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was
complaining after the strain of the previous day, the despair that had made him
decide to sell his creativity. The explosion, the hit to the head, the police
station, Vicky in a coma; his head was spinning after everything that had
happened yesterday.
    He
plodded into the bathroom. Looking at himself in the mirror, he opened his eyes
wide and raised his eyebrows. Squeezing his eyes open and shut he thought he
looked more like a shabby hobo Gazing out at him from the mirror was a thin
young guy with dark hair and piercing grey-green eyes. The nose was a bit on
the large side, so were the ears, and the cheeks were slightly hollow. You
couldn’t really call him classically handsome, but the girls always saw
something in him and they probably knew better. Even the small scar on his chin
didn’t spoil his looks, instead it added a touch of the brutality that was
lacking. Isaac made a slipshod attempt to tidy up his hair, but it still stuck
out rebelliously. He glanced at the uneven covering of stubble on his face.
“Unshaved as always, and I’m not going to shave,” he thought.
    “Women
like stubble for some reason,” was the first clear thought that came to him.
And at the same time they complain that it’s prickly.” He tried to imagine what
it was like when you stood at the mirror first thing in the morning and a girl
walked up to you and ran her hand over your unshaven cheek like in an
advertisement. But that was on television, that sort of thing didn’t happen in
real life. Hop into the bathroom, grab a quick wash and dash off to deal with
business at hand. The few girls Isaac had dated before had never done that.
    To
get your cheek stroked, you needed someone you loved. A girl who loved you, not
just some casual hookup. There hadn’t been any genuine loving in Isaac’s life
since his sister had been ill and he didn’t wonder where it had gone.
    No
one needs a boyfriend with problems, especially one who’s almost a beggar.
Everyone has enough headaches of their own; they can do without anyone else’s.
After discovering Vicky was ill, Isaac didn’t have the time or the money or –
more importantly, the desire to have a genuine affair.
    He
had to make do with the girls – the drunk ones – who came his way at the
Stars’N’Bars. Hints were quite often made and he was given to understand or
even told straight out that he was cute, that he had handsome features, that he
was tall and well built. In fact he wasn’t all that tall, but that didn’t
bother Isaac, it wasn’t a problem in his life. No one needed to explain to
Isaac what the female tourists had in mind when they said that sort of thing to
the first young guy they met. Take everything given, as they say, though he was
always short of strength after a long shift.
    Isaac
awoke from his thoughts beside his computer, with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“Oh, coffee! When did I manage to make that? Some things get done on autopilot,
as if you have your own barman sitting inside you,” Isaac chuckled to himself,
but he wasn’t feeling cheerful. “Stop. Why go straight to the computer? That’s
a habit.. I have to call the hospital and find out about Vicky.”
    “Grace
Kelly Hospital, how can I help you?” the phone said in the familiar rapid
patter.
    “My
name is Isaac Leroy…” Isaac cleared his throat, his voice was hoarse. “I’m calling
to find out about the condition of my sister, Victoria Frank, age twenty-two.”
    “One
moment” He was put through to a different number, introduced himself again and
was reconnected again. Finally he heard the duty nurse in the right department
rummaging through her papers and the clatter of a keyboard and then a
considerate voice chirped in his ear.
    “Monsieur
Leroy,” Isaac could never get used to that ceremonial form of address, and he
winced every time. “Monsieur Leroy, your sister has stabilized and the worst
has passed. At the moment she is listed as serious but in stable