The Longest Second Read Free Page A

him.
    “The woman, of course, says she never saw you before,” Santini continued thoughtfully.
    Woman? What woman? I wondered whom he meant? The detective again was watching me closely. I set my lips and noiselessly mouthed the word “who?”
    “Who?” repeated Santini. “You mean the woman?”
    Yes.
    “The one who found you?”
    Yes.
    “Well,” said Santini, “there’s this woman by the name of Hill, Bianca Hill. Does her name mean anything to you?”
    No.
    “Nice, decent woman as far as we know. She found you bleeding all over her doorstep. She called the cops, then sat down and held her thumbs at your throat until the ambulance arrived.”
    First, I thought, it was Doctor Stone who sewed up the wound and saved my life... for a cut of the thousand dollars, no doubt. Then, a woman named Hill sat on her doorstep and held my throat in her hands to prevent me from bleeding to death. Why?
    Santini finally lit his cigarette. “I’m going now,” he said. “I’ll see you again. You won’t be going anywhere for a while.”
    That afternoon, shortly after lunch, the hospital discharged Merkle. Before he left, he wrote out his home phone and address, and told me to be sure to call him sometime. It was quiet in the room after he had gone, and I didn’t miss him. I lay in my bed, motionless, and permitted my mind to wander. There were many things I could remember, things which were in my mind, but which I couldn’t connect up with anything. For instance, I knew I was in New York; I knew Fifth Avenue, the Empire State Building, Times Square, although I couldn’t recall if I lived in New York or how I knew these other locations.
    This chain of thought eventually led me to wondering about my name again. ... Bing Crosby, Pablo Picasso, Charles Lindbergh, Colonel Horstman. Snap! Again my mind snapped shut. Slowly, very slowly, I went back over the names. ... Crosby, an entertainer; Picasso, painter; Lindbergh, public figure; Horstman—? Who was Horstman? The name Colonel Horstman was familiar to me, as familiar as the others, but I couldn’t identify him. Who was Colonel Horstman? I worked with the idea, approaching it both directly and indirectly, but I could carry the thought no further. I only knew that the name of Horstman was one I had known very well; but who he was I didn’t know. It almost seemed as if he existed in another dimension, separated by time, space, memory ... and contact. Contact, in the sense of communication; that he could be reached only by another type of thinking, another mind, or another language.
    The hospital didn’t place a patient in my room immediately. That night I began to dream again. It was the old familiar dark room with the spot of light in the comer. I stood within the room waiting for someone to appear in the light. Cold sweat beaded my forehead while I waited. In my dream I waited all night ... all night for someone, or something, to appear. Whoever, whatever it was, didn’t show up. But when I awakened in the morning, I knew that sometime it would appear.

4
    WITH the cars, the lights, and the activity, the street had come alive ... at two in the morning. The uniformed police kept the curious at a careful distance. Gorman, from the Medical Examiner’s office, was inspecting the body carefully but without changing its position. Gorman’s activities had been shielded from the eyes of the curious crowd by a portable canvas screen.
    A few feet from Gorman, Burrows and Jensen waited patiently for the doctor to conclude his preliminary examination. Final and complete posting could take place only at the laboratory.
    Burrows said, “It doesn’t look like a sex job, even if the body has been stripped.”
    “All except for the shoes,” said Jensen. “Why take the trouble to remove the clothes and leave the shoes and socks?” From behind them, in the house, a high, piercing wail screamed through the night. Burrows shivered at the sound. “Jesus,” he said, “that gets