He went into the bathroom and tapped gently on the door to Boyd's connecting room. The door swung open. Boyd, apparently, was still out painting the town--Malone considered the word _red_ and dropped the whole phrase with a sigh. At any rate, his partner was nowhere in the room. He went back into his own room, closed the door and got wearily ready for bed. * * * * * Dawn came, and then daylight, and then a lot more daylight. It was streaming in through the windows with careless abandon, filling the room with a lot of bright sunshine and the muggy heat of the city. From the street below, the cheerful noises of traffic and pedestrians floated up and filled Malone's ears. He turned over in bed, and tried to go back to sleep. But sleep wouldn't come. After a long time he gave up, and swung himself over the edge of the bed. Standing up was a delicate job, but he managed it, feeling rather proud of himself in a dim, semiconscious sort of way. He went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and then opened the connecting door to Boyd's room softly. Boyd was home. He lay in a great tangle of bedclothes, snoring hideously and making little motions with his hands and arms like a beached whale. Malone padded over to him and dug him fiercely in the ribs. "Come on," he said. "Wake up, Tommy-boy." Boyd's eyes did not open. In a voice as hollow as a zombie's, he said: "My head. Hurts." "Can't feel any worse than mine," Malone said cheerily. This, he reflected, was not quite true. Considering everything it had been through recently, his head felt remarkably like its old, carefree self. "You'll feel better once you're awake." "No, I won't," Boyd said simply. He jammed his head under a pillow and began to snore again. It was an awesome sound, like a man strangling to death in chicken-fat. Malone sighed and poked at random among the bedclothes. Boyd swore distantly, and Malone poked him again. "The sun is up," Malone said, "and all the little pedestrians are chirping. It is time to rise." Boyd said: "Gah," and withdrew his head from the pillow. Gently, as if he were afraid he were going to fall apart, he rose to a sitting position. When he had arrived at it, he opened his eyes. "Now," Malone said, "isn't that better?" Boyd closed his eyes again. "No," he said. "Come on," Malone said. "We've got to be up and moving." "I'm up," Boyd said. His eyes flickered open. "But I can't move," he added. "We had quite a time last night." "We?" Malone said. "Me, and a couple of girls, and another guy. Just people I met." Boyd started to stand up and thought better of it. "Just having a good time, that's all." Malone thought of reading his partner a lecture on the Evils of Drink, and decided against it. Boyd might remember it, and use it against him some time. Then he realized what had to be done. He went back into his own room, dialed for room service, and ordered a couple of pots of strong black coffee.