_Then what are you doing on a sidewalk in New York in broad daylight?_
He tried to find an answer to that, but there didn't seem to be any, no
matter where he looked. The only thing he could think of was the red
Cadillac.
And if the red Cadillac had anything to do with anything, Malone didn't
know about it.
Very slowly and carefully, he opened his eyes again, one at a time. He
discovered that the light was not coming from the gorgeous Hollywood
sunset he had dreamed up. As a matter of fact, sunset was several hours
in the past, and it never looked very pretty in New York anyhow. It was
the middle of the night, and Malone was lying under a convenient street
lamp.
He closed his eyes again and waited patiently for his head to go away.
A few minutes passed. It was obvious that his head had settled down for
a long stay, and no matter how bad it felt, Malone told himself, it
_was_ his head, after all. He felt a certain responsibility for it. And
he couldn't just leave it lying around somewhere with its eyes closed.
He opened the head's eyes once more, and this time he kept them open.
For a long time he stared at the post of the street lamp, considering
it, and he finally decided that it looked sturdy enough to support a
hundred and sixty-five pounds of FBI man, even with the head added in.
He grabbed for the post with both hands and started to pull himself
upright, noticing vaguely that his legs had somehow managed to get
underneath him.
As soon as he was standing, he wished he'd stayed on the nice horizontal
sidewalk. His head was spinning dizzily and his mind was being sucked
down into the whirlpool. He held on to the post grimly and tried to stay
conscious.
* * * * *
A long time, possibly two or three seconds, passed. Malone hadn't moved
at all when the two cops came along.
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 policeman thought he was drunk. That wasn't right. He couldn't
let the police get the wrong impression of FBI agents. Now the man 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?"
"No," Malone said. The effort exhausted him and he had to catch his
breath before he could say anything else. But the cops waited patiently.
At last he said: "Somebody slugged me."
"Slugged?" the big cop said.
"Right." Malone remembered just in time not to nod his head.
"How about a description, buddy?" the big cop said.
"Didn't see him," Malone said. He let go of the post with one hand,
keeping a precarious grip with the other. He stared at his watch. The
hands danced back and forth, but he focused on them after a while. It
was 1:05. "Happened just--a few minutes ago," he said. "Maybe you can
catch him."
The big cop said: "Nobody around here. The place is deserted--except for
you, buddy." He paused and then added: "Let's see some identification,
huh? Or did he take your wallet?"
Malone thought about getting the wallet, and decided against it. The
motions required would be a little tricky, and he wasn't sure he could
manage them without letting go of the post entirely. At last he decided
to let the cop get his wallet. "Inside coat pocket," he said.
The other policeman blinked and looked up. His face was a studied blank.
"Hey, buddy," he said. "You know you got blood on your head?"