Nameless Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

bank.”
    “And?”
    “And . . . you have to be somebody to put money in the bank.”
    The smile disappeared. “You have to have ID. A Social Security card. A driver’s license. Things like that. Otherwise . . .”—he raised a disgusted hand—“you get to carry cash.”
    “You want me to hold it for you?” she asked.
    He nodded. “Might as well,” he said, pulling out the wad of bills.
    “Take some for yourself,” she said.
    He peeled off half a dozen twenties and then handed the rest of the roll to Helen. “I need to know about myself,” he said.
    “I can tell you what I know,” Helen offered.
    Took all of a minute and a half before she was out of info and a strained silence settled over the room.
    Paul broke the spell. “That’s it?”
    Helen made a rueful face. “That’s it,” she repeated. Another silence and then he wanted to know, “What’s next?”
    She met his intense gaze. “That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question now, isn’t it?” She sighed and then stared off into space. The sound of raised voices filtered up from below. Helen stiffened and looked first at her wristwatch and then at the door. Ten minutes until dinner. Saturday nights it was Mrs. Forbes cooking until seven-thirty and Mr. Hallanan helping out with the supervision till nine. Unlike some of the others, Mr. Hallanan took no prisoners and could, if necessary, be trusted to handle dinner without her.
    “I don’t know what’s next,” she said after a while. His face said it wasn’t the answer he was hoping for.
    “What do you want to happen next?” she asked.
    “I guess I want to find out who I am.”
    This time a full minute of silence passed.
    “Let’s think about it,” Helen said. She lifted four fingers to her temple. “This has all happened so fast. I’m just not sure what to do.”
    “Me neither,” he said. “But if I knew who I was, I’d at least know where to start looking.”
    “Looking for what?”
    He thought about it. “For myself, I guess.”
    “You’re right here.” She pointed at his boots. He pulled his eyes aside and ran a hand through his long brown hair.
    “For who I used to be.” Annoyed, he cut the air with the side of his hand. “For the person I was before I came here.”
    “You think he’s still out there somewhere?”
    Again her question gave him pause to wonder. “His story’s out there somewhere,” the man she’d known as Paul Hardy said. “Somebody was living a day-to-day life, doing something for a living every day . . . and then what? . . . Seven years ago, he just ups and disappears and nobody notices? . . . Nobody calls the police? Everybody he knows just goes on with their lives and forgets about him?” He looked to Helen.
    Her face was as hard as stone. She offered nothing in the way of agreement.
    He waited a beat and then nodded, giving himself the validation he’d sought from Helen. “His story’s out there somewhere,” he said with great conviction. “I know it. I can feel it inside of me, and I’m going to find it.”
    “And if you find it? What then?”
    “Find what?”
    “Whatever it is you want to look for.”
    He seemed startled by the question. “I don’t know,” he blurted. “I haven’t thought it through that far.”
    “Maybe you should.”
    The barely audible sounds of voices and falling feet dented the silence.
    Helen checked her watch again. “It’s dinnertime.”
    Paul stayed where he was. Helen got to her feet and met his intense gaze. “We’ll work it out together,” she said. “We’ll do what’s best for you.”
    Apparently that pronouncement was good enough for the stranger. All in one motion, he bumped himself off the inside of the door, turned around, grabbed the knob, and let himself out.
    “Paul,” Helen said.
    He looked her way.
    She walked to the steel door at the far end of her room and pulled out a ring of keys. “Might be best if you took the back stairs,” she said, opening the door.
    He nodded his