It was horrifying. He'd been sitting that long while. His arms were cramped. His legs must have been asleep. He tottered to his feet, rocked on the near-motionless air, careened his arms, stamped, glanced down with a round and dreadful focus of his eyes, caught his balance, and looked triumphantly at Dave. "You're kind of forcing my hand," he said. Dave stood up, too, then--very quickly, and without tottering. Stood up--and looked at his watch. "I mean, too, of course, Paul, that if you go--I'll also go. I'll try for you--and standing, like this--we'll go together. You see--you have no choice but to go in, or take me along. And there's only about a minute left." I went closer. "Dave, for the love of God!" My voice was a cackle. "If this thing has to be gone through with--I'm the guy. After all, Dave--I've only got a little bit left anyhow! Get down, for Christ's sake--and let me get up--" Dave hardly glanced at me. "Be quiet, Phil. Stay where you are." He turned again to look at Paul. And there they stood, swaying slightly, their eyes, their wills fastened together in conflict over the simple stake of life and of death. They defied each other--against the pale-blue heat of the evening sky. A murmur came up from the street, a muddled sob, as the watchers noted the change of position, the new precariousness, and sensed the imminence of climax. The sound boiled and grew and beat the bricks all the way up from the infested thoroughfare. "Half a minute," Dave said, above the susurration. I couldn't move. Paul couldn't tear away his eyes from Dave: each instant stood alone and almost still. "Ten seconds," Dave said. And he turned around--facing nothing--to jump. A great cry escaped Paul. He toppled on the terrace--and passed out. Dave about-faced and stepped down lightly. 11 It was twenty-one o'clock, which is to say, nine that evening. Dave had eaten dinner with me and gone off to another meeting of his maestros. To look, he said, for the silver lining of the silver screen. Not even mentioning Paul. Not seeming to be affected.... Paul was in a hospital. A private hospital. The cops had wanted to send him to Bellevue for observation. But Dave had persuaded them and arranged to have my nephew taken on a stretcher down the service elevator and transported by ambulance to a safe place. I'd called Ricky and told her about it. Told her again that I'd be back in Buffalo by the following evening, in all likelihood. And I'd called Karen, my daughter, and warned her of what she would see and read when the morning papers reached her country doorstep in Connecticut. Nine o'clock. The next day would be Monday. I waited. Dr. Adams was late. The charred cigarettes piled up. At last, he phoned from the lobby. Come up. One of those psychiatrists about whom interviewers write: ... nothing of the abnormal about him; he would be mistaken anywhere for a successful businessman....