One of them was a big man with a brassy voice and a face that looked as if it had been overbaked in a waffle iron. He came up behind Malone and tapped him on the shoulder, but Malone barely felt the touch. Then the cop bellowed into Malone's ear: "What's the matter, buddy?"
Malone appreciated the man's sympathy. It was good to know that you had friends. But he wished, remotely, that the cop and his friend, a shorter and thinner version of the beat patrolman, would go away and leave him in peace. Maybe he could lie down on the sidewalk again and get a couple of hundred years' rest.
Who could tell? "Mallri," he said.
"You're all right?" the big cop said. "That's fine. That's great. So why don't you go home and sleep it off?"
"Sleep?" Malone said. "Home?"
"Wherever you live, buddy," the big cop said. "Come on. Can't stand around on the sidewalk all night."
Malone shook his head, and decided at once never to do it again. He had some kind of rare disease, he realized. His brain was loose, and the inside of his skull was covered with sandpaper. Every time his head moved, the brain jounced against some of the sandpaper.
But the policemen thought he was drunk. That wasn't right. He couldn't let the police get the wrong impression of FBI agents. Now the men would go around telling people that the FBI was always drunk and disorderly.
"Not drunk," he said clearly.
"Sure," the big cop said. "You're fine. Maybe just one too many, huh?"