The Crooner didn’t respond, but his eyes twitched. Somewhere within that withering, black-veined corpse, Matthew seemed to have had heard him.

“Matthew, can you understand me?”

Matthew raised his head and gasped with a series of putrid exhalations. Gabriel took the man’s face into his hands and gently cradled the cold, clammy, tissue-paper-skinned skull, not sure why he was doing it but feeling that he needed to. Looking down at the face of a man who, not so long ago, had been singing, hollering, and full of life made Gabriel feel as if he were wading through mud. He stared into those black eyes, looking for a sign of recognition or a spark of life.

“I’m here,” Gabriel whispered. “I’m going to help you. Please, just stay alive. Don’t give up. I’m going to help you, I’m going to… going to—”

Matthew’s charred eyes became moist. Tears escaped from their corners.

Gabriel’s own eyes welled up. “Don’t give up, Matthew.”

Matthew emitted a sharp breath that sounded as if shards of glass were passing through his lungs. Gabriel gripped the man’s head in the crook of his precaution gown-protected arm and squeezed Matthew’s skeletal hand. “I’m here, Matthew.”

The Crooner’s eyes widened into near-lidless circles. Matthew’s lips struggled to move, and his darkened tongue rolled around in his open mouth like an eyeless worm.

“Talk to me, Matthew, please.”

The Crooner’s eyes narrowed. His tongue pushed forward, licked his lips, then slid back in. The poor man relinquished his valiant struggle. He became motionless, nothing but a corpse with a heartbeat.

“No!” Gabriel cried. “Goddammit, you old fool. Don’t give up. Don’t—”

Heavy footsteps pounded outside the door. Gabriel swung around and accidentally kicked the leg of the bed. His toe throbbed. The door swung open and crashed against the wall with the impact of an earthquake.

“Gabriel Schist!” Natty shrieked. The short, obese woman stood in the doorway, hands planted on her hips. She moved into the light, her thick finger pointed at Gabriel like a dagger. “Get away from Mr. Lecroix right this instant!”

She had a new tattoo on her wrist, a cursive “imma do me.” Gabriel took off the gown and gloves. He dumped the protective wear into the wastebasket. Natty glared at him as if he were a dog that had left his personal detritus on the rug.

“I’m sorry,” Gabriel said.

“Oh? Are ya?”

“I need to wash my hands.”

Natty groaned. She crossed her meaty arms and tapped her foot. Tanya approached from the other side of the hallway, but Natty waved her away.

Gabriel pulled Matthew’s curtain back into place then went into the bathroom and washed his hands in scalding-hot water. “I don’t know what came over me.” He grabbed a paper towel to dry his hands. “I thought—”

“That’s a very mean thing you were doing to that poor man, sweetie,” she said in a nauseatingly saccharine tone. “Torturin’ the poor guy when he’s sick. C’mon, Gabe. How would you feel if he did that to you?”

Gabriel scowled. “I wasn’t—”

She groaned. “C’mon, honey pie. Let’s leave your friend alone for the night, okay? How about we getcha back to your room, and we lay you down for a nice cozy nap?”

Natty stretched on a pair of gloves, stomped over, and put her hand around Gabriel’s back. She started pushing him out the door.

He grabbed his cane on the way out. “Natty, I was just trying to see if Matthew was—”

“Yeah, Gabe. Sure. A nap would be real nice, wouldn’t it? It sounds wonderful to me.”

“Look, Natty—”

She grabbed his hand and began walking him down the hall. “Quiet, honey. It’s bedtime now. Here, follow me. Just—”

Gabriel threw her gloved hand away. “Get the hell away from me,” he snarled.

“Oh, honey—”

“My name is Gabriel, goddammit! I’m a human being.”

“Oh, look who’s got an attitude now, huh?”

He stepped back. “Get away from me.”

Natty closed the distance and put her arm around him again. Her face was only inches away from his, and her breath smelled like raw onions. “Gabe, sweetie—”

Gabriel jerked away and hobbled down the hall toward his room. He knew he was sealing his reputation as a troublemaker, a difficult resident, a demented fool who shouldn’t be left alone. The incident would definitely be noted in his behavior chart. He heard Natty stomping off behind him, wailing with self-pity as she loudly complained to the RN on duty.

“Did you hear the way that asshole was treating me?” Natty whined to the RN. “Can’t you just rub some ABH on his neck and calm him the hell down?”

ABH. Ativan, Benadryl, and Haldol. The staff considered that combination to be the perfect cocktail to calm down a problematic resident. The stuff would knock him off his feet, so a nurse could drag him back into bed and leave him there for the night.

“Well, he seems to have calmed down,” the RN replied. “He’s going to his room. See?”

Gabriel paused in the doorway of his room to listen in a bit longer.

“Yeah yeah, but that fucker is gonna get himself in big trouble.” Natty snorted. “I swear, if he keeps this bad behavior up, he’s gonna be stuck on Level Five in no time.”

“I heard that the administrator is trying to rename Level Five. He wants us to call it the Guggenheim unit now.”

“Googa-what? Ah, whatever. It’ll always be Level Five to me, and Level Five was made for dudes like Schist. Nobody ever pushes me around that way! I’m a damn good LNA. All the other residents love me.”

It took everything Gabriel had not to turn around, walk back, and spit in Natty’s face. At least Natty had a reputation for complaining, so it was highly unlikely that one bad report from her would get him moved to Level Five. He went into his room, sat on the bed, and put his head in his hands. He pictured Matthew’s inhuman eyes and the tears that had struggled to escape from them.

He looked up when someone knocked on the door. He expected Natty, Tanya, or maybe even the RN on duty coming to give him a warning. Instead, Victor stood in the doorway, wearing another tuxedo and an eye-crinkling smile.

“Good evening, my dear Gabriel. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Victor chuckled. “Most people sleep at this hour, but you don’t strike me as the sleeping type.”

Gabriel felt a strong temptation to confide in Victor, but he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. He barely knew the man. “Sleep does sound nice. But with all this horrible stuff happening, I don’t know.”

Victor leaned against the jamb, arms crossed in the posture of a younger, stronger man. “Is that so?”

“Yes. Victor, I have to ask, why the tuxedo? Every day, I mean. It looks like you’re going to a funeral.”

“Well, I’m at a funeral.” Victor shrugged. “We live in a nursing home, don’t we? This building is nothing more than a place for all of us to celebrate our long, hopelessly drawn-out funerals, isn’t it? So I say, if every day is a funeral, why run away from the inevitable? Why not have a good time?”

Gabriel nodded and suppressed a yawn. “Listen, I appreciate the company, but what made you decide to stop by?”

“Chess. Care for a game, Mr. Schist?”