“Don’t think I wouldn’t like to follow you around,” she said.

“Are you going to wait until I’m through?”

“Yes.”

A policeman came in. “We need a stretcher with restraining straps, fast.”

“Right.” He got up. “Get behind the desk, Karen.” The litter was in the other room. When he had wheeled it out, the police had brought in their man, a little Negro bleeding profusely from the face. He was screaming, cursing, and kicking out. As the officers tried to maneuver him onto the litter, he broke away. The police grabbed him again and threw him onto the litter. “Sit on him,” Leland said. He fastened the ankle straps. “Left arm,” he said. “Now the right.” Then he locked the chest strap. “What happened to him?”

“He went through a window. Don’t know his name.” The cop looked down at the man. “You son of a bitch, you’re lucky we didn’t pump a couple into you. Look at this overcoat. Who’s going to pay to have it cleaned?”

“We’ll get his name later,” Leland said. “How about you? Are either of you hurt?”

“I skinned my knuckle on his teeth,” the cop said.

“First door on the right. Wash it off. There’s a bottle of iodine on the shelf. Leave your name and shield number on my desk and I’ll do the report. I’ll get the doctor,” he said.

When he came back, Karen was gone. He went to the door, but she was out of sight. He had another half hour before relief.

She was waiting for him at the corner. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. I had to get out of there.”

“That doesn’t happen every night,” he said.

“I don’t know what made me run. Life is like that, I know it, but I had to go for the door. Maybe it was seeing you in the midst of all those flailing arms and legs. One thing, you’re brave enough for the police.”

“You didn’t notice the protection I had. You shouldn’t concentrate on me so much.”

“You ordered them around, too. You told him to wash his cut and he did it.”

He laughed. “He saw that I knew that he wouldn’t get his sick pay if the thing infects and he hadn’t availed himself of treatment. He was protecting himself. They check those things.”

“It frightened me,” she said. “I can’t explain it. I know that there was no real danger. Maybe I’m not ready for that side of you.”

“There’s nothing to be ready for.”

“We have different ways of seeing it,” she said.

“You’re being foolish.”

“I don’t think so! There was something about it that upsets me!”

“Come on, I don’t want to fight.”

“Neither do I, Joe—”

“Okay, forget it.”

“You asked me something in there.”

“I remember,” he said.