not prevent it. He turned off the lights, closed the door, and went downstairs to the front hall.
The guard-nurse was still unconscious; he left her where she was. There was nothing gained by moving her or killing her. He turned off every light, including the carriage lamps above the front steps, opened the door, and slipped out into Louisburg Square. On the pavement, he turned right and began walking rapidly to the corner where he would turn right again, descending Beacon Hill into Charles Street to find a taxi. He had to pick up his luggage in the subway locker in Cambridge. The walk down the hill would give him time to think, time to remove the photograph from its glass frame, folding it carefully into his pocket so that neither face was damaged.
He needed a place to stay. A place to sit and fill up pages of paper with facts, conjectures and probabilities, his bill-of-particulars. In the morning, he had several things to do, among which were visits to the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Boston Public Library.
The room was no different from any other room in a very cheap hotel in a very large city. The bed sagged, and the single window looked out on a filthy stone wall not ten feet from the cracked panes of glass. The advantage, however, was the same as it was everywhere in such places; nobody asked questions. Cheap hotels had a place in this world, usually for those who did not care to join it. Loneliness was a basic human right, not to be tampered with lightly.
Scofield was safe; he could concentrate on his bill-ofparticulars.
By 4:35 in the morning, he had filled seventeen pages. Facts, conjectures, probabilities. He had written the words carefully, legibly, so they could be clearly reproduced. There was no room for interpretation; the indictment was specific even where the motives were not. He was gathering his weapons, storing his bandoliers of ammunition; they were all he had. He fell back on the sagging bed and closed his eyes. Two or three hours sleep would be enough.
He heard his own whisper float up to the cracked ceiling.
"Taleniekov... keep breathing. Toni, my love, my dearest love. Stay alive... keep your mind."
The portly female clerk in the hospital's Department of Records and Billing seemed bewildered but she was not about to refuse Bray's request.
It wasn't as if the medical information held there was that confidential, and a man who produced government identification certainly had to be given cooperation.
"Now, let me get this cleah," she said in a strong Boston accent, reading the labels on the front of the cabinets. "The Senator wants the names of the doctors and the nurses who attended him during his stay here in 'fifty-three and 'fifty-four. From around November through March?" "That's right. As I told you, next month's sort of an anniversary for him. It'll be twenty-five years since he was given his 'reprieve,' as he calls it. Confidentially, he's sending each of them a small medallion in the shape of the medical shield with their names and his thanks inscribed on them." The clerk stopped. "Isn't that just like him, though? To remembah? Most people go through an experience like that and just want to forget the whole thing. They figure they beat the reapah so the hell with everybody.
Until the next time, of course. But not him; he's so... well, concerned, if you know what I mean." "Yes, I do." "The votahs know it, too, let me tell you. The Bay State's going to have its first President since J.F.K. And there won't be any of that religious nonsense about the Pope and the cahdnells running the White House, neither." "No, there won't," agreed Bray. "I'd like to stress again the confidential nature of my being here. The Senator doesn't want any publicity about his little gesture...... Scofield paused and smiled at the woman. "And as of now you're the only person in Boston who knows." "Oh, don't you worry about that. As we used to say when we were kids, my lips are sealed. And I'd really treasure a note from Senator Appleton with his signature and everything, I mean." The woman stopped and tapped a file cabinet. "Heah we are," she said, opening the drawer. "Now, remembah, all that's heah are the names of the doctahssurgeons, anesthesiologists, consultants-listed by floor and O.R. desks; the staff nurses assigned, and a schedule of the equipment used, There are no psychiatric evaluations or