Time Thieves Read Free

pale, shock of black hair, long nose?”
        
        Della turned and looked unobtrusively at the man. He was tall and lean. His hands were long and slim and handled the utensils with a swift grace not unlike the manner in which a magician dealt with the tools of his trade. He was neither handsome nor ugly, but bland. His features seemed a bit too rounded for a man so thin, but they aroused no uneasiness in her.
        
        “What about him?” she asked.
        
        “I've seen him before.”
        
        She looked again. “Not me. You sure?”
        
        “Positive.”
        
        “Well, through the agency, then. You meet too many people to remember who they-”
        
        “Not him. I never met him through the agency.”
        
        “Forget him,” she said. She tried to sound light, but there was something in her husband's preoccupation with the stranger-coming on the heels of his amnesia-that alarmed her. Each of them cared for the other far more than they were able to admit aloud. She did not want to lose him, even for twelve days, ever again.
        
        But he could not avoid glancing at the stranger from time to time. The man left shortly before they were finished with their dessert and coffee. Only a minute or two after his departure, Pete said, “I have it.”
        
        “Have what?”
        
        “Where I've seen him before.”
        
        “And?”
        
        “Sometimes during the last two weeks, during my amnesia.” He laid his napkin down and got to his feet. “I'll be back in a minute.”
        
        He hurried across the room, through the wide archway and into the cashier's foyer.
        
        Della put down the chunk of steak on her fork and picked up her goblet of wine. She had only sipped a third of it all through the meal; now, she finished it off in three long swallows.
        
        He returned.
        
        “Something?” she asked.
        
        “Nothing.” He sat down, frowning. “He was gone by the time I got out there. The cashier said he paid with exact change. He wasn't anywhere in the parking lot.”
        
        She reached across the table and took his hand. “Don't worry about it, huh? The fact that you recognized him and knew he was from-from that blank period, that's a good sign. Maybe, like Doc said, it'll all come back, slowly.”
        
        They finished the meal without dawdling. At the cash register, Pete had some trouble figuring out how many bills he needed to pay the tab. He kept trying to give the cashier too much, and when she gave him his change, he was certain she had shorted him. Della did not like the looks of him, harried and distraught.
        
        She tried to make the evening as light as possible. They took Barbara's clothes back to her apartment where they had a drink or two. He had always enjoyed talking and kidding with Barb before, but he was too much of another mind tonight. At home again, Della came close to him in bed, warm and soft. She persuaded him, with little trouble, that they should repeat Billings' first piece of advice. Afterwards, content and sure that he must be too, she fell asleep.
        
        But he remained awake. He stared at the ceiling a long time, wondering. Two weeks minus two days…
        
        Where had he slept all that time? Who had given him a bed and food to eat? He had left home with three dollars in his wallet, and that was what he had returned with.
        
        Credit cards. Of course. He could have slept in motels and eaten in restaurant with his credit cards. The thought was immensly comforting. Next month's bill would tell them where he had been. He sighed and relaxed a bit, leaning back into his pillow.
        
        Why? That was the major question remaining.
        
        Why had his mind rejected reality; why had it run loose and blind for twelve days? He loved Della;