The Longest Second Read Free

his mouth, although he didn’t light it. Finally, he said, “My name is Santini. I’m a detective from the Eighth precinct. I got to ask you a few questions. The doc says you can signal me answers ... yes and no. Okay with me. Now, for the first question: do you know who you are?”
    No.
    “You don’t remember anything?”
    No.
    “You don’t remember who did it to you?”
    No.
    “You don’t remember if you did it to yourself?”
    No.
    “You don’t remember where you got that thousand bucks?” No. I didn’t know that I had possessed a thousand dollars.
    It explained several points, however... why I should have a semiprivate room, why a specialist such as Doctor Stone agreed to do an emergency operation. Charity cases, especially police charity cases, don’t receive that kind of treatment.
    So I had a thousand dollars. Santini watched my face, attempting to read my expression. He read nothing which was exactly what I had to conceal.
    Santini removed the unlit cigarette from his mouth, twisted the loose end of it together neatly so it had a small paper nipple, and replaced it in his mouth thoughtfully. “Well,” he observed to no one in particular, “it’s not often some guy is found in the street with his throat cut. Particularly if he is only wearing a pair of shoes and is otherwise as naked as the day he was born.” Suddenly he stared at me. His eyes were very hard and very brown, set close together. They gave the impression of intense emotion... curiosity, ruthlessness, and carefully repressed bitterness.
    I stared back at him. I sensed his animosity which I could not understand. The detective represented a threat, a danger to me, and yet I did not know why this might be so. I couldn’t see where my personal problem should make such a difference to him. After all I was the one who had been wounded; possibly I had even done it myself, and if I had, I couldn’t see where it was any of his business. Finally he stared away from me and his eyes riveted on Minor. “You often find guys with their throats slit and a grand in their shoe, Doc?” Minor regarded Santini with a fleeting expression of dislike. “Not often,” he told the detective.
    Santini shrugged. “ ‘Not often,’ the doc says. Me? I’ve never seen it even once before.” He turned his attention back to me. “The shoes don’t tell us much. We’ve tried to trace them ... nice expensive shoes, better than a cop wears. But not handmade. No, not handmade. Too many of ’em sold each year.”
    “What about fingerprints?” asked Minor. “And that old scar on his back?”
    “Ah, yes, fingerprints and that old scar,” replied Santini pretending to a sudden recollection, “well, I’ll tell you. We checked with our own files and we don’t have them. Then we checked with the FBI and they don’t have them. Now we’re checking with the Army, Navy, Air Force, and all the ships at sea. Maybe they got ’em, but we’ll just have to wait a little while to find out.” He turned his face to me and his eyes were hot on my face. “I think you’re bluffing,” he said softly, “and I don’t think you’ve lost your memory. I got to take the doc’s word that you can’t talk, but I won’t take it that you can’t remember. You’re covering up something.”
    “I don’t think so,” Doctor Minor corrected him. “It’s very difficult to fake amnesia successfully.”
    “It is?” asked Santini sarcastically. “If you can’t say anything, it’s hard?” He shoved his hands in his pockets wearily. “Oh, hell! If a guy wants to knock himself off, I say okay. Let him do it just so long as he don’t mess anybody else up. But if he doesn’t pull it off, then I got to take time to run it down. Or take it the other way, somebody else gives him the knife and he knows it, why not say so? There’s enough other things for me to do.”
    I could see Santini’s point. It didn’t necessarily interest me, and there was no way to discuss it with