Free Night My Friend by Edward D. Hoch Page A

along the edge of the pond. It was a pleasant place, bringing back half-forgotten memories of days without care and nights when only the happiness mattered. I’d been the one in those days, and I wondered if I still was.
    Dora, Fred’s wife, saw me first. She was boiling water on the camp stove for her usual cup of tea and she jerked her hand back with such sudden shock that the pan of water clattered to the ground. “Why—Sam!”
    “Hello, Dora. Glad to see you remember me.” The grass seemed suddenly damp through my shoes, and I was vaguely aware that the children had been splashing here.
    “Sam!” She turned her head. “Fred, come here! It’s Sam—Sam Waggel.” Her voice almost broke as she said it.
    Fred came running, and the rest—except for the children—weren’t far behind. They came cautiously at first, as if viewing a beast newly escaped from the zoo. Then they crowded around, the foolish false grins on their faces, greeting me. “Sam boy, how the heck you been?” This was a real estate broker named Charlie Thames, who’d never really liked me on my best of days. Charlie hadn’t changed much, put on a few pounds maybe, but hadn’t we all. His wife Laura startled me a bit with her graying hair, but the rest of them were pretty much the same.
    Fred Dutton had his arm around my shoulder almost at once, as if I’d never been away, pressing a sweating can of beer into my hand. “When’d you get out, Sam? Why didn’t you let us know? How you feelin’?”
    “Well enough, Fred,” I said, answering his last question first. “I got out a couple days ago. Called your and Charlie’s homes but when nobody answered I figured you were probably out picnicking at the old place.”
    “Hello, Sam.” This was Jean O’Brian—Jean Falconi now, of course—a girl who’d meant a lot to me once. She was wearing white shorts that showed off her legs. She’s always had the best legs in the crowd. Her husband, Joe, came into view then too, carrying the youngest of the children in his arms.
    “Hi, Jean. Joe. The kids are really growing up.”
    “Have a hot dog, Sam,” Charlie offered. “We got plenty.”
    Laura, as if to back up the words, went to get one off the grill. “Here, Sam. Just the way you used to like them.”
    “Used to, Laura? I still do. Nothing’s changed that much.”
    She flushed slightly and turned away, but Dora Dutton was there to take her place. “Do you want to talk about it, Sam? We don’t want…”
    “Sure. What do you want to know? If you’ve finished eating I can give you some wonderful descriptions of the shock treatments and the aftereffects of the drugs they were feeding me.”
    “Go play,” Charlie said to one of the children who wandered up. “Go play with your sister.” His face was hard and set. Already he was remembering his old Sam-hatred from the days before the trouble.
    “Sam,” Joe Falconi said, speaking with that sort of almost-accent, “what about the charges? Are you going to have to stand trial now that you’re out?” Joe was a contractor, a good guy as guys went.
    “No,” I told them, taking my time about lighting a cigarette, letting all damned six of them know I was out for good, here to stay, ready for action. “Remember, the court ruled I was insane at the time I did it. But I’m all right now, all cured. All.”
    “Well,” Fred Dutton said, “well, that’s damned good. All cured, huh?”
    “All cured.”
    But Jean wasn’t quite so convinced. “It’s only been two years, Sam. Are you sure? I mean…”
    I just sort of laughed at her. She did look funny standing there under the willow, thinking about how this guy she once necked with over in West Park might now be a homicidal maniac and what the hell was he doing walking around loose just two years after it happened.
    Charlie and Laura sort of drifted off, pretending to hike after the kids, and Dora started the water for her tea again. After all the excitement of my arrival they were