Nameless Night Read Online Free PDF

did you . . . I mean . . .”
    He held up a hand and cleared his throat. “As soon as I woke up in the hospital, I knew something was different,” he said.
    “What was that?” Helen continued to fan herself.
    “I could read. The signs on the wall. The numbers on the screens.”
    He massaged his throat and continued. “Took me a couple days to figure out what was so different.”
    A chill ran down Helen’s spine. Different was indeed the operant word. And Paul wasn’t merely different than he used to be. Oh no. Brand-new face notwithstanding, this was a whole different person. A stranger, someone about whom she knew nothing. About whom she knew even less than she’d known about the unresponsive, enigmatic Paul Hardy. At least the old Paul had been predictable and not prone to surprises. “But . . .” she began, “you remember your life here.”
    “All of it. From the day I came here to the moment the car hit me. I remember how kind you always were to me. How you always made sure I was included in everything.” He smiled. Helen felt her shoulder muscles relax. She exhaled hard and put the magazine back on the cushion. She raised a questioning finger and opened her mouth to speak.
    “I bet I can guess what you want to know,” Paul said in a playful tone.
    “What?”
    “You want to know how come, if I remember all of it, then why didn’t I seem to know what was going on around me? How come I didn’t respond to anything.”
    Helen nodded her assent. “Exactly,” she said. He pulled his other hand from his pocket and showed his palms to the ceiling. “I don’t know either. It’s hard to explain. It was like I was there, but I wasn’t . . . like I was . . . I know this sounds weird, but it was like I was working on a problem the whole time. Nothing else meant anything to me except figuring out whatever it was I was trying to figure out.” He knocked on the side of his head. “Nothing else got in or out.”
    “And you don’t remember what that was.”
    “Strange, huh?”
    “What about before you came here?”
    “Nothing.”
    A nearly imperceptible slant in his eyes suggested he might not be altogether forthcoming. “Nothing at all?” she pressed. He looked away. “A name,” he said.
    Helen waited. He folded his arms and looked uncomfortable.
    “Wesley Allen Howard,” he finally said.
    “That’s all?”
    “That’s it,” he said. “One night, about a week after I woke up in the hospital . . . right before I went to sleep, the name just came to me. It’s been in my dreams ever since.”
    “And you think that’s who you are?”
    “I don’t know. Right now it’s just a name that came to me.”
    “That’s all? Just a name?”
    He hesitated. “Palm trees,” he said. “When I dream of the name, I dream of palm trees.” He waved a hand slowly in front of his face.
    “You know . . . kind of like swaying in the breeze.”
    Helen sat back on the couch and smoothed her skirt. “Does anyone else know?”
    “Just Shirley,” he said. “I’ve been practicing my talking with her.”
    A wide smile cracked his face. “Except Shirley does most of the talking.”
    The both laughed. “You should smile more often, Pau—” She stopped herself. “I don’t quite know what to call you anymore.”
    He shrugged. “I guess Paul will have to do for now.”
    “For the time being, I think we should keep this to ourselves.”
    “I think maybe Ken suspects,” he said.
    She nodded knowingly. “We talked about it,” Helen admitted.
    “You know . . . in your top drawer—” He stopped her, patted the right front pocket of his jeans.
    “The money . . .” he said. “I found it.” He sighed. “Nine thousand dollars.”
    “It’s what you made working for Ken.”
    “That’s what I figured.”
    “He always paid you the same thing he was paying the rest of his men. Not a penny less.”
    “He’s that kind of guy.” He allowed himself an ironic smile. “I tried to put it in the