Free Music of the Night by Suzy McKee Charnas

him down for us. Have you a recommendation?”
    “Yes,” she said. “Wait.”
    He gave her an inquiring look. “What for?”
    “Until he works more fully through certain stresses in the situation at Cayslin. Then I’ll be ready to commit myself about him.” The bluefish came. She pretended distraction: “Good God, that’s too much fish for me. Doug, come on and help me out here.”
    * * *
    Hilda was crouched over Floria’s file drawer. She straightened up, looking grim. “Somebody’s been in the office!”
    What was this, had someone attacked her? The world took on a cockeyed, dangerous tilt. “Are you okay?”
    “Yes, sure, I mean there are records that have been gone through. I can tell. I’ve started checking and so far it looks as if none of the files themselves are missing. But if any papers were taken out of them, that would be pretty hard to spot without reading through every folder in the place. Your files, Floria. I don’t think anybody else’s were touched.”
    Mere burglary; weak with relief, Floria sat down on one of the waiting-room chairs. But only her files?
    “Just my stuff, you’re sure?”
    Hilda nodded. “The clinic got hit, too. I called. They see some new-looking scratches on the lock of your file drawer over there. Listen, you want me to call the cops?”
    “First check as much as you can, see if anything obvious is missing.”
    There was no sign of upset in her office. She found a phone message on her table: Weyland had canceled his next appointment. She knew who had broken into her files.
    She buzzed Hilda’s desk. “Hilda, let’s leave the police out of it for the moment. Keep checking.” She stood in the middle of the office, looking at the chair replacing the one he had broken, looking at the window where he had so often watched.
    Relax , she told herself. There was nothing for him to find here or at the clinic. She signaled that she was ready for the first client of the afternoon.
    * * *
    That evening she came back to the office after having dinner with friends. She was supposed to be helping set up a workshop for next month, and she’d been putting off even thinking about it, let alone doing any real work. She set herself to compiling a suggested bibliography for her section. The phone light blinked.
    It was Kenny, sounding muffled and teary. “I’m sorry,” he moaned. “The medicine just started to wear off. I’ve been trying to call you everyplace. God, I’m so scared—he was waiting in the alley.”
    “Who was?” she said, dry-mouthed. She knew.
    “Him. The tall one, the faggot—only he goes with women too, I’ve seen him. He grabbed me. He hurt me. I was lying there a long time. I couldn’t do anything. I felt so funny—like floating away. Some kids found me. Their mother called the cops. I was so cold, so scared—”
    “Kenny, where are you?”
    He told her which hospital. “Listen, I think he’s really crazy, you know? And I’m scared he might . . . you live alone . . . I don’t know—I didn’t mean to make trouble for you. I’m so scared.”
    God damn you, you meant exactly to make trouble for me, and now you’ve bloody well made it. She got him to ring for a nurse. By calling Kenny her patient and using “Dr.” in front of her own name without qualifying the title she got some information: two broken ribs, multiple contusions, a badly wrenched shoulder, and a deep cut on the scalp which Dr. Wells thought accounted for the blood loss the patient had sustained. Picked up early today, the patient wouldn’t say who had attacked him. You can check with Dr. Wells tomorrow, Dr.—?
    Can Weyland think I’ve somehow sicced Kenny on him? No, he surely knows me better than that. Kenny must have brought this on himself.
    She tried Weyland’s number and then the desk at his hotel. He had closed his account and gone, providing no forwarding information other than the address of a university in New Mexico. Then she remembered: this was the night Deb