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The sheriff’s deputies and ambulances came before Molly ever thought to call them. She was taking a shower when they came in the house behind their pistols. She was scrubbing hard at the flecks of blood and bone on her face and hair and she couldn’t answer when a deputy tried to talk to her through the shower curtain.

One of the deputies finally picked up the dangling telephone receiver and talked to Crawford in Washington, who had heard the shots and summoned them.

“I don’t know, they’re bringing him in now,” the deputy said. He looked out the window as the litter passed. “It don’t look good to me,” he said.

54

On the wall at the foot of the bed there was a clock with numbers large enough to read through the drugs and the pain.

When Will Graham could open his right eye, he saw the clock and knew where he was—an intensive-care unit. He knew to watch the clock. Its movement assured him that this was passing, would pass.

That’s what it was there for.

It said four o’clock. He had no idea which four o’clock and he didn’t care, as long as the hands were moving. He drifted away.

The clock said eight when he opened his eye again.

Someone was to the side of him. Cautiously he turned his eye. It was Molly, looking out the window. She was thin. He tried to speak, but a great ache filled the left side of his head when he moved his jaw. His head and his chest did not throb together. It was more of a syncopation. He made a noise as she left the room.

The window was light when they pulled and tugged at him and did things that made the cords in his neck stand out.

Yellow light when he saw Crawford’s face over him.

Graham managed to wink. When Crawford grinned, Graham could see a piece of spinach between his teeth.

Odd. Crawford eschewed most vegetables.

Graham made writing motions on the sheet beneath his hand.

Crawford slid his notebook under Graham’s hand and put a pen between his fingers.

“Willy OK,” he wrote.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Crawford said. “Molly too. She’s been in here while you were asleep. Dolarhyde’s dead, Will. I promise you, he’s dead. I took the prints myself and had Price match them. There’s no question. He’s dead.”

Graham drew a question mark on the pad.

“We’ll get into it. I’ll be here, I can tell you the whole thing when you feel good. They only give me five minutes.”

“Now,” Graham wrote.

“Has the doctor talked to you? No? About you first—you’ll be okay. Your eye’s just swollen shut from a deep stab wound in the face. They’ve got it fixed, but it’ll take time. They took out your spleen. But who needs a spleen? Price left his in Burma in ’41.”

A nurse pecked on the glass.

“I’ve got to go. They don’t respect credentials, nothing, around here. They just throw you out when the time’s up. See you later.”

Molly was in the ICU waiting room. A lot of tired people were.

Crawford went to her. “Molly . . .”

“Hello, Jack,” she said. “You’re looking really well. Want to give him a face transplant?”

“Don’t, Molly.”

“Did you look at him?”

“Yes.”