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It’s half past two in the morning, Joey. You mean you want me to call you at half past two?

“This is important, Phil. And I would consider it a favor if you would get back to me just as soon as you can.”

If it’s important to you, then whatever it is, it’s going to cost you through the nose, you sleazeball.

“I guess you’ve got the numbers, but just to be sure, I’ll give you my private line at the lot and my number here at the house.”

Fiorello recited the numbers slowly, then repeated them.

What I really should do is call you at your house and wake your greasy ass up!

Fuck it! I never should have come down here in the first place!

Phil stood up and walked to the door, turned off the flickering lights, and closed the door.

When he got to his bedroom, Mrs. Irene Chason greeted him by saying she knew he must have had a good time, because his breath smelled like a spittoon.

EIGHTEEN

“Seven-C,” Mrs. Loretta Dubinsky, RN, answered the telephone on her desk.

Ward 7C was the private-patient section of the Psychiatric Division of University Hospital. Mrs. Dubinsky, a slight, very pale-skinned redhead who looked considerably younger than her thirty years, was the supervisory psychiatric nurse on duty.

“Dr. Amelia Payne, please,” the caller said.

“Dr. Payne’s not on the ward.”

“I got to talk to her. Do you know where I can find her?”

“I suggest you try her office. In the morning.”

“I got to talk to her tonight.”

“I can give you the number of Dr. Payne’s answering service.”

“I got that. They don’t know where she is.”

Mrs. Dubinsky knew better than that. The way the answering service worked, they never said they didn’t know where someone was, they asked the caller for their number, and said they would try to have Dr. Whoever try to call the caller back. Then—unless the caller said it was an emergency, and especially at this time of night; it was half past two—they would make a note on a card and keep it until Dr. Whoever called in for his messages.

If the caller said it was an emergency, same procedure, except that they would call the numbers Dr. Whoever had given them, where he could be reached in an emergency.

“Then I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir,” Mrs. Loretta Dubinsky, RN, said.

“Look, I got an important message for her.”

“Then I suggest you call her in the morning.”

“This won’t wait until morning.”

“I’m afraid it’s going to have to, sir. There’s nothing I can do to help you.”

“Who are you?”

Mrs. Dubinsky replaced the telephone in its cradle.

Two minutes later—Paulo Cassandro having worked his way through the hospital switchboard again—the telephone rang again, and Nurse Dubinsky picked it up.

“Seven-C.”