lOS
JASCHA KESSLER
nurse's bulky arms caught him, held him to her, enveloped him,
pulled him down. He gave up the useless struggle to force the
truth: he turned and wept upon her good and welcome breasts.
"That's all right, honey," he heard her say, "That's all right. You
just going to stay here with Anna for a while, and it will be all
right, you know? I understand, I do, so you just hold onto me good
like this. No use fighting them stones."
And then, and then he thought he heard her whispering, but
to whom? And she seemed to be supporting him. They were going
somewhere and she was saying, "The man isn't used to the heat,
you see. Like my second husband, poor man. And then he took a
little wine, too, you see. And ..." And then he heard a door bang;
and another. Then the soft voice of the elevator boy singing. "There,
there ..." It was very dark and cool all of a sudden. A hand had
been shaking him violently. He opened his eyes. And then he dis–
covered that he was sitting; he felt an awful cramp in his neck. He
was back in the chair in the lobby of the Metropole. He could
smell rain, and the salt wind from the sea, much harder now,
blowing into the deserted lobby . . . and he smelled the special
cigar, too. It was Gruber who stood over him. Gruber. "So, Acker.
This is how you do your detective work?"
From the desk he heard sniggering. "All right," Gruber said
over him condescendingly, "I'll take care of everything. Why don't
you go home to the old lady, Acker? She must be up waiting for
you, eh? You don't smell so good to me; but it could be worse.
Stanley, this is my steward, Acker. You know him? Acker, Stanley,
my night man." Stanley the nightclerk sniggered again: the very
same idiot-sounding laugh as before.
Without looking about, and to no one in particular, Acker
said, "My name is
not
Solly." Then he got up, swaying on
his
queered legs. He started for the cool wet air and the thrashing
darkness that he heard waiting for him outside the Metropole, re–
newed always, from one year to the next, like time. He lifted his
wrist: his watch read half-past three. It was too late. It was already
tomorrow. The detective had surely been called down to find out.
And he would come. And he would surely settle matters here,
though not for him.
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