Nightwork

'I'm glad to hear that.' His voice was frail. 'Imagine dying to save the honor of Priscilla Dean.' He laughed faintly. 'What we should have done was introduce her to those two boys.' He laughed again, a little rasping noise. "They could have gone off to Quogue together and had themselves a hell of a night.'

Tell me. Miles,' I said, 'what possessed you to go for that goddamn gun?'

He shook his head gently on the pillow. 'Who knows? Instinct? My better judgment blunted by drink? Maybe it was just a little bit of old Lowell, Massachusetts, sticking out.'

'I guess that's as good an explanation as any,' I said. 'While we're on the subject, the doctor says you have a great big scar on your abdomen and chest. Where did you get that?' 'A souvenir of a previous engagement,' he said. 'I'd prefer not to talk about it right now, if you don't mind. Could you do me a favor?'

'Of course.'

'Will you call Lily and ask her if she could possibly come over for a few days? I think old Lily would do me a lot of good.'

'I'll call her today,' I said.

'That's a good fellow.' He sighed. 'That was a nice evening, last night. All those polite people. You ought to cable Quinn and congratulate him.'

'Evelyn is doing it this morning,' I said.

'Thoughtful woman. She looked beautiful last night.' I started to get up. 'Don't go quite yet,' he said. 'I believe there's a pad and a pen in that drawer. Will you give it to me, please?'

I opened the drawer and gave him the pad and the pen. He wrote slowly and with difficulty. He tore the top sheet off the pad and gave it to me. "There's no telling what's going to happen, Douglas,' he said, 'so I...' He stopped, as though he was having difficulty choosing his words. 'That note you have in your hand is to the private bank in Zurich. I have an account of my own there, as well as our joint one. The number's on there. And my signature. What I'm trying to tell you is that from time to time I ... I. well - siphoned off a not inconsiderable sum. To put it plainly, Douglas, I was cheating you. That note will restore the money to you.'

'Oh, Christ,' I said.

‘I warned you in the beginning,' he said, 'I was not running as an admirable man.' I patted his head gently. 'It's only money, friend,' I said.

'The ride was worth it.'

There were tears in his eyes. 'Only money,' he said. Then he laughed. 'I was just thinking - it was a lucky thing I got shot. Otherwise nobody would have believed that it was anything but a publicity stunt to promote Priscilla Dean.'

The nurse came in and looked at me sternly, so I got up to go. 'Don't neglect the shop,' Fabian said as I left the room.

* * *

Lily arrived the next afternoon. I met her at Kennedy to drive her out to the hospital. She was handsomely dressed for traveling, in the same brown coat I remembered from Florence. She was composed and quiet as we sped east down the highway. But she smoked cigarette after cigarette. I had to stop at a diner to get her two fresh packs. I had told her that the doctor believed that there was a good chance that Fabian would pull through. She had merely nodded.

"The doctor also said' - I broke the silence as we passed Riverhead - 'that Miles has an enormous scar running down his chest and abdomen. He said it looked like shrapnel. Do you know anything about that? I asked Miles, but he said he preferred not to talk about it.'

'I saw it, of course,' Lily said. 'The first time we went to bed together. He seemed almost ashamed of it. As though it somehow lessened him. He's vain about his body, you know. That's why he'd never go swimming and always wore a shirt and tie. I didn't press him about it, but after a while he told me. He was a fighter pilot - I suppose he told you that…'

'No,' I said.

She smiled gently through the cigarette smoke. 'He's a great one for selective information to selected people, our Miles. Well, he was a pilot. He must have been a very good one. I found out from older American friends of mine who had known him that he had almost every medal a grateful government could hand out.' Her mouth twisted ironically. 'In the winter of nineteen forty-four, he was sent on a mission over France. It was a ridiculous, hopeless mission in impossible weather, be told me. I wouldn't know anything about that, of course, but on something like that I tend to believe him. He said his wing commander was a stupid, murderous glory hunter. I'm not up on wars, but I have some idea what that means. Anyway, he and his best friend were shot down over the Pas de Calais. His friend was killed.

Miles was taken by the Germans. They took care of him - in a nice, German way. That's where the scar came from. When the hospital he was in was finally overrun, he weighed a hundred pounds. That big man.' She smoked in silence for a while. 'That's when he decided, he told me, that he had done his last deed for humanity. That explains something of the way he lived. Or does it?'

'Something,' I said. 'Did you believe that English act?'