“You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“You don’t get it,” I said, ripping away from his grasp and stumbling back toward Samuel’s bed. “I can save him. I can save everyone.”
The orderly grabbed me again and pulled me toward the open door and into the hallway. Droplets of my blood fell to the floor, like I was marking a trail back to Sam. I kept shouting at the orderly to let me go, that I could save him; I could save them all. I had saved them before, saved the whole world—twice—and I could empty out this hospital, every hospital and hospice and cancer ward, and no one would ever need to be sick or hurt again.
“What else is it for?” I hollered as he gave up trying to reason with me and forced me facefirst toward the floor. “What is it for?”
A hand pushed my head straight down, and I turned my broken nose to one side and pressed m
y right cheek against the cold white tile. My throbbing left hand was inches from my nose and I could see my blood, shining in the light.
12:08:38:02
It took four guys to drag me back to my room. They tied me down to the bed with canvas straps while I screamed and cursed and generally flipped out exactly like you would expect a psycho to do. Then they gave me an armful of sedatives to knock me out.
The next morning a psychiatrist came and interviewed me. Or tried to. I refused to answer any of her questions unless they untied me. She gave up after an hour. An aide came in with a tray and I thought they would untie me so I could eat. Instead, she tried to feed me like I was a baby. I refused. She left. I yelled for her to come back and untie me. “You forgot to untie me!” I yelled. She didn’t come back.
The hours spun out. I don’t know what time it was when Mr. Needlemier came in, but the sun had set and the room was dark. He turned on a light and sat by the bed and looked at me with a sad expression, or as sad an expression as his round little baby face could make.
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” I said. “Some guy blows away Samuel, cuts me up, breaks my nose, wrecks half the downtown, and incinerates five cops, and I’m the one roped to a bed.”
He didn’t say anything. He sat in the chair with his briefcase in his lap, holding the handle with both pudgy hands like a kid sitting on the bus with his lunch box on the way to school.
“All I did was tell the truth,” I said.
“What is the truth?” Mr. Needlemier asked.
“The thing that’s supposed to set you free.”
He cleared his throat and looked away.
“How is Samuel?” I asked.
“Better. They moved him out of ICU. The doctors are optimistic.”
He wouldn’t look at me. He was staring at the floor.
“Untie me,” I said.
“I—I can’t do that, Alfred.”
“I’m not crazy,” I said. “They tied me down so I wouldn’t hurt anybody—or myself, I guess. But what’s really crazy is I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. I was trying to save them.”
“I don’t think they interpreted it that way.”
“What have the police found out about the delivery man?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You know who might be behind this? Mike Arnold.”
“That awful secret agent?”
“He’s not a secret agent anymore. He disappeared after Abigail Smith arrested his buddy the director.”
“And you think he might be seeking revenge.”
“The last time he saw me he said, ‘One of these days I’m gonna kill you, swear to God,’ or something like that.”