He turned from the whiskey cabinet and smiled. That pleased her.
“How’s Matt?” she asked.
“Apparently he was lucky; he’s not seriously hurt. I haven’t seen him.”
“Why not?”
“Because when I went to the hospital this morning it looked like Suburban station at half past five. Even Farnsworth Stillwell—and his wife—were there. I thought I’d have a chance to go back, but I haven’t.”
“Are you going to tell me what happened? That picture of Matt in the paper was horrifying!”
“From what I have been able to piece together, he wasn’t even supposed to be there, but he showed up when they were getting ready to go, and Wohl sent him with Mickey O’Hara. They were in an alley behind the bastard’s house, waiting for the detectives and the cops to go in, when the sonofabitch showed up in the alley, shooting. He was a lousy shot, fortunately—”
“He got Matt!”
“With a ricochet, it hit a brick wall first. If it had hit Matt first, he’d be—a lot worse off.”
“He was covered with blood in the newspaper.”
“Minor wound, scratch, really, in the forehead. The head tends to bleed a lot.”
“The radio said the man died,” Martha said. “Poor Matt.”
“‘Poor Matt’?”
“It will bother him, having taken someone’s life.”
“The last one he shot didn’t bother him that I could see.”
“That you could see.”
Jason’s face
wrinkled as he considered that.
“Touché,” he said, finally.
“I got him a box of candy. I didn’t know what else to get him.”
“You could have given him the picture of the naked lady. I know he’d like that.”
She looked at him a minute, smiled, and said, “Okay. I will.”
“Really?”
“Why not?” she asked.
“You’re not thinking of taking it to the hospital?”
“Are we going to the hospital?”
“Yeah. Well, I thought maybe if you took off early and were here when I came home, you might want to go up there with me.”
“I was about to go without you,” she said. “You didn’t call all day.”
“I was busy,” he said, and then added, “I found Tony.”
“Oh?”