Nameless Night by G.M. Ford Read Free Book Online

Carman?” she asked. Carman leaned in close. “Somethin’s wrong with Benny,” she whispered.
    “Like what?”
    Carman shrugged. “He went down in the cellar and won’t come up.”
    “He was limping,” Dolores piped up.
    Suddenly the air was alive with strained voices and the sound of moving feet. They’d rounded everyone up and were herding them downstairs. The elevator door slid open. Paul wheeled Mrs. Dahlberg toward the front room. Shirley rolled herself along in their wake. Darl and Phillip were both agitated, a state which each man handled in a completely different manner. While Darl just kept winding himself higher, until he required sedation, Phillip, when overstressed, went thumb-sucking catatonic. Helen took a moment to soothe each man as he passed.
    At that moment Mr. Hallinan walked up the front steps and into the foyer, five minutes early for his morning shift, as was his habit. Helen Willis hurried to his side. “Mrs. Forbes is in the kitchen with Eunice. I think she . . . Eunice, that is . . . may need to see a doctor.”
    He started to hurry off. Helen grabbed his sleeve. “Benny’s in the basement. I don’t know what the problem is, but Carman says he won’t come up. She thinks maybe he’s hurt somehow.”
    Jacob Hallinan was a man of few words. He immediately hustled off toward the kitchen, pulling the keys to the van from the hook in the hall on his way by.
    “How many?” the voice came from behind her. When she turned, she found herself closer to the man in the gray suit than she cared to be. She took a step back. “How many what?”
    “How many residents?”
    “Twelve,” Helen said. “Not counting staff.” The minute it was out of her mouth, she regretted telling him anything at all.
    “How many computers in the building?”
    This time Helen didn’t answer. Instead she turned on her heel and hurried into the front parlor. Everybody was sitting down except for Darl and Randall, both of whom were too excited to be still. Darl was so agitated he just kept muttering under his breath and turning in small circles. Randall was trying to appease Carman with a gift of his slippers. Carman pinched her nostrils, making the “stinky” sign. Dolores laughed and turned her face aside, whispering something to Mrs. Dahlberg, who was sitting in her wheelchair beneath the Art Deco floor lamp.
    Three of the assistants counted the crowd.
    “Twelve,” one of them said to the others, who agreed. Same guy pointed at Paul. “He’s the only one who’s even close.”
    Gray suit only shook his head. “No. Not him.”
    Helen pulled open the center drawer of the sideboard. She came out with a yellow legal pad and a green golf pencil. “I want your names,” she announced. “Every one of you.” She waved an angry pencil. “And your badge numbers . . . or whatever kind of numbers you damn people have.”
    The words caught in her throat. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cursed in public. Didn’t matter, though. The big guy caught her by the shoulder, welding her to the floor like a butterfly pinned to a board. She tried to step out from beneath the weight but could not move. “Don’t you dare . . .” she shouted. And then, in an instant, Ken was there . . . coming like a line drive, using his velocity to bump the big guy off balance. The lessening of the weight bearing down on her shoulder allowed Helen to step away. Ken used the opportunity to insert himself between Helen and the big guy. He stood firm, the very picture of defiance, his eyes ablaze, his chin thrust out like a lance, his fists balled at his side, all rigid and primed to go off like a stainless steel spring. The air hummed with tension. If not for Ken giving away a hundred or so pounds to the gorilla, the smart money might have been laid on Ken, on the theory that self-righteous indignation will carry a body a long way. As it was, badass as Ken might have been feeling at that moment, he never stood a single chance in