I opened my eyes. Bat grinned at me. “Hullo, bub,” he said. “How you feel?” I fingered a tender lump on the back of my head, grimaced. “Lousy,” I said. He nodded, looked pleased. “I guessed it,” he said. “But it ain’t nothing to what’s coming to you.”
I grunted, and looked around the room. It was fair sized, windowless and contained a bed on which I was lying, and a chair on which Bat was sitting. High up in the ceiling was a naked electric light bulb. The room wasn’t clean.
“How long have I been out?” I asked.
Bat grinned again. “Three-four hours,” he said, leaning back in his chair. He seemed to regard the whole business as the best joke in the world. “You ain’t so tough,” he added as an afterthought. His short, greasy hair was matted with blood where I had hit him, but he didn’t seem to worry about it.
“Where’s Brodey?” I asked.
“Him? They put him somewhere. That guy’s nuts. He don’t know what’s good for him,” Bat returned, fishing out a package of cigarettes and lighting one. He tossed the package and a box of matches to me. “Have a smoke, bub, you ain’t got so long to live.”
I lit a cigarette. “What’s cooking?” I asked.
He shrugged. “They’ll be along to see you when they’re through with Brodey,” he told me. “You’ll know soon enough.”
I wondered what had become of Jed Davis. I hoped he’d ducked out in time.
“Well, well,” I said, trying to blow a smoke ring. It didn’t come off. “I’m not curious. I’ll wait.”