Last Call (Last Call 1)

Breath whistled in through his clenched teeth, and the room seemed to ring with a shrill, tinny whine. The pain in his stabbed leg was a scalding blackness, but he was cold, freezing, and the blood had come so fast that the knife hilt standing up from his thigh was slick with it, and his scrabbling hands slipped off the hot, wet wood of the grip. At last he got a good hold on it and pulled, but the muscles inside his leg seemed to be gripping the blade; it took all his strength to tug the thing up and out of himself, and he gagged as he felt, deep in his leg, the edge cutting more flesh as it was dragged free.

He squinted around at the dim room. The thing that had seemed to be Susan was gone.

His hands were heavy and clumsy as he laid the bandage on the cut in his sopping jeans—Should have took the pants off first, he thought dizzily—and then dragged up the length of gauze and tied it off around his leg, as tightly as he could, over the bandage.

His heart, which had been racing before he stabbed himself, seemed to have slowed and taken on a metallic clanking, sounding like a weary old man pitching horseshoes. He thought he could smell the kicked-up dry dust.

Shock, he told himself. Lean back, put your feet up on the couch, elevate the wound above the heart. Try to relax your rib-cage so you can breathe deep and slow.

Go ahead and hold the leg as tight as you like.

The refrigerator's compressor-motor turned on, then after a minute clicked off again. A siren howled by down Main Street, and he listened to it, vaguely hoping that it might stop somewhere nearby. It didn't.

Come on, he thought; call.

Blood was seeping out from under the bandage and running up his thigh and soaking the seat of his pants. The rug will be ruined, he thought; Susan will—

Stop it.

He looked at the glass of scotch. He could smell the smoky, welcoming warmth of it, of her—Stop it.

The ringing of the telephone jolted him awake. How long had it been ringing? He fumbled at it and managed to knock the receiver off.

"Wait!" he croaked, scrabbling at it with blood-sticky hands. "Don't hang up, wait!"

At last he got the fingers of one hand around it and pulled it across the wet rug and lifted its weight to his ear.

"Hello?"

He heard a woman's voice. "Scott! What happened? Are you all right? What happened? I'm calling paramedics if you don't say something!"

"Diana," he said. He took a deep breath and made himself think. "Are you at home?"

"No, Ozzie made me promise—it doesn't matter, what—"

"Good," he said, talking over her. "Listen to me, and don't hang up. I don't need paramedics. God—give me a minute and don't hang up."

"You sound terrible! I can't give you a minute—just tell me what happened to your leg."

"I stabbed myself, I—"

"How badly? Quick!"

"Not too bad, I think, I did it with a sterilized knife and made sure to hit the side away from that big artery—"

"You did it on purpose!" She sounded relieved and very angry. "I was at work, and I fell right over! The manager had to use my sign-off number on the register and make one of the box boys drive me home! Now I'm clocked out, and I don't get sick pay till I've been there a year! What was it, a game of Amputation Poker?"

He sighed deeply. "I needed to get in touch with you quickly."

She seemed to be coughing softly. Then; "You what! You must be crazy, I can't—"

"Goddamm it, listen to me!" he said harshly. "I may pass out here, and I probably won't be able to get to this phone again. You and Ozzie—and me—somebody wants to kill us all, and they've got the resources to find you and him the way they've found me. Is Ozzie still alive?"

She was quiet for a moment. "Yes," she said.

"I need to talk to him. This has to do with that game I played in on Lake Mead in '69. There was something Ozzie knew—"

"Jesus, it's been more than a minute. I'm out of here—stay by the phone—I'm crazy, but I'll call you from another booth."

He managed to juggle the receiver back onto the phone. Then he just lay on the floor and concentrated on breathing. Luckily the room was warm. A deep, throbbing ache was building in his leg behind the steady heat of the pain.

The phone rang, and he grabbed the receiver. "You?" he said.

"Right. Ozzie made me promise not to talk to you on a traceable phone, especially now, twenty years later. Talk."

"The people that killed your mother want to kill you. And me, and Ozzie. Don't know why. Ozzie knows why, or he wouldn't have ditched me. To save us all, I need to talk to him."

She inhaled. "You're doomed, Scott," she said, and there seemed to be tears in her voice. "If you are still Scott. What did I give you for your birthday in '68?"

"A crayon portrait of me."

"Shit!" she sobbed. "I wish you were already gone! No, I don't. Scotty, I love you. Good-bye."

There was a click in his ear, silence, the dial tone. He gently hung it up, then sat there for a while and stared at the telephone.