Call for Michael Shayne [= Case of the Missing Twelve Days]

Chapter four Calling Michael Shayne

“I — sent you a radiogram from the ship?” Devlin faltered.

“Your name was signed to it.”

“What — did it say?”

Doctor Thompson gestured vaguely. “Some feeble witticism about hoping the rest of us didn’t feel as badly as you felt. The sort of thing you might have said after a party like that.”

“Could I have sent such a message without knowing it?” asked Devlin thinly.

“While suffering from amnesia?” Thompson sighed deeply. “The human mind plays all sorts of tricks, Art. I wouldn’t say such a thing couldn’t happen. Medical opinion in all probability would be that amnesia was very unlikely to persist once you remembered me and my address well enough to send me a radio message.”

“But it must have happened. I swear I don’t remember anything about the ship or sending you a message.”

“Perhaps not, but I’m pointing out the difficulty in making others believe it. Most amnesia victims awake suddenly after an accident or shock in unfamiliar surroundings with no knowledge of their identity or past life. They find themselves among strangers who can’t help them back to reality. Memory comes back through association of ideas, or by a second shock to the nerve center that caused the original loss.

“I’m giving you an objective opinion,” the doctor went on swiftly. “Let’s suppose there was an accident that night after you left the party, but that you got in the motor launch and were carried out to your cabin on the cruise ship. You had your ticket and all sorts of identification on you. Upon waking the next morning the steward would address you as Mr. Devlin. You see, Art, you’d know who you were even though the memory function was knocked out. There’d be your luggage and clothing and familiar things around you.”

“I can’t help any of that,” said Devlin doggedly. “I don’t remember.”

“Yet you did send me the radiogram.”

“Perhaps the loss of memory occurred later,” suggested Devlin hopefully. “Could the loss of memory be retroactive — go back, somehow, to the night of the farewell party?”

Thompson shook his head decisively. “I think not. You’d have the devil’s own time getting any judge or jury to accept that. There’d be overwhelming medical testimony to refute that possibility.”

“Then what in hell did happen?” Devlin groaned.

“That’s what we have to decide before the matter comes up in court. That’s why I’m trying to make you realize just where you stand.” Thompson settled back and his voice changed to one of whimsical inquiry. “Suppose you tell me the truth, Art. Then we’ll decide how much of it to tell to the police if you get dragged into tonight’s affair.”

Arthur Devlin stared at Thompson aghast. “You don’t believe me?”

“I think you’re making a mistake to cling to that story,” the doctor told him patiently. “It may have seemed like a good idea when you dreamed it up, but you see how many holes there are in it. Tell me the truth, and as a doctor I’ll help you fix up a story that will have some chance.”

Devlin buried his face in his hands. “God in heaven, Tommy, if you don’t believe me, what can I hope for?”

“Exactly what I’m pointing out to you.”

Arthur Devlin’s hands fell away from his face. He lifted his head and said coldly, “I’ve told you the absolute truth from beginning to end.”

Thompson sighed and removed his horn-rimmed glasses, polished them absently, and replaced them over his quizzically friendly eyes. “Look, Art,” he said with kindly finality, “we may be beating our brains out for no reason at all. What is there to connect you with the murdered man? That is, what is there to connect Arthur Devlin with him?”

“I’ve told you I don’t know.”

“I’ve thought of a possible explanation,” the doctor resumed. “It’s fantastic, but I suppose it could be this way. Suppose there was an accident — or you were deliberately slugged on your way to the dock that night — stripped of all your clothes and your identification and left for dead. You had your ticket in your pocket. Whoever took them might have gone aboard and posed as Arthur Devlin. He may still be on the ship, thinking you’re dead and that he’s perfectly safe.”

“What about the radiogram? How would he know to send that?”

“Perhaps he knows we’re friends and thought the radiogram would be a good idea to allay suspicion. Or there may have been some notation about me among your papers.”

“That must be the answer,” Devlin said excitedly. He got up and took a few slow steps around the room, returned to slump in his chair again. “Of course that’s it. That would explain everything. We can send a radiogram to the ship and find out — have him arrested and brought back here.”

“Hold on, Art. All this is a plausible theory to explain your amnesia and the fake radiogram for the moment. But let’s go back to my previous question. Is there any way Arthur Devlin can be connected with the murder tonight?”

“I don’t know,” Devlin answered, as he had before. “I presume I can’t have been using my right name during that blackout.”

A heavy silence fell between them, and after rumpling his forehead for a long moment Doctor Thompson said firmly, “I’m suggesting that you do your best to forget what happened to you altogether. Lie low here in your apartment until after the Belle of the Caribbean docks tomorrow. Then you can go about your business as usual and no one will think anything about it.” He paused for an instant, saw that Devlin was staring at him in consternation and was about to protest, then hurried on. “Better yet, come home with me tonight and I’ll put you up. I ought to examine that knot on your head more thoroughly. Good Lord, Art, you’ve got to get yourself in better shape before your friends see you.”

“And let the man who slugged me and stole my identity get away with it?” said Devlin fiercely.

“I think if you use your head, Art, you’ll see that it’s better to let the police solve the murder. You go barging in trying to help them, and you’ll get plenty of trouble.”

Devlin got up again and moved slowly around the room, stretching his sore arm muscles and shrugging his shoulders to limber them. “I don’t know what to do, Tommy. It’s a terrible thing when trouble strikes you down — so — all a sudden like this.” He turned suddenly and faced Thompson. “What if the police arrested and convicted an innocent man? What—?”

“That would be plenty of time for you to tell them your story. Look, Art, if you go to the police there’d be an investigation — your picture in the paper — and people would come forward who’d known you under a different name these past several days. That might lead you directly to that rooming-house, which is the one place you don’t want to be placed. Use your head. Forget about the dead man. From your description of him he won’t be missed by society. Let’s go over to my place right now. We can slip a twenty to the clerk downstairs and tell him to forget he has seen you tonight. You’re still in a state of shock, you know, and it’s my duty as your physician and friend to try to take care of you,” Thompson ended persuasively.

Devlin swayed on his feet then sank into his chair. He was moved by the generous offer, but as he sat there staring blankly into space he wet his dry lips and shook his head regretfully. “It won’t do, Tommy. There’s the taxi driver who picked me up at that place and brought me here.”

“Do you flatter yourself he’ll remember you out of all the fares he’s had tonight?” Thompson argued.

“I’m sure of it. I’m positive he was suspicious from the moment he picked me up until he left with the two dollars Jack loaned me for taxi fare.

“Besides,” he went on morosely, “the landlord at that rooming-house got a good look at me. My fingerprints are bound to be all around the room. It’s — just — no — use,” he ended despondently. “I’m going to the police at once and tell them the whole story. They have the facilities to check back and find out who I’ve been while suffering from amnesia. They have those lie detectors — everything to get at the facts. And if I killed the man, they can prove I did it in self-defense.”

“Do you think the police will bother doing any of those things,” snorted Thompson, “with a cut-to-order victim giving himself up? Nuts. They’ll throw you in a cell and try you for murder. Don’t do it, Art,” he continued, softening his voice in a plea. “We can slip down the back stairs and over to my place before they ever trace you here. Then — there’s my fishing lodge down on the Keys. It’s isolated, and I can run you down early in the morning — this morning, rather — and you can stay under cover while I investigate this thing.”

Devlin gave no indication that he was listening. He made no comment for a short time, then said quietly, “I can’t let you run that risk for me, Tommy.”

“What risk will I be running?” Thompson was irritated.

“The clerk knows I called you tonight. He knows you’re here to see me. They’d be at your place half an hour after they came here looking for me.”

“Let ’em come.” Doctor Thompson thrust out his blunt jaw. “By that time you’ll be down at my lodge on the Keys.”

A faint smile flitted over Devlin’s pallid face. “A reputable doctor hiding a murderer? No, Tommy,” he said emphatically, “you’d be ruined. I’ll go it alone. First, I’ll check — or rather have the police check with the captain of the Belle to find out if a man passing as Arthur Devlin is aboard.”

“Okay, Art. It’s your funeral,” Thompson said resignedly. “If you’re determined to stick your head in a noose I guess there’s not much I can do about it.”

Devlin got up, went to a desk against the living-room wall, and riffled through the letters he had picked up downstairs.

A frown of deep concentration pulled his brows close together. He studied a square white envelope for a moment, turned and said excitedly, “This may be important, Tommy. A letter mailed in Port Au Prince June twelfth. If I recall the itinerary, that’s the date the ship should have reached Haiti. Maybe it’s from someone aboard the Belle who got acquainted with — with whoever was impersonating me.” He paused, turning the envelope over to rip the flap open. “But there’s no return address.”

Doctor Thompson came to his feet slowly and said, “Wait a minute, Art. Are you sure you want to open that letter? It might involve you further. In the short time I’ve had, I have been trying desperately to figure out — come to some conclusion as to what’s best for you. The less you know about anything that happened during your blackout, the better. You mentioned, yourself, the lie detectors the police will use on you. Can’t you see—?”

“But good Lord, Tommy, this may explain a lot of things.”

“Are you certain you want things explained?” There was an odd urgency in Thompson’s voice.

Arthur Devlin stared at his friend, his dark eyes still red-rimmed and swollen. He said, sadly, “You believe I’m a murderer, don’t you, Tommy? You want to hide me out, protect me from the consequences.” He lifted his right arm and put a trembling hand on the doctor’s shoulder, shook it gently. “I’m sorry I’ve put you on a spot, Tommy. You’ve been a big help. Nothing like an old friend to tell your troubles to and then do as you damned please, eh?” Again he strove for a light touch, but a mist came over his eyes.

Doctor Thompson turned jerkily. He said quietly, “It’s your funeral, Art.” He backed up to his chair and sat down.

Arthur Devlin tore the square envelope open and drew the letter out. His hand shook violently, and he sat down, smoothed it over a crossed knee, read a few lines, then turned eagerly to the signature. “Why — it’s from Janet.”

His voice sounded thin and disembodied. “She — writes as though — as though I were on that cruise, Tommy,” he ended in a guttural, incredulous tone.

“Janet? Who the hell is Janet?” asked the doctor.

“Don’t you remember, Tommy?” Devlin was leaning forward and the words tumbled out. “Lily Masters’s sister. I told all of you that night at the party. She was to meet me on the cruise. She was coming down from New York to meet me because I handled the insurance on Mrs. Masters, and—”

“And she was suspicious about her sister’s death,” Doctor Thompson said slowly. “I remember something about it. You had a couple of letters from her suggesting that Lily Masters was murdered. Some crazy notion she had—”

“Her letters weren’t crazy,” Devlin broke in, the glitter coming into his eyes, his voice strong with excitement. “She wrote me about a crazy, mixed-up letter she had received from her sister before she died. It seems that Mrs. Masters had written her about being blackmailed by someone.”

“And she wanted to talk it over with someone who had known her sister here,” Thompson recalled. “By the merest coincidence you both planned a vacation cruise on the Belle of the Caribbean.”

“Coincidence?” Devlin said, and was silently thoughtful for a time. “Why, no — I seem to recall writing her that I was going on a vacation trip and she wrote back that it would be a pleasant way for us to get together and talk things over.”

Doctor Thompson sat puffing on a cigarette and bobbing his head as Devlin spoke. “It’s kind of vague in my mind,” he said. “Maybe we all had had a few drinks when you told us about this — Janet.”

“Listen to this, Tommy, and see what you make of it.” He began to read slowly:

Doctor Thompson had slid to a comfortable position in his chair as Devlin read the letter. He sprang to an erect position and asked, “What was she like, Art?”

“Like?” asked Devlin, puzzled. “Why, I never saw her in my life. I–I only know her by correspondence.” He grinned slowly and said, “I get it, Tommy. You’re still trying to catch me up. But what do you make of this letter? Looks as though the impostor took her in thoroughly. Sounds like she was beginning to fall for him. Then he jumped ship in Havana without explaining to anyone.”

“And leaving your things aboard,” Thompson commented dryly. “It would have drawn much less attention if he had explained that he was leaving the ship and had taken your things with him. Particularly since it appears the young lady was falling for him.”

Devlin was watching his friend narrowly, hopefully, certain now that he would respond with a solution after hearing the letter.

“Come off it, Art,” Thompson said. His whole expression was grim, but there was a pleading tone in his voice. “How long are you going to keep up this pretense?”

“I’ve told you—”

“A pack of lies,” Thompson interrupted. “A pack of silly lies that no schoolboy would expect to be believed. How can you keep it up after reading that letter to me? It’s perfectly clear that you were on board the ship as far as Havana where you disappeared under peculiar circumstances.”

The shock of Thompson’s accusations brought the sharp pain to Devlin’s temple again. Nausea roiled up from his stomach and gagged in his throat. His stomach flattened against his backbone, and his hands shook. He clasped his fingers convulsively, straining to get hold of himself. “What makes you so certain it was me?” he said hoarsely. “I told you — I’ve never laid eyes on Janet. We just wrote a couple of letters back and forth. All an impostor had to do was play it cagey and let her do the talking while he pretended to be Arthur Devlin.”

“That might have worked except for one small detail,” said Thompson wearily.

“What — what’s that?” Devlin gasped.

“The information she wanted about Mrs. Masters’s death from you. She said in the letter you’d made her happy by clearing everything up. How could anybody else accomplish a miracle like that by just being cagey and keeping his mouth shut?”

Devlin’s mouth and his tongue and his lips felt dry. “You mean — despite everything I’ve told you — you still believe I was aboard the Belle and jumped the ship at Havana?” He was leaning tensely forward, his short fingers interlaced, shifting back and forth, thumbs alternately squeezing each other.

Doctor Thompson sprang up and took a turn around the coffee table, running his fingers through his thick, black hair. He picked up the decanter of bourbon and poured himself half a drink, resumed his seat, and poured the drink down his throat. He flipped a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth and said:

“Look, Art. I’m not a psychiatrist, I’m not a specialist of any kind. I’m just a medical doctor. But, I’m your friend. You called me over here because I’m your friend. Oh, I know I’m your doctor, too, if you ever need one.

“But everything in this thing adds up. Can’t you see it? Your radiogram to me, that letter from Janet. If you take my advice you’ll give up this story about not remembering the trip to Havana. If you still like amnesia as a defense, play it smart and give out a story that has some chance of being believed. Admit reaching Havana and think up some sort of trouble that caused you to miss the boat. Then, in the next day or so you could remember getting into a fight and blanking out. Nobody could prove that didn’t happen.”

Devlin’s head was lolling against the back of his chair. A great weariness surged through him, and he heard his friend’s voice as though it came through a fog. But his mind was alert, discarding everything except that which he actually remembered. A radiogram to Janet would reveal a lot. He had to contact her, see her, and learn the truth.

Devlin got up, went over to the desk, saying, “No matter how it strikes you, Tommy, I’m telling the truth. I’m not a very good liar. If I started lying to the police they’d have me backed into a corner and squirming in twenty minutes.” He pulled a drawer open and took out a sheet of paper and a pencil.

“Wait, Art,” Thompson pleaded. “Don’t forget you’ve got a good reputation and plenty of reputable friends. If you’d just lie low — wait and let things develop—”

“It’s no use,” Devlin said flatly. “I’m going to send Janet a long radiogram to Key West. I’m going to do everything I can to get at the bottom of this thing. If I was on that boat — well, I want to know the truth, no matter what it is.”

He sat with the pencil poised above the paper, thinking. Then, suddenly, he covered his face with both his hands and moaned.

“Art! What the devil’s the matter with you?” Thompson exclaimed.

“I can’t remember Janet’s last name!” he said in an anguished voice. The pencil fell to the table, and he lifted his head from his hands. “I guess you’d better send for the boys in white, Tommy. I’m going nuts. I guess I am nuts not to be able to remember a simple thing like Janet’s last name.” He sat staring stupidly into space.

“Nonsense. You’ve got to snap out of it. You didn’t know the girl very well. Just a casual correspondence. Names slip everybody’s mind occasionally. You must have her letters around somewhere.”

“They’re at the office,” he said tonelessly. He sprang up from the chair. The sudden move sent a throbbing pain to his temple and his body swayed.

Thompson leaped up and caught him. “This settles it,” he said firmly. “You’re going home with me. You need a strong sedative and some sleep. We’ll get together on a story tomorrow.”

Devlin struggled out of Thompson’s grasp, glared at him, and said, “You don’t believe a single word I’ve told you. Go on home, Tommy. I don’t blame you one bit and you’ve been a brick, but this is no good. You can help me most by staying out of jail yourself.”

“Now — wait—”

“No!” Devlin’s voice was shrill. “Get out. I had no right to drag you into this. Get out of here as fast as you can and forget you’ve seen me tonight.” He turned away from the hurt look on Thompson’s face and kept his back turned until he heard the outer door of the apartment close behind Thompson.

Devlin went back to the desk and picked up the telephone directory, thumbed down a column until he found Michael Shayne’s name, lifted the receiver, and gave the number to the man at the switchboard. When a voice answered at the other end, he said, “I want to speak to Mr. Shayne, please.”

“Is it important? Mr. Shayne doesn’t like to be disturbed at night when he’s—”

“I wouldn’t be calling him if it weren’t important,” Devlin cut in curtly.

“Yeh, I know,” said the voice. “That’s what everybody says when they call for Mr. Shayne. But he sort of leaves it up to me to find out what a man wants and whether it’s important enough to bother him with.”

“It isn’t only important,” Devlin told him, “it’s extremely urgent.”

“If you’ll tell me what it’s about maybe—”

“I’m telling you to ring Shayne’s apartment,” Devlin grated.

There was a little silence, then Devlin listened while a phone rang three times and stopped. The voice broke in and said, “Sorry. He doesn’t answer,” and the connection was broken.

Devlin stared at the instrument as he slowly cradled it, his eyes holding the expression of a doomed man. That Shayne was out at this time of night meant he was working on a case and would probably not be available. Devlin knew the redheaded detective’s reputation. He had, in fact, met him once during an insurance investigation involving one of the companies he represented. He needed a man like Shayne, and felt certain that if he could talk to him personally he could persuade him to listen. The truth would not shock a man like Michael Shayne whose business was murder. In fact, Devlin thought, the circumstances surrounding his own predicament would probably appear mild to him.

Right now, he could only wait. He got up and went into the bathroom and gathered up every article of clothing he had taken off in there and carried them into the bedroom. He picked up the coat and pants from the floor where he had let them fall, spread the lot of them out on his clean bed, and began methodically going over each garment. There was no sign of a laundry or dry-cleaner’s mark.

His patience was rewarded when he discovered a small slip of paper folded into a precise small square in the inside change pocket of the checkered coat.

Hope trembled through him as he carefully unfolded it. Across the top was printed Argonne House with a Northwest Second Avenue address in Miami beneath it. There was an inked notation below: $18.00 #209 6/18 to 6/24 Pd. M.N.

That was all. Devlin studied it with narrowed eyes. It would appear that he had paid the rent on Room 209, since the receipt was in his pocket, and that, therefore, he had spent the days of his blackout at the Argonne House.

He sat brooding over the slip of paper. He had four facts to go on: The address on Palmleaf Avenue, the receipt from The Argonne, that he had been known as Joey, and that Janet was aboard the Belle of the Caribbean and had become well acquainted with someone known as Arthur Devlin. He dared not return to the rooming-house on Palmleaf Avenue; it would be hours before he could call his office and find out what Janet’s last name was and it would then be too late to send the radiogram. He couldn’t begin inquiring about Joey when he had no idea what his last name was.

So, The Argonne seemed the logical place to start. A shudder swept over him. He had never had occasion to question his bravery, but he knew now that he was afraid. Did he dare go there and try to find a clue that would shed some light on this horrible nightmare? Mightn’t it be better, as Tommy suggested, to leave the black veil drawn? Did he want to know the sort of person he had become during those black, blank days?

His mind whirled as he dressed in his own immaculate clothes, formulating ideas and rejecting them. By the time he was fully attired in a tan sports suit with a delicate pin stripe the thought came to him that it was his duty to find out everything he possibly could before calling Michael Shayne later on in the day. It was urgent that he discover the reason for the rent receipt in the pocket of the dirty coat. At the Argonne he might even learn something about the woman named Marge. With even a few scraps of tangible information he might persuade Shayne to tackle his case.

Devlin went to the full-length mirror of his bedroom door. The reflection showed a nattily dressed young man, but his face was still pallid, his lips and eyes slightly swollen, and the knot on his head stood out like an elaborately swathed sore thumb. He looked around for the felt hat he had worn from the rooming-house. He frowned deeply, then remembered he had taken it off when he opened the living-room windows. He found it on the floor behind a chair near the first one he had opened, picked it up, and went back to the bedroom mirror. Easing it over the knot, he tugged the brim down over his forehead and thought, fleetingly, that perhaps he should start wearing hats again.

As was his custom, he felt his pockets with his palms to be sure he had everything before leaving home. The pocket where he carried his wallet was flat. Unhesitatingly, and with a determined look in his eyes, he went to the bed, got out the roll of bills from underneath the pillow, selected a clean one, and stuck it in his outer coat pocket. He rerolled them and secured them with the rubber band and went out to the telephone.

When the night clerk answered he said, “Jack, I need a taxi. Could you arrange it?”

“Sure, Mr. Devlin,” he answered eagerly. “In about five minutes. Okay?”

“Fine. And Jack, do you have change for a hundred-dollar bill?”

“Sure.”

“Count out ninety-eight for me. The other two will take care of the taxi fare. I’ll leave you a hundred for it when I pick it up.”

He hung up and stared around the familiar and carefully planned masculine appointments and wondered if he would ever see it again. His temple still throbbed against the band of the loose-fitting hat, and he felt like a man walking in a daze. A man embarking on a long and perilous voyage from which it was very likely he would never return. Nothing was real. Nothing would ever be the same again. Nothing could ever be the same after a man had committed a murder.

He closed the door softly when he went out, as though not to disturb the Arthur Devlin he had left behind — an Arthur Devlin who would waken at his usual hour of seven in the morning and leisurely prepare breakfast in the shining kitchenette and leisurely dress in ample time to reach his insurance office at nine in the morning.

Jack had the ninety-eight dollars ready for him when he walked slowly toward the desk. The young clerk’s eyes were alert, curious, sympathetic. He said, “You needn’t have bothered about the money, Mr. Devlin. You know your credit’s good here any time.”

“That’s quite all right. You know how it is — when you go on a trip you take along big bills. They’re not so bulky.”

“Of course. But—”

“Did you manage the taxi?” Devlin interrupted.

“It’s waiting. The driver just reported and went out.”

“Thanks, Jack,” said Devlin. He went out, leaving the gaping clerk staring at his back.

When the foyer door clicked behind him something clicked in his mind. Henceforth he had to force himself to believe he was a murderer. He had to remember to be careful, wary, watch his every word and action. He was a hunted man. As a disreputably dressed bum he had given one taxi driver the address of the Clairmount Apartments. Now, dressed as a moderately successful business man, he could not give the address of the Argonne. He walked as briskly as his throbbing head permitted, got into the rear seat of the taxi and said, “Corner of Flagler and Northwest Second.”

The driver was a Negro. “Yessuh,” he said, and the cab slid forward smoothly.

Flagler Street was deserted and quiet in the darkness of the hour before dawn. The trip had been made in utter silence, and Devlin leaned forward now to look at the meter. It registered a dollar and a half. When the cab slid to a stop he handed the driver two one-dollar bills, said, “Keep the change.”

“Yessuh. Thank you suh.” He reached back and opened the rear door, his wide mouth spread in a grin.

Devlin got out and the taxi moved away. He stood on the sidewalk for a while. A fierce resentment welled up within him against a circumstance over which he had no control that left him utterly alone at an ungodly hour on a street where he had known only friendliness and companionship. He was sorely tempted to wait, hail another taxi, and go straight back to his apartment.

The throbbing in his temple brought him back to the realization of the thing he had to do, and he began walking up Second Avenue, looking at the numbers on shops and small hotels until he reached a wooden stairway leading up from the sidewalk. The sign over it read: Argonne House.

He climbed the stairs as quietly as he could to a dingy second-floor lobby where a dim light above a desk outlined a crudely lettered sign that read: Ring bell for Manager.

Devlin did not want to see the manager. He wanted, only, to see the occupant or occupants of 209. He wandered down the narrow corridor until he found it. A dusty transom was open above the door to catch the musty, foul air of the hallway.

An overwhelming desire to turn and run away possessed him. He could still go back and tell Tommy he had reconsidered, go back to his apartment at the Clairmount and lie low — and wait.

But his right hand came up and tapped lightly on the door. There was an immediate rustle of sound inside. The lock clicked and the door swung open. The smell of cigarette smoke and perfume and the feel of bare arms around his neck attacked him simultaneously.

“Joey! Oh, Joey, darling!” Her arms were flung about his neck and she put her mouth against his, clinging to his lips. All the strength went out of him. Like a drowning man grasping for a straw, his arms reached out and closed around her supple young body and held tight to keep from falling. His head dropped down and rested against her hair when she stopped kissing him.

After a long time he felt a surge of normalcy spreading through his body, and he lifted his head slowly, wondering how many more shocks he could endure.