“Good evening. Have you remembered your name?”
Miss Lillian Parkins weakly shook her head and her eyes were sad.
Miss Kerr, who had been over the clothes in the locker, knew that the coat was expensive and the fur good, but that she had no money, so gave her her “free patient” smile and passed on.
Lillian Parkins lay inert and tried to clear her mind. A long plane trip, then the terrible strain of appearing ill before the prying eyes of two internes and that little Jewish resident doctor had left her weak as dishwater. A touch of straight scotch was what she needed.... It was damn hard to relax and veil your eyes and yet see everything. Still that was the game, that was what made the job so ... fascinating!
That girl’s eyes were too close, and there was an ugly sense of triumph when she had found her in the bed, and a nasty condescension, and a dead voice, creepy kind of! Somewhere she had seen a woman who moved like that with a voice like that, a stubborn little mind like that who ... who ... hands like snakes, or bananas, who ... was it?
She closed her eyes to keep the life out of them, and began to check cases. On the Leviathan last year, in that Welfare Island group in May, doing that route collecting for pimps on the Southern circuit? No! None of those, but somewhere within the last eighteen months....
Ah, she had it. That medium who worked for the hypnotist in the side-show and peddled dope in the circus. That vicious little adder who had tried to throw acid in her eyes when she caught her with the goods. Whew! Lord!
The goose-flesh began to stand out on her arms and legs. That’s who she was, the same automaton voice, the same kind of little snake, out working for a python and she had to face her without so much as an automatic and go to sleep while she was doing it. Not go to sleep. Not on your life. Feign sleep! Feign sleep for ten hours, and then somehow manage not to have a real heart attack and pass out honest!
Swell job this was! Lots of fun! If she could get her hands on Matt Higgins now! Somehow she had to have a word with Snod. And quick!
Around her the monotonous conversation of the ward was droning, but since she was supposed to be too weak to talk, she closed her mind to it. Except for the realization that these women were afraid of the night. Had stood the day, but were afraid of the night and wanted to tell her about the bed. Wanted desperately to warn her ... somehow. The lapping conversation and her own preoccupation made her unaware of Miss Kerr’s return, until she felt the thermometer eased from her lips, and shivered.