He shook his head. “Wake me if he gets into trouble.” He found it necessary to speak very carefully.

“She’ll call me,” Rafe Meomartino said in disgust.

“Certainly, Dr. Silverstone. Sleep well, sir,” she said as though Meomartino were not present.

Meomartino studied him strangely as the car ascended. “How long have you been here, six, seven weeks? Not even two months. And she’s talking to you. It took me two years. Some guys never make it. Six weeks is the shortest time I ever heard.”

Adam opened his mouth to say something, but it turned into a yawn.

He sank into sleep at seven-fifteen and was awakened sometime after eleven-thirty by a barrage on the door of his room. Meyerson, the ambulance driver, stood outside looking at him with friendly contempt.

“Message from the office, Doc. You didn’t answer the page.”

His head pounded. “Come in,” he whispered, rubbing his temples. “Goddam dream.”

Meyerson looked at him sharply and with new interest. “What was it about?”

He and Gaby Pender had died. They had simply ceased to be alive but had not gone anywhere; he had been unaware of change, of after-life or lack of it.

Meyerson listened with interest.

“You didn’t dream of numbers?”

Adam shook his head. “What do you want with numbers?”

“I’m a mystic.”

A mystic? “What happens to the soul after death, Maish?”

“How good do you know your Talmud?”

“The Old Testament?”

Meyerson looked at him strangely. “No. Jesus Christ, where did you go to Hebrew school?”

“I didn’t.”

The ambulance driver sighed. “I don’t know much, but that much I know. The Talmud is the book of old laws. It says the good souls get to be put under Jehovah’s throne.” He grinned. “I figure it must be one goddam big throne or damn few of us are any good. One or the other.”

“And the ones with evil souls?” he asked against his will.

“Two angels stand at opposite corners of the world and play catch with the bad guys.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“No. Fling the poor momsers back and forth.” Meyerson remembered his errand. “Listen, they said a collect call from Pittsburgh. You want to accept it, get Operator . . .” he consulted a slip, “. . . 284.”

“Oh God.

“Thanks. Hey!” He called him back. “Got change for singles?”

“Just my seein’ an’ raisin’ money.”

“What?”

“My gambling stake, poker money.”

“Oh. Let me have a little?” He passed over two bills and accepted silver.

“Just you and the broad in the dream? No numbers?”

He shook his head.

“That’s two people. I’ll play 222. Nigger pool. Want I should put half a buck down on it for you?”

Some mystic. “No.”

“Maybe 284, the operator’s number?”

“No.”

Maish shrugged and went away. Adam’s head hurt and his mouth was dry as he went to the wall telephone in the hall.

It had to come eventually, he thought.