"Wakey wakey, Mr Rainey."
It was the voice of someone who wasn't accustomed to saying 'wakey, wakey'. Dr Carlton was leaning over him.
"Wha'?"
"I've come to see you."
Mort sat up. He was fully dressed in a crumpled T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Dr Carlton was neat and prim. She watched him attempt to shake his hair into vague semblance of being brushed.
"Why do you want to see me?"
"I want to hear all about John Shooter."
Mort blinked at her.
"I can't understand Morse Code."
She smiled. It was a thin lipped, awkward smile. She obviously stored smiles up and only used them in nanosecond blasts of very little oomph. Mort continued to stare in disbelief. She wanted to know about Shooter? The crazy bitch could have him.
"He's this guy I made up, and now he basically is my imagination."
It was as good a start as any. Mort decided there was no way to explain about Shooter. Even he didn't know. He waited for the bored, 'oh-you're-a-schizophrenic-murderer' look to come into her eyes. It didn't. She looked up expectantly and gestured for clarification.
"Well, I guess I just, found it easier, to you know, be somewhere other than reality when..."
Mort stopped.
What Mr Rainey? When?
Shut up.
When SHE LOST THE BABY???
"Mr Rainey? Are you ok?"
She sounded so like Shooter. Apart from the accent.
"Please, look, call me Mort."
Dr Carlton dropped her clipboard. She stared at him, mortified. Good word, thought Mort, dryly. Her mouth opened and closed several times. Eventually she managed a high-pitched, noise, wavering like a dodgy radio signal. Dr Carlton, pale enough usually, now looked like a corpse that had spent an abused life at the bottom of a river into which factories deposited overflow. A 'death mask' would not have been strong enough to describe it. There could be no blood in her head.
"What? I just asked you to call me by my first name. It's just, Shooter calls me 'Mr Rainey' all the time..."
He broke off as she raised a long, white, shaking finger at his shoulder.
"Hello, Mr Rainey."
Mort began to turn. He heard a pathetic gasp noise as Dr Carlton fainted and lolled onto the floor. Then, his peripheral vision caught it.
The edge of a brim of a hat. In imaginary black.