And so they sat there while the daylight faded outside them and the
twilight crawled up sixty-three floors to encircle their window and
continue unhesitatingly upward.
* * * * *
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
"We're not going to do anything, Mimi," he finally said. "When I'm with
you, it's all so light and fantastic and funny, that I forget. But it
would be unforgivable to fall in love with a patient, and the wife of a
patient. I can't do it. We'll have to stop right away. I'm no good as an
analyst to you anymore, anyway. I'm sorry, I'll send you to someone
else. And now you'd better go."
She stood up, walked around his desk, and put her hands lightly on his
neck. "You're such a dear," she said. "I'll always love you. I've never
seen you so serious before. We always laugh and talk and giggle when
we're together, and I loved you then. But now that you're sad and
serious and oh so pitiably tragic I love you more than I could ever tell
you. But please don't worry, don't worry about a thing, darling. You'll
see, it will all work out."
"It can't work out, Mimi, there's absolutely no way on earth for it to
work out. There's no solution at all."
"Please don't worry, darling," she said, picking up her gloves. "I can't
bear to see you looking so tragic. Life isn't so serious, especially as
you're loved." She walked out and closed the door behind her. Victor sat
quite still. He could barely hear her saying "Margaret, wake up,
Margaret, it's time to go home," through the thick wooden door.
* * * * *
The phone rang in his office three days later. He was alone at the time,
going over some notes he had just taken with another patient. Margaret
was out, presumably peering through the floor of the ladies' lounge down
the hall, and he picked up the receiver himself.
"Victor, come quick," Mimi screamed through the wires. "He's trying to
kill me!"
She said more, but he heard none of it. His fingers went numb, the phone
dropped, he was out of his seat and skidding around the desk before it
hit the carpeted floor. He had to wait at the elevator. He thought for
one silly moment of racing to the exit and running down sixty-three
floors, then compromised on stamping his feet and slamming one fist into
the other palm and striding up and down while three other men and two
women also waiting for the elevator stared at him. He thought of calling
the police just as the elevator door opened, and he nearly turned and
left it, but couldn't and leaped in just as the doors were closing. "I'm
Dr. Quink," he shouted at the elevator operator. "This is an emergency.
Take me straight down."
The elevator went straight down. The doors opened on the ground floor
and Victor shot out, leaving behind two nearly mortally sick women and
several acid comments to the effect that he was probably late for a
matinee. "I couldn't take any chances," apologized the elevator
operator, "it might really have _been_ an emergency."
It wasn't raining in New York that day, so he was able to get a cab
immediately. He took it to his parking lot and roared off from there. He
sped through the city traffic, incurring the widespread wrath and
disapproval of the police department. A patrol car caught up with him on
Grand Central Parkway and forced him off the road. He explained who he
was and that a madman was threatening to kill his wife, no, not _his_
wife, the madman's wife, and that he didn't have time to sit here and
talk about it. The police officer told him to follow him, and, siren
blazing, they roared off once again.
It occurred to both of them nearly simultaneously that Victor couldn't
possibly follow the police officer, it had to be the other way around,
and so Victor took the lead, the red siren hanging on behind. But when
Victor left the parkway he saw in his mirror no flashing red light,
somewhere he had lost the police. He touched the brake a second, for the
first time in the past fifteen minutes, then accelerated again and
hurried on. He had not the time to wait.
The door to the Fairfield's home was unlocked and he burst in without
ringing. "Mimi," he cried, then, hearing vague noises from the upstairs
bedroom, he hurried there.
* * * * *
He didn't find Mimi there. Donald Fairfield was alone in the bedroom,
and the bedroom was a mess, and there was a gun in Donald Fairfield's
hand.
Victor stopped in the doorway, a gas pain shooting up his side. He
thought at that moment, inanely, he should play more handball.
"Galileo," Donald Fairfield said, "it came to me just a few moments ago.
Galileo. It was on the tip of my tongue all the time, I just couldn't
think of it. What were we saying about him, do you remember? What
brought it up?"
Victor braced himself up against the doorway, breathing hard. He stared
at the gun in Donald's hand. Donald followed his gaze down his side to
the gun, and seemed surprised when he saw it. "Oh, yes. She's in the
bathroom," he said, waving his gun towards the closed door. "She's
locked the door."
Victor belched.
"For God's sake," said Donald. "There's a time and a place for
everything."