Then we went to work on him.
I packed his head in wet towels, while she rubbed his wrists and feet.
“They’re sending an ambulance.”
“All right.
Did he see you do it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you behind him?”
“I think so.
But then the lights went out, and I don’t know what happened.
What did you do to the lights?”
“Nothing.
The fuse popped.”
“Frank.
He’d better not come to.”
“He’s got to come to.
If he dies, we’re sunk.
I tell you, that cop saw the stepladder.
If he dies, then they’ll know. If he dies, they’ve got us.”
“But suppose he saw me? What’s he going to say when he comes to?”
“Maybe he didn’t.
We just got to sell him a story, that’s all.
You were in here, and the lights popped, and you heard him slip and fall, and he didn’t answer when you spoke to him.
Then you called me, that’s all.
No matter what he says, you got to stick to it.
If he saw anything, it was just his imagination, that’s all.”
“Why don’t they hurry with that ambulance?”
“It’ll be here.”
Soon as the ambulance came, they put him on a stretcher and shoved him in.
She rode with him.
I followed along in the car.
Halfway to Glendale, a state cop picked us up and rode on ahead.
They went seventy miles an hour, and I couldn’t keep up.
They were lifting him out when I got to the hospital, and the state cop was bossing the job.
When he saw me he gave a start and stared at me.
It was the same cop.
They took him in, put him on a table, and wheeled him in an operating room.
Cora and myself sat out in the hall.
Pretty soon a nurse came and sat down with us. Then the cop came, and he had a sergeant with him.
They kept looking at me.
Cora was telling the nurse how it happened.
“I was in there, in the bathroom I mean, getting a towel, and then the lights went out just like somebody had shot a gun off.
Oh my, they made a terrible noise.
I heard him fall.
He had been standing up, getting ready to turn on the shower.
I spoke to him, and he didn’t say anything, and it was all dark, and I couldn’t see anything, and I didn’t know what had happened.
I mean I thought he had been electrocuted or something.
So then Frank heard me screaming, and he came, and got him out, and then I called up for the ambulance, and I don’t know what I would have done if they hadn’t come quick like they did.”
“They always hurry on a late call.”
“I’m so afraid he’s hurt bad.”
“I don’t think so.