Chapter 19 Chapter 19 The Fallen Man

Rowley and I went to my room and closed the partition.He spoke. "Tut, tut, tut. I thought Mrs. Herman was the most unlikely—" "Of course you do," I murmured, "that you recommended her. Who is she?" "Todd Herman's wife. He runs a garage. Before she married Todd, she was a professional nurse. I thought she'd be fine." "She has a nephew in Vallejo?" "Well, it should be that kid named Shutz who works on the Isle of Mel. How do you think she got involved in—" "Probably not, otherwise she would have prepared the stationery she was going to buy. Get someone to stay here and keep people out. We'll have to get a San Francisco demolition expert to check it out."

The deputy called in one of his men from the corridor and put him on watch in the room.When we entered the lobby, Mitch Linehan was already there. "Fink's got his skull shattered. He's on his way to the county hospital with the other wretch." "Is Fitzstephan dead?" I asked. "No, and the doctor said that if he could get him somewhere with proper equipment, he should be able to get away with it. God knows what's the point--the way he looks! But doctors like to play with this set." "Is Elona Halton released with Funk too?" I asked. "Yes. Al Mason was watching her."

"Call the old man to see if Al has reported anything to her. Tell the old man about the situation here and ask him if he has found Andrew." "Andrew?" Rowley asked as Mitch walked towards the phone. "What's the matter with him?" "I don't know, it's just that we haven't been able to find him. Tell him Mrs. Collinson has been rescued. No one in his office has seen him since yesterday morning, and no one will say where he is." "Tut, tut, tut. Is there any special reason for looking for him?" "I don't want to guard her for the rest of my life." I said, "He is responsible for handling her property and has responsibilities to her. I want to hand over."

Rowley nodded slightly. We went out and talked to everyone we could, and asked every question we could think of.The answers, without exception, all said that the bomb was not thrown in through the window. We found six people who had seen the other side of the hotel before and at the time of the explosion; none of them noticed anything that could barely be described as a bomb being dropped.Mitch hung up the phone and came forward to relay the news from Elona Halton.After she got out of the municipal jail, she went to the Jeffrey family in San Mateo and has remained there ever since.Dick Foley was on the trail of Andrew, hoping to find him in Sausalito.

District Attorney Vernon and Sheriff Finney came from County Hall, followed by a large group of reporters and photographers.A lot of the scouting moves they make do nothing but get them on the front pages of the papers in San Francisco and Los Angeles -- their favourites. I had Gabrielle Collinson moved to another room in the hotel and Mitch Linehan next door with the door unlocked.Gabrielle is only now speaking to Vernon, Finney, Rowley, and me, but what she says doesn't help much.She said she was sleeping when she heard a horrible noise and the bed jerked and I went in.That's all she knows.

In the evening, McCracken, the bomb expert of the San Francisco Police Department, came.He examined all the fragments he could collect, and gave us a rough judgment: the bomb was small, made of lead, contained low levels of nitroglycerin, and was a crude friction detonation type. "A layman or a professional?" I asked. McCracken spat out a few shreds of tobacco—he was one of those chewers—and said, "I think it was made by someone who knows how to do it, but he can only make it together with what he has. Wait until I get this pile of rubbish." Do it in the lab and tell you more."

"No timer on it?" I asked. "Unrecognizable." Dr. George brought word from the county hospital that Fitzstephan was alive.He was flushed with joy, and I had to yell to get him to hear my questions about Funk and Gabrielle.Then he told me that Fink was out of danger and the girl's cold was good enough to get out of bed at will.I asked her how she was mentally, but he was too busy to get back to Fitzstephan to pay attention. "Well, yes, of course," he said to himself, pushing past me to his car, "quiet, peaceful, free from anxiety." Then he disappeared.

That night I had dinner with Vernon and Finney in the hotel café.They all felt that I hadn't been open about the bomb, and I still believed that at dinner, although neither of them said I was hiding something. After dinner I went upstairs to my new room.Mitch lay in bed reading the newspaper. "Go get something to eat," I said. "Where's our sweetheart?" "She's up. How do you know she's... out of her mind?" "What?" I asked. "Did she do anything?" "No. I was just thinking." "That's because you're hungry. Go and eat."

"Yes, sir," he said, and went out. The neighbors were quiet.I stood by the door and listened, then knocked lightly. "Come in," said Mrs. Herman's voice. She was sitting by the bed, embroidering gaudy butterflies on a piece of yellow cloth stretched into a hoop.Gabrielle Collinson sat in a rocking chair on the other side of the room, frowning at her hands folded into her arms—the knuckles whitened and the fingertips crushed with such force.She was wearing the tartan clothes she wore on the day of her abduction.Clothes are still wrinkled, but the mud has been scrubbed away.She didn't look up when I walked in.The nurse looked over, her freckles crowding together with an uneasy smile.

"Good evening," I said, trying to create a pleasant entrance, "it looks like there are no patients here." These words did not get any response from the girl, but the nurse gave a lot. "Yeah, isn't it?" cried Mrs. Herman overly enthusiastically. "Mrs. Collinson isn't a patient now! She can get up and walk around! I'm almost sorry she's... er, er, er... because I've never had such an easy patient; we used to say when we were training in the hospital that the better the patient the harder it was, but when it came to the tough ones, she'd survive—I mean, Waiting for a—on and on. I remember one time—”

I made a face at her, shook my head towards the door, and her words got stuck in that mouth before she finished speaking.She blushed and paled, left the embroidery and stood up, and said, a little dazedly, "Yeah, always. Well, I gotta go get some--you know--that stuff. Let me quit for a few minutes, please." Minutes." She walked out sideways quickly, as if she was afraid that I would sneak behind her and kick her. After the door closed, Gabriel lifted her eyes from her hand and spoke. "Owen is dead." She was not asking a question, but stating it directly; but there was no other way but to treat the sentence as a question. "No." I sat on the nurse's chair and took out a cigarette, "He's still alive." "Will he survive?" Her voice was still hoarse from the cold. "Doctors think so." I exaggerate. "If he's going to live, he'll—" She didn't finish the sentence, but her hoarse voice sounded devoid of emotion. "May become severely disabled." "Then 'it' is more satisfying." She was talking more to herself than to me. I grinned.If I'm as good an actor as I think I am, this laugh should only be amused. "Laugh," she said gravely. "I wish you could laugh it off, but you can't. It's there and always will be." She looked down at her hands and whispered, "The curse." To change the tone, these four words would sound exaggerated and ridiculously dramatic.Yet she spoke mechanically and without emotion, as if it had become a habit.I can imagine her lying on her bed in the dark, repeating it to herself for a long time, saying it to her body while dressing, looking at her face in the mirror, day after day. I squirmed in my chair and snarled roughly, "Enough is enough. Just because a curmudgeon woman wanted to vent her resentment and anger, and babbled—" "No, it wasn't. My stepmother was just laying out what I always knew. I didn't know it was in Dan's blood, but I knew it was in me. How could I not? Depraved, isn't it?" She walked across the room and stood in front of me, her head tilted, her hands pushing back her curls. "Look at my ears—there are no earlobes, and the tips are pointed. Humans don't have such ears, only animals do." She turned to me again, still pulling her hair, "Look at my forehead—so Small, brute-like shape. And my teeth." She showed her tiny white, pointed teeth, "my face shape." intersect at the mandible. "That's it?" I asked. "You actually have six toes, don't you? Well, if this is as weird as you think it is, so what? Your stepmother is also a member of the Dan family, and she is also a drug addict." Scorpion, but what about her fallen mark? Isn't she as normal and healthy as ordinary women?" "That's not the case," she shook her head impatiently. "She looks fine. I have, and I'm mentally disturbed. I—" She sat on the edge of the bed on my side, her elbows on her knees, sad His pale face was nestled between his hands, "I'm different from other people. I have been confused since I was a child, and I can't even figure out the simplest things. Everything is a mess in my mind. No matter what I think, I always have There's a layer of fog between it and me, and there's a hundred other thoughts stuck there, so every time my thought pops up, it's gone. I'm always groping through the fog until I finally find it. You have to go through the same process over and over again. Can you understand how horrible it is? To live like this all your life, year after year, knowing that it will not get better, only worse." "I can't," I said, "sounds so fucking normal. Nobody thinks clearly, no matter how they pretend. Thinking about it is dizzying—the foggy thoughts are fleeting. , can only be captured as much as possible, and then put together. This is why people are so obsessed with their beliefs and opinions; because compared with the chaotic process, no matter how crazy the idea is, it seems clear, perfect, full of reason, and unruly. It's self-evident. If you give up, you'll have to dive back into that foggy swamp and fudge another one out." She lifted her face from her palms and smiled shyly at me. "It's strange that I didn't like you before." Her face became serious again, "But—" "Nothing but," I said, "you're too young to realize that all people but madmen and idiots occasionally suspect—if they just remember—that they're not quite sane. Evidence is too easy; the deeper you think, the more you come up with. Whose brain can stand the test you give yourself? Go round and round to prove that you are crazy! It's strange that you haven't driven yourself crazy .” "Hard to say." "No. Believe me, you are normal. It doesn't matter if you don't. Think about it, you were born unlucky, and you fell into the wrong hands from the beginning. Your stepmother is undoubtedly a poisonous woman, and she tried her best Destroy you, and finally get what you want, make you think you have really been cursed by some family. For the past two months - in the time I have known you - all the disasters on earth have happened to you , and because you believe in curses, you feel that all disasters are your fault, what happened to you? You were unconscious most of the time-long enough to make people crazy; you tried suicide when your husband was killed, but still Not abnormal enough to dare to bear the pain of bullets piercing through the body. "Oh, for God's sake, miss! I'm employed, and my troubles with you are limited to work concerns, but there's something about it that's making me uneasy. I'd like to bite that at the temple As for ghosts, I'm supposed to be well-versed in the face of crime. This morning—after all your torture—someone exploded nitroglycerin not far from your bed, and you're still able to get dressed. Bed, argue with me about your mental state. "If you're not normal, it's because you're tougher and clearer and calmer than normal. Forget your Dann blood and think of Meyer's blood in you. If you didn't inherit your toughness from him, Is there any other source? It's this kind of resilience that made him survive Devil's Island, Central America, Mexico, and to the end. You are more like him than the Danes I saw. Physically, You've inherited your father, and if you've got any depravity—God knows what that means—from him." She seemed to enjoy the words, her eyes were almost happy.However, when I ran out of words and tried to think about the following while smoking a cigarette, the light in her eyes dissipated. "I'm very happy—thank you for what you just said, if you're telling the truth." Her tone became helpless again, and her face was buried between her hands again, "However, no matter who I am, she is That's right. You can't say she's wrong. You can't deny that my whole life has been cursed and darkened, and woe to all who have ever met me." "I'm a counter-evidence." I said, "I've been by your side a lot lately, and I've taken care of a lot of your affairs, but at most I just need a good night's sleep." "But you are different," she protested slowly, her forehead wrinkled. "You have no personal relationship with me. You approach me because of professional needs. This is different." I laughed, and said, "That doesn't make sense. And Fitzstephan. He knows your family, of course, but he's here because of me. That's on me, so he's actually better off than you." Closer to me. So why didn't I go down first? Maybe the bomb was aimed at me? Maybe. But that would suggest someone was behind the scenes - and failed this time - rather than Your infallible curse." "You're mistaken," she stared at her knees, "Owen loved me." Deciding not to show surprise, I asked, "Then you—" "No, please! Please don't make me talk about this. Not now—after what happened this morning." She shrugged her shoulders straight, and then said dryly, "You just mentioned the infallible curse. I don't I know whether you have misunderstood me, or you are pretending to be stupid, deliberately treating me as a fool. I don’t believe in any infallible curse, the devil or God, for example, like Job.” She now looks serious and does not change the subject. "But isn't there - isn't there anyone in the world who is so wicked - so ingrained that whoever comes across them is poisoned, or induced to be base? Isn't there -" "There are people like that," I partially agreed, "and they do it on purpose." "No, no! Whether they want to or not. Even if they resist to the point of despair, it's the same. Really. I love Eric because he's innocent and good. You know he is, you know him and you know him well. , should understand that he's really nice. I love him that way, and hope he stays that way. And then as soon as we're married—" She shivered and reached out to me with both hands.Her palms were dry and hot, and her fingertips were cold.I had to hold her hand tightly to keep her nails from digging into my flesh. "You were a virgin when you married him?" I asked. "Yes, I was. And now. I—" "It's nothing exciting," I said, "you're a virgin with the usual stupid credo. And you're on drugs, aren't you?" She nodded.I continued: "That would keep your libido below average, so someone else's perfectly natural desire would seem abnormal. Eric is too young, too in love with you, and probably too inexperienced to be clumsy." .You have nothing to make a fuss about." "But it's not just Eric," she explained, "it's every man I know. Don't think I'm arrogant, I know I'm not pretty. But I don't want to be a bad woman, I don't. But why do men— Why do all the men I meet-" I asked, "Are you talking about me?" "No—you know it's not. Please don't make fun of me." "So there are exceptions? Anyone else? Like Madison Andrew?" "If you really knew him, or heard a lot about him, you wouldn't ask." "Well," I agreed, "but you can't blame the curse—it's in man's nature. Is he bad?" "He's very queer," she said sharply. "How long ago?" "Oh, about a year and a half. I didn't mention it to my father or my stepmother. I—I'm ashamed when men do that to me, and—" "How do you know," I murmured, "that most men don't treat most women that way? Why do you think your situation is special? If your ears were sharp enough, you could hear the There's a thousand women in San Francisco complaining like you, and, God knows, maybe half of them think they mean it." She pulled her hand away and sat straight on the bed, with a little blood on her face. "Now you really make me feel stupid," she said. "Not much more stupid than I am. I'm a detective. As soon as this job started, I followed the merry-go-round, following your curse, thinking that if I really matched it, I don't know what it would be. What; but I never caught up. I'm sure now. Can you wait another week or two?" "what do you mean--" "I'm going to show you that your curses are all nonsense, but it will take a few days, maybe two weeks." Her eyes widened and she trembled, trying to believe me, but she dared not.I said, "That's it. Now what are you going to do?" "I—I don't know. Are you serious about what you just said? Can this ever end? I won't—can you—" "That's right. Could you go back to Bay Cottage for a while? It might help the case, and you're safe enough there. We can take Mrs. Herman there, and maybe add an agent or two." "I'll go," she said. I looked at my watch, got up and said: "Go to bed. Let's go south tomorrow. Good night." She bit her lower lip tightly, hesitated to speak, and finally blurted out: "I have to go there with morphine." "No problem. How much do you take every day?" "Five to ten." "Not much," I said, and then said casually, "Do you like to use that thing?" "Now I'm afraid it's not a question of whether I like it or not." "You've seen too much," I said. "If you really want to quit, and we can spare a few days over there, we can help you. It's not that hard." Her laughter trembled, her lips twitched strangely. "Go away," she cried, "don't give me any more guarantees and promises, please. I can't take it anymore tonight. I can't help myself. Please go away." "Okay. Good night." "Good night—and, thank you." I went into my room and closed the door.Mickey was opening the bottle, his knees were dusty.He turned to me with a smile and half-jokingly said, "What a lotus flower. What do you want? Make yourself a home?" "Hush-shh. Any news?" "You guys are back at County Hall. When I came back with a full stomach, the red-haired nurse was listening intently through the keyhole. I drove her away." "And took her place?" I asked, nodding at his dusty knee. Mitch has no shame.He said, "Damn, it's nothing. She went to the other door, by the corridor."

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