause I didn’t used to earn enough when William was younger, he qualified for the Mass Defenders. That’s how he got to know Mr. Rothenberg, the lawyer he’s got now for this. But I gave Mr. Rothenberg a retainer, and I want to pay you, too. I never did like taking charity, and I won’t take any more of it.”
    “Not charity. A favor. For”—I stretched it a bit—“a friend, Lieutenant Detective Murphy. It’s his favor, but you and William will be my clients. I’ll talk to the lieutenant only if I need information or help.”
    Mrs. Daniels chewed on it for a minute. “Can you help William?” she said quietly.
    “I hope so.” I meant it, and I also hoped she could tell.
    She gave me Rothenberg’s address and phone number. I wrote down an authorizing message to leave in case he was out when she called him. I also gave her one of my new cards, writing my home number on the back.
    Willa Daniels let me out through the chains. I had forgotten about my car. So, apparently, had the three freelancers. It was where I had left it and in one piece. I got in and drove home.
    I walked in. Nothing on the tape machine. I remembered I hadn’t checked the mailbox, so I went back downstairs to the foyer. Nothing again. Not many of my friends could write, and I was too recently moved in to be receiving the “You Already May Have Won” crap.
    I came back upstairs, stripped, and showered. I finished the Times and decided to turn in. I looked at the telephone a couple of times, thinking of Nancy, then dropped off.

Three
    I WOKE UP AT 7:00 A.M., with the alarm. I pulled on running shoes, shorts, and a T-shirt from an army surplus store on Boylston Street. The shirt had a small USA on the left breast. It had been on the rack next to one with a skull wearing a green beret and the legend KILL THEM ALL—LET GOD SORT THEM OUT. I bought the USA.
    I limbered up for ten minutes, then jogged across the Fairfield Street bridge to the Charles River. Turning left, I ran leisurely upriver toward the Boston University bridge. I passed a cormorant floating low in the water, its black-beaked head and long neck above the surface like an organic periscope. At the bridge, I reversed direction, picking up the pace maybe thirty seconds to the mile. A sixty-year-old woman blew by me as if I were standing still. Her T-shirt read GRANDMOTHERS HAVE DONE IT LONGER.
    I reached Community Boating, in the shadow of the Charles Street bridge. When I got back from the service, I had learned to sail there, a six-month, good-any-time membership costing about fifty dollars. They supplied and maintained the boats, and more-experienced members taught you rigging. It was a good deal. I fell away from it after Beth got sick; the only sailboats I noticed now were the ones plying the harbor below her grave-site.
    I reversed direction again and maximized my stride, taking two short breaths and one long one for every eight steps. I stopped at the Dartmouth Street bridge, making it a four-mile run. On Newbury Street, I bought some fresh muffins and orange juice for breakfast.
    Back at the condo, I warmed down, showered, and ate. The kitchen clock said eight-thirty. I called the number for William’s attorney and drew a brusque female voice that said the offices