Before taking off, I reviewed the work schedules of the staff on duty when Mannie escaped and saw that Thurman had been scheduled to work only half of the day. He might have even been on his way out when he was attacked. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, if anything.

I began dictating my report of what’d happened last night at the Matchmaker’s, then I left to go see Calvin, continuing my dictation on the drive to the hospital, thinking once more of the limping, noseless man and his escape into the night.

63

8:02 A.M.
6 hours left

My friend was not doing well.

The doctors had placed him on a ventilator overnight, and when I arrived, they were removing it so that he could breathe on his own.

I stood in the hallway and spoke with a member of the medical team, out of earshot of Calvin.

“We’re keeping an eye on his blood counts,” she told me soberly. “We’ve done one CT scan, and we have him scheduled for another one later this morning to make sure there isn’t active extravasation.”

I’m no medical expert, but I’d been in this job long enough to know that extravasation meant fluid seeping from an organ.

“What happens if you find that?”

“Surgery,” was all she said.

“Okay.” I gave her my cell number. Calvin didn’t have any family in the area and, although I believed he had grown children, I didn’t think he was close to them. “Text me the results of the scan.”

“I’ll need his permission to do that,” she replied. “Privacy issues.”

Her associates finished with him, and she got Calvin’s permission to keep me updated. Then, as she was leaving, I went into the room to speak with my friend.

Gaunt and sallow, he looked ten weary years older than he had yesterday when we met for lunch.

“Calvin, you’re going to be okay,” I told him reassuringly, as much for my benefit as for his.

“Things did not quite go to plan last night,” he said, reminding me by the idiom that he was English. Then he added weakly, “Not as hale and hearty as I used to be, I’m afraid.”

“You gave those two men a good thumping before the lights went out.”

“Perhaps that’ll teach them to pick on someone their own age.”

I wasn’t sure if Calvin would still be interested in giving us any input on the case, but I left the paperwork beside his bed for him to fill out if he chose to when he was feeling better.

The hum and murmur of hospital sounds floated around us—the soft blip of the machine monitoring Calvin’s vitals, the hushed voices of nurses talking in the hallway, the relentless ticking of the clock on the wall beside the window as its hands made their way methodically around its face.