Free Always Leave ’Em Dying by Richard S. Prather

stared fixedly at me. I looked at the carafe, at the water glass in front of him. It was full; he hadn't drunk any of his second glass, the one he'd poured after that nurse had come in. I reached for the carafe, poured my glass full again, my fingers numb. Tiny white grains swirled in the bottom of the glass, grains from whatever I had drunk before. The water seemed milky.
    I straightened in the chair. Weakness licked at my muscles as I looked over the room—and saw something I hadn't noticed before. In the corner stood a wooden clothes tree. Dangling limply from it was a dark raincoat; drops of water glistened on its surface. On the floor beneath it sat a pair of rubbers, their soles muddy. I looked at my own shoes, at the dirt and mud on them from that lonely hill where something, someone, had been buried. Then I looked at Dr. Wolfe. He stared silently back at me.
    "You sonofabitch," I said. I thumbed back the hammer of my .38 and he pulled his lips tight against his teeth and babbled something. "Put your hands flat on the desk," I told him.
    He flopped them on the desk; they lay there shaking as if they weren't a part of him. There was a ring on the little finger of his left hand, its big diamond glittering, sparkling as his hands fluttered.
    Finally, I understood his words. "Don't, don't, don't," he was saying over and over.
    "Shut your face. Who was it—"
    The door clicked open behind me, banged against the wall. Wolfe jerked his eyes from my face. I swung my head around, the movement slow and uncoordinated. It was a woman again, walking toward the desk, a different woman, but also in a white uniform. She said, "Frank, did you—"
    Her voice faltered, stopped as she saw me. She was short, thin, thin-faced, and a big black mole grew on her cheek. It was Nurse Dixon. She was so close to me that I could see stiff hairs jutting from the mole, see the fixed, rigid expression into which her sharp features had congealed.
    Suddenly she whirled on her heel and left, pulling the door shut behind her. I yelled at her, tried to stand up—and fell. My legs wouldn't support me and my sight was blurring.
    I was sprawled on my back, still clutching the gun but with my arm against the floor at my side, my finger curled around the .38's trigger. Wolfe was beyond the desk and I couldn't see him. I didn't even know if I could stand, and as I started to try getting up I changed my mind, and lay quietly with my eyes almost closed. In a moment, looking from under my lids, I saw Wolfe stand, his face seeming to swell like a balloon and get small again. He looked at me, then went across the room to a cabinet against the wall, opened it, took something out, and fumbled with it. Then he walked toward me.
    His figure shifted and blurred, and then he was over me, bending down, and I saw a hypodermic syringe in his hand, saw a drop of fluid that formed and dropped from the needle's slanted hollow tip.
    I tried to bring the gun up toward him but wasn't even sure my arm was moving. But I saw his expression change, heard him shout. I forced myself to squeeze the muscles of my right hand together, felt my index finger tug at the revolver's trigger, and heard the boom of the gun.
    His body jerked. His mouth was wide and I heard the high sound he made. The syringe dropped from his hand and I tried to get off my back, the gun held before me, pointing toward him. I rolled onto my left elbow, darkness gathering, but I could see him as he fell, his head noiselessly striking the carpeted floor. With the last of my strength I crawled closer to him, forced my right arm forward until the muzzle of my gun rested against his skull.
    Then I couldn't see him. I was looking into a thickening darkness; but I heard a soft report as I squeezed the trigger, felt the slow, gentle recoil of the gun in my hand. Then darkness grew, turned to blackness.
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    Chapter Nine

    Suddenly the light was blinding. It slammed into my eyes painfully, and I squeezed them