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        I didn't know if I'd sold Dr. Afzul. If he dug into his own pocket for the cigarettes, he was at least partially sold. If he didn't, it was time I began looking for another boy.
        I'm not the worst judge of human nature, though, and on the way back to the ward I couldn't help feeling that for the first time in a long time I was once again in at least partial control of events.
        

2
        
        TWO DAYS LATER ONE OF THE NURSES IN DR. MOBLEY'S group lingered near my chair during the usual walkthrough of the ward. She waited until the group was huddled around Willie Turnbull and Dr. Mobley was taking bows for the change in Willie's attitude and personality, then hurriedly slipped me a carton of Pall Malls before she rejoined the staff.
        I concealed the cigarettes by shoving the carton up the loose sleeve of my robe. I waited until routine had returned to normal in the ward before I left my chair and hid the carton under the pillow on my bed. Cigarettes weren't taboo on the ward, but Spider Kern controlled their appearance. I wanted a carton that Kern hadn't obtained for me.
        At night I kept the carton between the coil springs in the bed, removing it each morning after ward inspection and replacing it under the pillow. It was Spider Kern's weekend off-each attendant had. one weekend off in three-and I needed his presence for the next move in my chess game.
        Kern was back on Monday, and so was Dr. Mobley. The psychiatrist stopped in front of my chair during his tour of the ward. He was flanked by the usual tight semicircle of doctors and nurses. Mobley seldom got closer than ten feet to the inmate to whom he was speaking. The technique made sense in that it was a preventive against sudden assault by a man roweled by the up-tight monotony of long days in the prison wing of the hospital. There could have been another reason, too. Four days out of five that we saw him, Mobley's nose was cherry-red. I had almost decided that Mobley's standoffish tactics were employed to keep from calling undue attention to his bourbon breath.
        "Glad to hear you're finally responding to treatment, Arnold!" the chief psychiatrist boomed at me.
        Responding to treatment was a joke, but I had a reason for showing response. "I'm… feeling… better… thank… you," I said.
        There was a murmur from the group around Mobley. The majority of them had never heard me speak before. I could see Spider Kern eyeing me speculatively from his position five yards away. Spider hadn't known I was "responding," either. I spoke because I felt I had to demonstrate to Mobley that he wouldn't be wasting the institution's money by okaying plastic surgery for me. From the way he beamed I felt I'd made my point.
        Dr. Afzul wasn't with the staff. I hoped it meant he was already en route to New York for the surgeons' convention. Now that matters had started to show progress, I was anxious to accelerate the process.
        Spider Kern came back to my chair after Mobley and his entourage had left the ward. I'd been expecting him, and I spoke before he could. "Something… for… you… under… my… pillow," I told him.
        He stared suspiciously, but he went away without saying anything. He was too cagey to go directly to my bed. I never did see him go to it, but the next time I looked the cigarettes were no longer under the pillow. In the next couple of days Kern's attitude became markedly more friendly.
        I knew he hadn't really changed. He still had it in for me because of what I'd done to his buddy, Blaze Franklin. Nor had my attitude toward Kern changed. The cigarettes for him were intended to make a point. Since Kern controlled the normal channels for introducing merchandise onto the ward, a man who could flash a carton of cigarettes without Kern's assistance couldn't be entirely without friends beyond the locked doors. And if that were true, then the man shouldn't be