Something for the Sweeper | Page 3

will drink himself to death in a week."
"Won't make any difference to you if he does," Jones said. "The income will go to your mother in that case."
"Oh," said Sarah thoughtfully. "It would, hey? That's something that needs a little thinking about."
Jones got up. "I'll run down and see Mr. Boone before I leave town."
Mrs. Boone blinked at him, worried. "He's in the City Hospital. But, I don't know. He's really pretty seriously ill. I don't know whether they'll let you in his room."
"I just want to look at him," Jones said. "I'll have to put it in my report. You say he fell?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Boone. "He came home late, and he was--"
"Fried," said Sarah. "Drunk as a skunk. He crawled up the front steps and started walking around in circles looking for the front door and fell down again. He cracked his noggin on the sidewalk. He'll get over it, though, I'm afraid."
"Sarah," said Mrs. Boone. "Sarah, now. He's your father."
"That's your fault," said Sarah. "Not mine."
"Well, I'll be going," Jones said.
"Mr. Morganwaite," Mrs. Boone said brightly, getting up with a sudden swish of her long skirt. "I must tell him! He'll be so pleased! I won't have to worry--" She hurried out of the room.
"Morganwaite?" Jones said inquiringly, looking at Sarah.
"He's an old stooge we keep around to clean up the joint now and then," Sarah told him. "He takes care of the old man when he gets potted. You probably saw him when you came in. He was sweepin' the basement stairs."
"Oh, yes," Jones said. "Well, so long."
"So long," Sarah said. "Lots of thanks, mister, for coming around and doing a Santa Claus for us."
Jones smiled. "I got paid for it." He went down the dark hall and out the doors past the two storks that were still leering at him and the world in general.
The city hospital was a great square pile of brick, masonry and steel that covered a complete city block. Three hours after he had visited the Boones, Jones rode up and down on seven elevators and limped through a mile and a half of silent cork-floored corridors and finally located the section he wanted. He went in through a glass door in a glass partition that blocked off the short end of a hall. There was a middle-aged woman sitting behind a flat desk in a little cubby-hole off the corridor.
"Yes?" she said. Her voice had a low, practiced hush, and her face looked as stiff and white and starched as her uniform and cap.
"Hendrick Boone?" Jones inquired wearily.
She nodded. "Mr. Boone is in Room Eighteen Hundred."
"Hah!" said Jones triumphantly, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Can I see him?"
"No. Mr. Boone is allowed to receive no visitors except the members of his immediate family. His condition is very serious."
"I'm not a visitor," said Jones. "I just want to look at him. Don't worry--it's not curiosity. It's my job. I was hired to find him."
"He's here."
"Look," said Jones. "How do you think that would sound in my report? I can't say I think he's here, or he's supposed to be here, or somebody by his name is here, or you told me he's here. I got to know he's here. I've got to see him. They're not paying me for guessing."
The nurse regarded him silently.
"Just a peek," said Jones. "Just open his door and give me a squint. I've got his picture and description. I won't say a word to him."
The nurse picked up a precisely sharpened pencil, opened a leather-bound notebook. "Your name, please?"
"Jones," said Jones.
"Your first name?"
"Just Jones."
The nurse looked up at him, and her lips tightened a little.
"All right," said Jones quickly. "Don't get mad. You asked for it, and that's really my name--just plain Jones. J. P. Jones. See, my mother had a lot of kids, and she always thought she ought to give them something fancy in the way of first names on account of there being lots of Joneses around. She named 'em Horatius and Alvimina and Evangeline and things like that. But she began to run out of names pretty soon, and she had an awful time with Number Twelve. She said: 'If there's any more, I'm not going to all this trouble. The next one is going to be just plain Jones.' So here I am."
The nurse wrote in her book. "Address?"
"Suburban Mortgage and Trust--New York City."She closed the notebook, laid the pencil carefully beside it. "This way, please." She went along the hall to the last door on the right and, standing in front of it, turned to look at Jones. "You are not to speak to him. You understand?"
"Right," said Jones.
The door swished a little, opening slowly. The room was a small one, and the high iron