Danny’s ended with a metallic crash, a heavy thud, and a man’s brief curse. At first Danny thought it was just a continuation of the bad dreams he’d been having, but then he opened his eyes and blinked at the early morning sunlight streaming over the high window sill. Just the sunlight, way out there in the open beyond the bars, but it was a wonderful thing to know the night was over at last. While he was trying to remember where he was, and why the dreams had been so frightening, reality moved in and began to take over where the dreams left off. The bars were real. The hardness under him was a narrow cot, and every muscle in his body protested when Danny shifted his weight and propped himself up on one elbow. He was locked in a small cell—a cage actually, separated from a similar cell by a partition of bars. In this adjoining cell a man with red hair was sitting on the floor trying to pry one foot out of a tin bucket. “Worst damn hotel in town,” the man muttered. “Sometimes I wonder why I keep coming back.”
