Free Prelude to a Scream by Jim Nisbet Page A

X-rays up to the window.
    Stanley, for his part, marveled at the way her dark hair metamorphosed to a fine, invisible down as it progressed from her temple to her cheek. Never before had such a lovely neck betrayed to him the delicate architectonics of vulnerability. It would develop, he was sure, that little bumps would arise all along the flesh of her forearm, were he merely to draw his forefinger, just its tip, along the well-defined tendon that stretched from the lobe of her lovely ear to the hollow of her throat.
    When she abruptly turned back to him, a certain resolve had taken command of her features. But when she saw him staring at her, she blushed and squeezed his hand.
    â€œStanley,” she said, “Would you do something for me?”
    â€œAbsolutely anything.”
    â€œPlace the palm of your right hand flat against your lower back, to the right of your spine, just above your hip.”
    â€œOver my kidney, you mean?”
    She opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally she said, “Yes, Stanley. Place your hand over your… kidney.”
    She watched him. He released her hand and gingerly worked his arm beneath the covers, sliding his hand down along his ribs. He hadn’t realized until now that he wore one of those hospital nighties that covers the anterior of the patient but leaves the posterior exposed; but it made it easy for him to discover the rows of knotted sutures that curved like a narrow-gauge railroad across his back for several inches, through the valley above the escarpment of his hip, to an abrupt terminus just below his twelfth rib, pinching together as it went the puckered fold of a long, numb incision he hadn’t known was there.
    Iris saw his expression elide from morphined eroticism to curiosity to fascination to puzzlement to concern to confusion to befuddled inquiry, directed back at her, and, finally, horror. It was like watching time-lapsed film of a rotting apple.
    â€œSomebody’s done cut on me,” Stanley surmised.
    Iris suppressed an odd smile. “Yes. You’re… scarred.”
    â€œHave I… been in an accident?”
    Iris appeared uncertain of the answer to that one.
    Nor did Stanley have enough morphine in his system to check the sudden, fearful interrogative, Who’s paying for this?
    The hall door opened a few inches. A man wrapped his neck around the door stile to look inside, saw Stanley, then Iris, then the man with the X-rays. He opened the door just enough to allow himself the slot necessary to slip quietly into the room. The man was tall, with a moustache under a big nose and a corona of badly combed sandy hair surrounding a bald spot. Dandruff sprinkled the shoulders of his brown jacket like powdered sugar on pigeon pie. He was chewing gum. He wore brown slacks that didn’t match the jacket and thick-soled brogans and his jacket was buttoned once, as low down as possible, causing it to flare unreasonably over the gun on his left hip.
    A cop. A cowardly panic momentarily swept Stanley’s other cares aside. Had he been driving when his accident happened? Had he been drunk? Had he wrecked Hop Toy’s truck? Had he killed somebody?
    Say nothing, he immediately decided. Don’t tell this guy a goddamn thing.
    Iris ignored the movement behind her, perhaps she didn’t even hear it, and chewed her lower lip. “In a manner of speaking, Stanley,” she said, “Yes. You’ve had an accident.”
    â€œI don’t remember any accident.”
    The cop watched him with clear pale eyes.
    Iris nodded. “That’s probably just as well.”
    The cop asked, “What do you remember?”
    â€œWho are you?” Stanley innocently asked.
    â€œInspector Corrigan, SFPD.” He flashed a badge that for all anybody saw of it might have been the lid from a can of asparagus.
    Stanley didn’t even think about his answer. “It’s not fun, trying to remember the last thing I can’t