It was late afternoon when Miss Dolly Freeman saw him come running up from the cold low-ground waving his arms, Aubrey Gilliam from across the frozen creek. Miss Dolly drew water from the well and gave him a dipperful in the yard when he got there. Aubrey drank in large gulps, belching.

�Is something awfully wrong, Aubrey?� She remembered the hounds singing all night and half the day. �Did Little Billy Boy get worse?� Aubrey rolled his blue eyes round and exhaled steam. So Billy Boy was finally dead. It seemed a curse upon the Gilliams. �Aubrey, I feel sorry for you... first Liza, now Billy. Come inside, have something strong to drink before you catch your death of cold.� They were both thirty years old; they had known each other all their lives, Aubrey and Miss Dolly.

�Dolly, this thing has me undone... I don�t know what to do!�

�Hurry on inside before you catch cold,� she said. She took his arm and led him to the living room where a fire lay on the hearth. �Have you notified Mr. Ben Cohen yet?� she said. �He�s the coroner... with Billy Boy dead, I�m sure he�ll want to know.�

�I�ve told nobody but you, Dolly. I went in with his dinner things a while ago and found him dead... same as Liza when she died. I knew he was dead soon as I went into the room.�

Miss Dolly fixed coffee and served it with brandy from last year�s apples. Aubrey drank his noisily, and she was pleased to see some of the color come back to his cheeks. He was still a fine specimen of a man, Miss Dolly mused, although twelve years of marriage to Liza had hollowed his cheeks and took some of the curl from his brown hair, and somewhat softened that devilish gleam in his blue eyes. But he was, yes, still a man that�d make a woman stand up and holler just from the low-down way he could wink his eye and grin.

She saw him staring far off into the fire, as if he was thinking about something deeper and more sorrowful than the death of his young son, and she said, by way of bringing him back to her, �Mr. Cohen is sure to want to know.�

He waved his hands helplessly. �Dolly, I�m all broke up. I couldn�t sit down to write a letter now. You know how to go about this, you wrote when Liza died.�

Liza, that was the wife�s name. She died in hot summer. Miss Dolly remembered the humus small in church, how flies worried Liza�s musky florals. Nobody seemed to care, Aubrey least of all. They rushed to get her underground before she stank. But there would be no hurry with Billy; cold weather would keep him until ground could be broken. Miss Dolly sat down to the letter.

�How old was Billy Boy?�

�Just a baby boy, Dolly, just nine years old. I was counting on him to bury me after Liza died. That�s one reason I didn�t mine so much losing her. I never thought I�d be the one to bury Billy.�

To her remembrance, she had not seen him cry before... certainly not at Liza�s funeral. Thinking back, she wondered if hounds had warned of that death. She did not remember, and it seemed important to remember. She asked Aubrey.

�I think they did, Dolly. But I�m not sure, either. I seem to remember hearing them howl like they usually do when somebody�s dying.�

�But you don�t recollect for sure?�

He shook his head, and she liked the way the brown curls tumbled down his forehead. �Death�s the only thing I�m sure about any more. First Liza, then the boy, going one right after the other like that.�

�We�ve all got to go some time, Aubrey.�

Dolly finished the letter and poured more coffee. She dragged her chair to the fire with his.

�I admire a woman like you, Dolly. Living here by yourself, no man around to do for you. Don�t you ever get lonely sometimes? Don�t you ever get to wondering who�s going to bury you decent?�

Miss Dolly grunted. �Decent, indecent... I don�t think it makes much difference, once you�re dead.�

Aubrey bent and spat into the fire. �Oh you�re a hard one all right. Everybody around says the same thing, the way you can sit down and dash off a letter to Mr. Ben Cohen without batting an eye. Oh that Dolly�s hard as nails, that�s what everybody says.�

She would not meet his eyes. �Aubrey, you�ve got the letter for Mr. Cohen... isn�t that what you came for? And I�m sorry Billy�s dead. But it�s getting late now, and I�ve got a mess of things to do...�

He gave her his cup. �I�m not through yet, Dolly. I�d like some more coffee, I�ve come here to arrange something with you.�

His devilish eye made her nervous; she slopped coffee into the cup and gave it back.

�It only took you thirty years to grow from a sassy little girl to a sour old woman, Dolly. Marriage would�ve kept you sweet and young. No, don�t frown like that. Listen to what I have in mind.� He grabbed her hand in his large paw and squeezed it.

�Don�t, Aubrey. I�ll have nothing to do with your crazy plans.�

She broke from his hand and went to the window. The evening sun was dropping behind the distant mountain. Aubrey came and stood beside her. �Is it crazy because I want somebody to bury me, somebody strong? Didn�t I tell you about the fellow that died out in the mountains, up in some hunting cabin in the middle of the woods? He died all alone out there by himself. When they finally found him, his body had started to rot... what was left of it. Weasels and rats, all other kinds of animals, had started eating...� He twisted and squinted in her face, but she looked at the cold ground, drew her eyes away.

�You told me the same story,� she said, �when we were children together in school. You told me when Liza died. You�ve told it to me a thousand times.�

He sighed, and she saw his big chest swell like a barrel before his breath came blowing against her neck with a gentle caress, bringing the vintage of mellow apple orchards to her wide nostrils. A real man, she thought... a real fine figure of a man.

She said, �Aubrey, you just want to make sure that I�ll bury you in case everybody else is dead.�

He put his hand on her shoulder, but drew it away when she stiffened. �You�re smart, Dolly, always have been. Well, Billy Boy�s dead... I�d put all my hopes in him. I didn�t want to have to come to you this way. But you�re the only one left I can depend on.�

She turned, went back to the fire. He followed her, and they sat down together on the settee.

�I thought all your talk was done in fun!� she cried. �I remember in high school... Lord, that�s been a long time ago...! Dolly, you said, I want you to promise to bury me when I die. I thought you were proposing marriage, but when I mentioned marriage, you just laughed and married Liza. Well, you see what it got you?�

There was a round swimming in her head; it seemed the culmination of an old dream.

Aubrey squinted at her. �Did my marrying Liza hurt you a whole lot, Dolly?�

Her hands trembled like an aspen; she hid them inside her apron. Could she tell him about the �sickness� she went away for? Of creeping down hospital corridors in the middle of the night, searching for an end to the misery of living without him, without his wanting her? Of how her heart had burst like a popcorn seed over fire when she finally came home and found that Aubrey and Liza were already married and that Liza was going to have his child? She wanted to tell him all about the meaning of being hurt, but the wound was still an open sore, and she would not trust herself to speak.

Aubrey fell to his knees in front of her in the old-style country fashion. Filled with a vague horror of what she knew he was going to say, Miss Dolly squeaked, and tried to scoot away from him across the settee. But Aubrey held her this time with a damp hand, and she could feel the excitement of his pulse beating rhythm with her own.

�Dolly girl, I want you to marry me.�

Suddenly, her eyes were full of tears. Her voice broke into a high laugh. �Aubrey, that�s a cruel thing to say! Asking me to marry you after all these years...�

�You were my first love,� Aubrey said contritely.

�Then why�d you marry Liza instead of me?� It was a question she had wanted to ask him for a dozen years.

He laughed wryly. �You really want to know?� She nodded, and he went on. �Because Liza was a right strong woman in her young days. You remember how strong Liza was? Why, she could almost split a log in two with one chop of the axe, almost like any man.� He glanced sideways at her. �You always struck me as being kind of peaked, Dolly. I wanted me a strong woman, somebody�d who�d live a long time...�

�To bury you when you died,� Dolly finished for him. �And yet, I�ve outlived not only Liza, but your son as well.�

He nodded. �I have to give it to you, Dolly. You were a whole lot stronger than I figured. I�m always willing to admit when I�ve made a mistake. I sure should have married you instead of Liza.�

He was still kneeling in front of her, and when he nodded, the brown curls again fell to his forehead. But this time, she did not find him beautiful and appealing, and the thing that she did feel surprised her.

She wondered if the man she had loved and cried for and gnashed her teeth over for all these years was really a man after all.

It struck her that she had been in love with a devilish ghost, a dream with brown curls and a wicked grin. But not with a man.

The thought was so funny that she felt almost like laughing, and she would have, if she had not remembered the tragedy of loving a selfish boy, and the terrible thing it had done to her.

�Aubrey,� she said, �don�t you know how to love? Did you really love Liza when you married her?�

He shrugged. �I guess I did.�

And she knew with a certainty that he did not. A man knew how to love. A boy like Aubrey could only guess. Suddenly, she almost despised him.

He snickered, in boyish embarrassment. �But, you know, as long as we�re being honest like we are, I�ll tell you something, Dolly. You know, there were times when I�d look at Liza and I�d find myself wishing she was dead.� He dropped her hand, and shifted his position on the floor at her feet so that the firelight burned like blue coals in his eyes. Dolly felt grandmotherly, and tired. She wished he would stop talking and leave her be so that she could forget the sour taste of loving a little boy dressed up like a man.

�Aubrey,� she said sternly, �you better get up off the floor before you catch cold.�

But he went on talking, as if he had not heard her. �If you want to know the truth, Dolly, I gave up on Liza way before she died. I saw her getting weaker and weaker, and I knew I�d made a bad deal. So I turned my attention to the boy. When Liza finally died, me and Billy Boy was out fishing together. I�d never really got along with the boy,� Aubrey said. �So I was trying to get to like him... to get him to like me... so I wouldn�t have to die alone somewhere...� He scrunched around and gazed at her in the fetching way, Dolly thought, of an old hound appealing to its master. �Dolly,� he said, �you see now why I want you to marry me? You do see, don�t you? You remember my telling you about the fellow that died out in the mountains, up in some hunting cabin in the middle of the woods...?�

But she could only stare at him in stark disbelief while he told the story again.

�Dolly?�

�Aubrey, you don�t want a wife! What you need to marry is an undertaker, somebody with the whole setup for burying dead people.�

But he seemed not to understand the horror that she felt, for he said again, �Dolly, I love you. I want you to marry me. I don�t care what you might�ve done in the past...� It was a strange thing for him to say, for him to accuse her.

For one tense moment, there was naked silence in the small cabin room as they faced each other with the squat settee between them � he, with his head cocked to one side and his blue eyes inspecting her quizzically, wondering if she understood the full portent of what he had said; Miss Dolly, straight as a ramrod, suddenly content and without restlessness for the first time in twelve years.

So, he wanted her to marry him. �I�ll marry you, Aubrey. I think we ought to have a drink to seal the bargain.� Her laugh was rich with triumph. �We�ll drink some of my real good brandy, what I keep for special occasions.�

He would have followed her to the kitchen, but she stayed him with an imperious hand. �Wait by the fire,� she said, using much the same tone as she might have used with an old hound that whimpered behind her and got underfoot.

Aubrey waited by the fire as she had ordered him to. But she took such an uncommonly long time in the kitchen, that he became restless; and he called to her in a loud voice. �Dolly, you know what I was doing when Billy Boy died?�

She came back to the living room then, carrying two glasses of amber-colored brandy. She handed one to him and set hers near him on the arm of the settee, while she stooped and poked in the fire.

�When Billy Boy died, Aubrey? Why, weren�t you with him?�

�Naw... I was out courting, trying to find me a wife.�

She threw another log on the fire. �At that hour of the morning?�

�How did you know he died this morning, Dolly? I didn�t say a thing about the time Billy Boy died. For all you know, he might have died this afternoon, just before I came running here.�

She chunked a few more times in the fire, her head tilted to one side, secretly watching him from the corner of her eye.

�Drink your wine, Aubrey,� she said pleasantly.

�How did you know, Liza? Is it because you sneaked over there and smothered little Billy Boy with a pillow, the same way you smothered Liza?�

�Drink your wine,� she said.

But he kept on talking. �You�re a strong woman, you�d have no trouble suffocating a frail sick woman like Liza, somebody as small as Billy Boy.�

She turned just in time to see him switch the glasses of wine.

And she knew then that it was all over, that the anguish of a dozen years would soon come to an end.

�Aubrey,� she said, �it seems that I�ve hated you forever. And in the middle of my hate, there�d come a remembrance of when I didn�t hate you... of when I loved you... like the clouds that roll back and show a pinch of blue sky on an overcast day. But those moments were rare, Aubrey. Most of the time I hated you. And that hate spilled over, the older I got, until I hated Liza and Billy Boy, too.�

�Why?� he said.

�Because they were yours, or a part of you.� She picked up the wine glass he had traded with her, and drank the liquid down at once. �You thought I�d poison you, Aubrey?� She smiled scornfully. �Poison is a weak woman�s way. I want you to suffer a long time, Aubrey, and to die alone, like the man in the cabin you�re always talking about.�

He jumped to his feet and tried to embrace her. �Dolly, it doesn�t matter to me what you did before,� he cried. �I need you now... I need someone!�

She pulled away. �You�d marry me any way, thinking like you do that I murdered your wife and son?�

�I�m not accusing you, Dolly. It�s just that Mr. Ben Cohen did an autopsy on Liza after she died that way. He found bits of lint in her lungs... he said that could only have come from her being smothered by a pillow. I knew a long time ago how she died.�

Dolly nodded. �And Billy Boy?�

�Somebody killed him the same way... this morning, like I said... while I was out looking for me a wife... Did you kill them, Dolly?�

�I killed them,� she said.

He seemed to go weak in the knees. �I�d never have believed it, Dolly. Why? Why would you want to do a thing like that?�

�Because of the baby, Aubrey. You know what my sickness was, why I really went away that summer after high school? To have a baby, Aubrey... your baby. I didn�t say anything about it to you then because you�d already announced that you and Liza were going to get married.�

He shook his head in disbelief. �A baby,� he said. �What happened to it?�

�Dead,� Miss Dolly said. �I was away for nearly a year, if you remember. I was in the hospital when I heard that you and Liza had married. The baby... your baby, Aubrey... was born a little while after that. I was in the hospital... I tried to kill it then, but there were too many doctors, nurses, too many people watching. So I waited until they sent me home... and I smothered it one morning with a pillow. I couldn�t bear the shame of coming back here with a baby, and me not being married. The Sheriff there said it was an accident, the baby�s being smothered...�

Aubrey slapped her. He slapped her so hard that her hands flew up and the empty wine glass shattered around her feet.

�All right, Sheriff,� she heard him cry, �you boys can come on in now.�

And then, surprisingly, as she tried to clear her vision, she saw Mr. Ben Cohen and the uniformed Sheriff with his two deputies coming through the door. Witnesses, her mind dully recorded. He tricked me into confessing with witnesses listening outside in all that cold...

�Whew, boy, I thought you�d never get her to admit those murders,� Mr. Ben Cohen said. �Lucky thing you came to me this morning when you found the boy dead.�

Vaguely, as if from a great distance, she felt the Sheriff�s heavy hand on her shoulder, and heard his voice drawling, �Dolly Freeman, in the name of the Commonwealth, I arrest you for the murder of Liza Gilliam, William Gilliam, and the infant child born to you at Sedgewick Hospital on the 12th of December in the County of...�

I wiped the blood off my hands with the big blue and white-spotted handkerchief. The white design spreading out from its center looked like a crushed sea-slug. They come in red colors, too. I wished this one was red. I kept wiping my hands on it like the splotches on them were hot, crimson tar. I got them pretty clean, except around the callouses on my palms. I don�t know why I worked so hard at cleaning my hands. They got all slippery again when I raised the Dunlop kid�s head in my cupped palms. All my anger and madness flowed away, seeming to keep pace with the life fluid draining from him. I never would have thought the kid had so much blood.

I knelt beside him, one shoulder pressed for balance against the big steel mooring bit which had cracked his skull. The stern deck vibrated beneath my knees with every lift of the churning screw as the ship pitched to a swell. I looked up at the three big men grouped around me. I stared hardest at Stemweather.

�You shouldn�t have hit him so hard, Stem,� I said. �He�s dead.�

The big man gave a consulsive start at my words. So did the other two, as if jerked by the same string.

�He had it comin�,� growled Stemweather, trying to sound tough to cover his fear. He was scared; I could smell it on him. He added: �Any guy would cheat his own shipmates got it comin� the same.�

�You don�t kill a man for cheating at cards,� I said.

Stemweather took a step towards me. So did Nova, his brute-faced watch partner. The third man, Joe Pigglia, hung back like he always did, but he would side with the winner.

�Who you think you are, of a sudden?� bellowed Stemweather, waving a big fist at me. �You were��

Whatever he was about to say was interrupted by the sound of running feet thudding along the wooden cat-walk which ran over the deck cargo on the after deck. Two slim young Filipinos from the stewards department came to a sudden halt in the passageway between the docking bridge and bulwarks. Filipinos are crazy about fights. These two must have heard the scuffling and shouting and decided to watch the show. They had no stomach for this one. They cast one quick, frightened look at me and the bloody-faced kid in my arms and another at the three big men clustered around us, fists clenched, and then took to their heels. Stemweather turned to Nova. �Get after them,� he growled.

Stemweather was a leader and Nova a follower. He didn�t even nod as he took off after the frightened Filipinos. They�d never tell anyone what they�d seen tonight, I knew; not after he got through telling them what would happen if they did.

Stemweather squatted beside me and thrust a rough hand inside the kid�s shirt. As he did so I thought I heard a faint whimper, like a gull�s cry. I shuddered, wondering if it was the sound of the kid�s departing soul. The big man apparently heard nothing.

�You sure he�s dead, Sam?� he asked, his voice gruff.

I nodded, watching him. He shoved me to one side, and grabbed the kid under the shoulders. He looked up at Pigglia.

�What y� standin� there for? Grab his feet, Piggy.�

Pigglia blanched, backing away. �I won�t have nothin� to do with this,� he squealed, his pink fleshy face screwed up in fright.

�You best do what I tell you,� warned Stemweather, his voice flat, an almost cutting edge to it.

Pigglia made some more noises in his throat, the kind you hear in a pet shop, but he took hold of the kid�s legs. Together they lifted the body and began walking toward the far end of the stern, careful to avoid the neatly-flaked mooring lines which are so treacherous underfoot. Stemweather turned his head toward me, the bright moonlight glittering for a moment on his offset eyes.

�You, Sam,� he said, jerking his head at the pool of blood at my feet, �clean up this mess. Break out a fire hose. When you call the engine room for water, tell �em we had a acid spill on deck. It�ll be dry by mornin�.�

I nodded, my throat suddenly dry. I wiped my hands again on the soggy handkerchief. They felt sticky and I discovered that I was holding them away from me like I wished they weren�t mine. I watched, hearing them grunt as they heaved Dunlop�s body to the rail. They gave it a push. I winced at the sound of the splash as it hit the sea. I could almost see the crimson tinge appear in the rolling froth of water surging out from the threshing screw. An image of the kid�s limp body, rolling and twisting in the turbulent wash, dead eyes staring up at me from the battered white face, was to haunt my mind until the day I died.

After that, I wouldn�t let myself think about it, the Dunlop killing. I trained myself not to think about it. Sometimes though, especially at night on lookout or lying in my bunk, I�d feel the picture of it trying to creep into my brain and force me to take another look. Sometimes I did get this look, and it never was any prettier than the real thing. Most of the time I�d find I could push it away, like I had little hands in my skull, and then I�d keep it away by staring at a star or the lighted tip of my cigarette until my eyes ached and I felt the memory crawl away into the darkness. Nights like these, when it happened, I�d find I was covered with sweat and had a pounding in the back of my head. But one day it all came back in broad daylight, as clear as if it happened yesterday.

This was on a day hot even for a San Pedro summer. The desert-fried Santa Anna blew down on us from the dry hills wavering in the distance, its dust-laden wind drying and cracking my lips. My eyes were bloodshot, burning from the reflected glare of the bright sunlight glancing off the white paint of the amidship house. Visible heat waves shimmered about the steel decks and superstructure, which first absorbed and then rejected the vast stores of heat discharged by the burning sun. The ship was like a giant oven releasing a continuous blast of overheated air. When someone told me it was coffee time, the traditional twenty minute break accorded seamen, I moved wearily into the shade and sagged on the cap rail by the gangway, Frisco jeans and T-shirt plastered to my skin with sweat. The old prune-faced bos�n, a Creole from Louisiana, stood next to me, body bent in the age-old posture of the seaman standing a step away from another trip or escape to shoreside.

We both watched a big, curly-haired guy coming up the dock, noticing how he kept a wary eye on the loaded, and empty, pallet boards rising and falling at the ends of the runners extending from out-thrust, low-hung booms. He walked like a fighter, light and easy and always on balance. He swung the two big suitcases in either hand as if their weight was nothing to him. I guessed, as the bos�n probably did, that he was the last minute replacement for an ordinary seaman who�d unexpectedly quit.

�He no seaman,� grunted the bos�n.

I didn�t pay much attention to the old coot. He said the same thing about anyone who hadn�t started under sail. Still, for some reason, his remark made me curious. I turned my head.

�How can you tell?�

�Too proud,� he said.

As usual, I was sorry I�d asked. He was always saying things like that; giving you an answer that wasn�t an answer. Besides, if he thought the guy coming up the dock was too proud to be a seaman, that meant he thought I had no pride. I�m touchy that way. I take everything personally when it comes to someone being better than me. I think I�m as good as the next guy. Maybe I didn�t finish grade school or learn what fork to use in a fancy restaurant, but all those fancy people weren�t born knowing everything either. Feeling the familiar resentment rising up within me in a sour flood, as it did whenever I got to thinking like this, I gave the bos�n a disgusted look and turned back to watch the guy with the suitcases.

Still, as he drew closer, I found myself agreeing with the bos�n. There was something not right about the look on his face. He was staring up at the ship with the hungry gaze of a captain approaching his first command. It wasn�t natural for an ordinary seaman, that look. Usually a new man looks like someone who has just signed a contract without reading the fine print. �The bosn�s right,� I thought. �This guy smells as wrong as a beached whale.�

I watched him closely as he paused at the foot of the gangway, looking up. Suddenly I felt the hair at the back of my neck stir. There was something familiar about his square-jawed face and the set of his hard, blue eyes. And then I knew! This guy was a bigger copy, much bigger, of the Dunlop kid whom I�d last seen slipping over the stern of a ship almost three years ago. I�d seen him more recently in my dreams, too, and that�s why the sight of this guy tied a chain of square knots through my guts. My sweaty T-shirt became clammy, as if a cold breeze had begun blowing at my back.

�I don�t like �m,� croaked the bos�n, who had been watching the new man, sizing him up with his wise monkey-eyes. He shifted the bulge of snoose under his lip. �This one, he got the smell o� death about �m,�

�Why don�t you go peddle your shrunken heads somewhere else?� I snarled at him. His words didn�t untie any of the knots in my belly. I�d caught a whiff of the open grave, too.

The bos�n stared at me, like he was going to say something else, and then shrugged bowed shoulders. Maybe the superstitious old Creole can read my mind, I thought. More likely my thoughts were written all over my face like a navigation chart. I couldn�t even be sure if the old clam-mouth knew more about the Dunlop kid�s death than he would ever tell anyone. If he did, and had sailed with the kid at some time, then he would guess that the guy with the suitcases was the brother. You couldn�t tell with him. But if he knew that much, then he�d figure, like me, that it was pretty odd that the first time Stemweather, Nova, Pigglia and I shipped together since the kid was supposed to have been lost at sea, the older brother should turn up on the same ship. I wondered, without any doubt that it had happened, how much he�d paid the other ordinary seaman to quit. Beyond that, I thought, still quivering inside, it didn�t take much imagination to figure why he�d want to sail with the four of us. I edged away as he climbed the gangway with long, easy strides. His deep voice, a kind of low growl, tightened the knots in my belly.

�The bos�n or deck delegate around?�

�I bos�n,� I heard the Creole answer. �Come, I take you to delegate. You be on 12 to 4 watch.�

The canny old bos�n kept Dunlop apart from the four of us the next two days in port. The one time I stood next to him in the forepeak, waiting for the storekeeper to hand us our tools or paint, he ignored me. Another time, when we were loading stores, it struck me that he never uttered a word throughout the usual kidding and complaining the gang always set up when the stores were late and delaying our knocking-off period. He made no effort to be either agreeable or disagreeable to anyone. For the first time I began to wonder if I�d been wrong about him. I was really whistling into the wind that day.

Stemweather, Nova and Pigglia spent a great deal of time clustered on the deck in tight shifting knots, whispering together and watching Dunlop through narrowed eyes. I could see that they had no doubt who he was or why he was aboard. Stemweather hauled me into their circle when I happened to pass close by the second day after Dunlop�s arrival.

�We gotta watch him, Sam,� he growled, rapping a big knuckle against my chest while Nova and Pigglia nodded agreement. �He�s after the four of us. You�re with us, ain�t you?�

�You better go back to school, Stem,� I growled, not looking at him. �Your arithmetic is all wrong.�

He grunted like I�d pounded a fist below his belt line. I heard the ether two suck in their breath in surprise. �So that�s the way she rolls,� said Stemweather, his voice a husky whisper.

�That�s the way she rolls,� I answered, my voice grating in my throat. I shrugged my arm free of his big hand and walked away, heading amidships. The small of my back tingled until I�d rounded the corner of the house. But I�d steered clear of them for the past three years, and had no intention of altering my course. Not now! Not with a collision in sight.

Next day was sailing day with all its controlled confusion. The shouting, profane longshoremen closed the hatches and the ship�s carpenter, with an ordinary seaman to assist, dogged them down with his heavy air gun. We squared up the booms, securing them aloft with runners and guys, flying them. At ten o�clock that Thursday night, October 12th, we let go the lines, cast off the tug outside the breakwater, bound for San Francisco, less than a day�s run to the north.

Early the next morning I was tired and irritable as my flashlight picked a narrow yellow path up the foredeck toward the foc�slehead. �Four o�clock is a lousy time to go on watch,� I thought. I had the first lookout, and was on my way to relieve the 12 to 4 man. I could see his dim figure in the bow, outlined against the luminous grey sky. A prickle ran up my spine when I recognized Dunlop. I turned off my flashlight, coming to a stop as far away from him as the narrow confines of the bow permitted.

�Okay,� I said, my voice sounding gruff.

�Nothing in sight,� he answered in the litany of the look out.

I shifted my feet on the wooden grating, waiting for him to leave. He continued to lean on the apron, staring straight ahead, smoking a cigarette. His silence struck me as unfriendly.

The sky overhead was like a shifting, upsidedown, grey-black sea, with the silver of moon a reflected steely blade slicing in and out of the murky billowing sea-clouds. Through the rents it carved, a glittering star would peer down and then blink closed like the eye of a hidden watcher in the night. The dark running waves beneath the bow pounded against the hull like the hollow thuds of an undead corpse battering at its coffin. Watching these waves, the way the splayed, black fingers at their crests seemed to reach for me as the bow dipped closer to the surface of the sea, I wouldn�t have been surprised to see the Dunlop kid�s dead white face staring up at me from one of the narrow, dark troughs. Everything about me seemed to have turned drab and gloomy. The decks and bulwarks, hemming me in, were grey and black with pockets of inky shadow. The greyness and blackness of it all, the sea, the sky, the ship itself, seemed to seep into my skin, tinting it the same dull, dead shade. Behind me the faint whine of the wind through the taut guys and stays reminded me of the Dunlop kid�s dying whimper as I held his battered body in my arms. When a loud, human-sounding grunt, followed by a loud splash came from beneath the bow, I fell back with a frightened gasp before I realized it was a porpoise broaching the water after it became tired of tickling its tail against the pursuing stem of the ship. Afraid that my action might have given away my thoughts to the silent man next to me, I turned warily toward him. I saw the moonlight glint off his eyes as he turned to look at me.

�Crazy creatures, aren�t they, Hansen,� he said in his deep, purring voice, watching me.

�Yeh,� I answered, making my voice curt. And then I added; �There�s still some fresh coffee in messhall if you want some.�

He ignored my hint; just leaned there, smoking his cigarette and watching me. Finally he straightened, and for some reason my heart gave a lurch.

�You sailed with my kid brother.� It was a statement, not a question. There was no avoiding a reply.

�Yeh,� I felt my stomach muscles contract. He was silent a while longer. When he next spoke, it was like he was talking to himself, and he�d forgotten I was even there.

�He was a good kid. A little wild, but in time he�d have settled down. We thought going to sea would be good for him.�

I didn�t say anything. After a while he turned those glittering eyes on me.

�I heard you tried to help him.�

�Who told you that?�

�Oh, I talked to a couple of Filipinos who saw part of it.�

I knew what he meant by �it�. �So�, I thought, �the Filipinos had talked.� He must have paid them plenty to overcome their fear of Stem, Nova and Pigglia. But no amount of money could make them testify in court; I knew that much for sure. No matter how hard Dunlop tried, the official verdict on his brother would remain: Lost at sea. I kept my silence, waiting for his next words. Some of the tension had drained out of me.

�Yes,� he repeated. �They told me how you tried to help him. I owe you something for that.�

Just that. No recriminations. I relaxed a trifle more. �Forget it,� I said, making my voice gruff.

�Not until you have a drink with me in San Francisco.� He was silent, like he had more to spill but didn�t know where the scuppers were. I guessed he wasn�t enjoying this talk any more than I was. He turned his head away again, and I could feel that he was nerving himself to say something more, something important. �Besides,� he added, his voice sounding muffled, �you might be able to tell me something more about how it happened; something you might�ve forgotten at the inquest.�

I felt my neck muscles tighten. When I spoke, my voice had a squeaky sound to it.

�I told everything I know,� I said, ashamed of the fear I could hear in my own voice. �I don�t know anything else.�

�Think about it,� he said, his voice gone suddenly soft, but with a dry whisper to it that rustled through my bones. �I wouldn�t want to make a mistake.�

A �mistake�. There it was! I knew the mistake meant the evening of the score for his brothers death. There was no more need for guesswork. I stared at his dim outline in the darkness, trying to hold it up in my mind�s eye and measure it against the bulk of bone and muscle represented by Stemweather and his two hulking shadows. Despite the heavy list to Stemweather�s side, I found that Dunlop didn�t seem to unbalance much. Still, I knew no one man could stand against them.

�You haven�t got a chance,� I said, blurting it out before a sick feeling in my belly told me I�d given myself away. I don�t know what made me say it. I pressed my clenched fists together, waiting for his next bitter words.

To my surprise, he didn�t answer right away. Maybe he�d guessed all along that I knew more than I�d told at the Coast Guard investigation. Whatever his game was with me, it didn�t seem like he was going to do anything about it right now. He straightened his shoulders, rubbing at his bruised elbows where they�d pressed too long against the cold steel of the apron. I couldn�t see his face in the sudden blackness that had drawn across it when the moon and stars were blacked out by a blanket of dark cloud, but I could feel him staring at me.

�No chance?� he asked, his voice calm again. �Oh, I don�t know, Sam. I could run into them one at a time.�

I felt myself tense at the meaning of his words. �One at a time,� I thought. Like he�s alone with me now. Was he warning me that he hadn�t separated me from the others as he had led me to believe? In the dark I began to clench my fists.

�See you,� he said unexpectedly. Turning, he vanished into the night. I was glad to see him go. I�ve never been afraid of a man before.

The ship made its arrival time in San Francisco right on the nose, though not without the usual manipulations in speed which always caused friction between the skipper and the engineers. If they have as many arguments over atomic fuel as they do over a barrel of oil, I don�t want to be around to get my marrow cooked on a nuclear ship. Anyway, we docked just below the Oakland Bay Bridge at the company pier. It was a good tie-up for once. The pilot knew his onions, or maybe he was just lucky. But, this time, instead of rushing to get cleaned up and dressed to go ashore as I usually did, I found myself dragging my feet in every move I made. Actually the reason for my lagging was that it seemed to me that I had to duck about half the deck department. I wanted to run into Stemweather and his goons about as much as I wanted to meet Frankenstein and his two sons in a dark alley. That went for Dunlop, too. I hoped that by the time I left the ship, they�d have gone; all of them.

I wasted a lot of extra toothpaste and soap. Dunlop was waiting for me at the foot of the gangway. I hardly recognized him. He wore a suit sharp enough to carve his way into a tailors� convention. I felt the old, familiar stab of jealousy that hit me whenever I ran into someone born into an advantage I never had. He wore his clothes like he�d invented them. My blue serge, which I�d always thought was pretty sharp, seemed to sag and wrinkle and grow old on my back without any middle age in between. What burned me up was the smug way Dunlop wore his suit, as if no one else would look as good in it, even if they could afford the tab.

�We can catch a cab at the gate,� said Dunlop, not even saying hello. He didn�t look at me directly. His eyes fastened on the top of my head like he was measuring me for a hat.

�Okay,� I grunted, staring at a point below his chin. I couldn�t help noticing his tie clasp. I�d never seen one like it. It was a small gold leaf, half the size of your little fingernail. The heavy bar of gold holding my own tie began to crush my chest. �Mine probably cost more,� I remember thinking. But the thought didn�t seem to help a bit.

We turned and began walking along the dock. We both read the destinations stamped on the stacks of cargo piled opposite each hatch of the ship as if the shippers depended upon us for delivery. I usually cut through the warehouse. It was shorter, but I guessed it was too dusty and noisy for Dunlop�s high-faluting taste, or maybe the fumes from the racing forklifts were too rank for his lordship�s dainty nostrils. I knew I was thinking like a kid, but I found myself hating him for making me feel like a slob without saying a word. If someone calls you a slob to your face, you can do something about it, but if he makes you feel like one without saying a word, it leaves you with a helpless anger deep down inside you. That�s the way it is with me. That�s the way it was when I saw Dunlop�s girl for the first time. I was wide open for a sucker punch, like you always are when you�re sore. Whatever it was, at first sight she landed one on my chin that knocked me kicking. No matter what it was, no matter how dumb and impossible it was, it was a score for her, and one that I couldn�t forget, even after she turned on me.

It happened unexpectedly, without warning, this first look at Dunlop�s girl. He�d just raised his arm to hail a cruising cab when her voice halted his arm in mid-air. He looked like a guy who felt a gun being pressed against his back. I turned and saw her first. She was waving as she stepped out the door of a big black limousine, about a block long. Right away I could see how the sound of her voice calling his name could make him do the Statue of Liberty bit.

I�ve known plenty of good looking dames all over the world. I�m sort of big and rugged, and they seem to go for my looks. The only thing is, it never lasts like it does with other guys. This girl in every port bit never worked for me. I guess I�ve got the right chemicals but they�re all mixed wrong. I keep experimenting, but it doesn�t seem to change anything. Women just never hang around me very long. Once they take off, they never come back like they do in the movies. The truth is � I never much cared. At least that�s what I told myself. But it�s a rotten thing for a man to always have the woman walk out on him. As I said, there�s been a lot of them, but never one like this dame � Dunlop�s girl � crossing the cobblestones toward us like she�d been ducking trucks and forklifts all her life.

�Your girl?� I asked, turning to Dunlop, my voice strangely hoarse. I didn�t have to ask; I knew.

He nodded, a dazed look on his face. He was staring at her like I was, only maybe different. To me, she was high society, with the horsey set�s standard equipment. High cheekbones with deep hollows beneath; wide set eyes with more shadowed hollows beneath; a mouth painted on by a famous artist; and that arrogant stride they all have that makes clucks like me get out of their way. This walk of hers showed she was no lean strip of bacon like the suit she wore tried to make out. I�ve got a habit of sort of undressing a girl with my eyes, but with her it didn�t work. I don�t know why I couldn�t make it work with her. I knew she had the goods underneath those expensive clothes.

I saw her face kind of light up at sight of Dunlop. She was so beautiful, half-running toward us the way she was, that I found myself jumping to attention like one of those tin soldiers at West Point. The way her face changed when she saw me standing beside Dunlop was like being hit with a falling boom. It was only a split-second change, that look that came over her face, but I saw it and it registered. I told myself that it was disappointment, that look, disappointment that Dunlop wasn�t alone, and that she would have to hedge her greeting. But I�d seen that expression on a woman�s face before. I knew what it meant. In a glance she�d seen in me someone who didn�t belong. Why kid myself? Either I lacked something they demanded in a man, or had something they didn�t like. They could sense it right away, all of them.

When they came together, Dunlop and her, I turned away and walked off a step or two. I watched them, though. I found myself pretending to say the same things to her Dunlop did, as if she were my girl, not his. When he kissed her, I don�t mean I could feel the kiss, but my nerves jumped just the same. The whole thing was crazy. I didn�t even hate Dunlop for kissing her, for holding her in his arms, even though I found myself aching to do the same thing. I guess maybe at that moment I was even a little grateful to him for giving me the chance to get so close to a girl like her. When he introduced me, and explained why I was there, and that I had been a friend of his kid brother, I don�t know what I said in return. I do remember every word she said, though. It wasn�t much, but I�ll never forget it.

�It�s very nice to meet you,� she said, smiling like she meant it. That�s all she said to me right then, but in my moment of madness it meant a lot to me. If I hadn�t seen that flicker of instant dislike a moment ago, I�d have thought she meant what she said. �That�s the way these bluebloods are,� I thought. �They can talk to a two-headed man like he was normal.� I used to say they were all phonies. With her it didn�t seem to matter.

I must have said �yes� when they asked me to have a drink with them at the St. Francis Hotel. If I�d been in my right mind I�d have said no rather than find myself the champion of all third wheels. If I hadn�t been really smashed out of shape by the sight and sound of Dunlop�s girl, I�d have said �so long� after one drink. Anyway, the next thing I knew we were climbing out of that big, sleek boat of a car, and I was shuffling my feet across the lobby of the hotel. I was blinded by so much class and can�t to this day remember what the place looked like. I stumbled in and out of an elevator behind them, and then almost tripped on the nap of a carpet which covered the floor of a cocktail lounge which made me blink. It was the sort of place where you expect to see Cary Grant or Liz Taylor or some other smoothy looking up at you from a table. All the people there looked like that, except me. I could feel everyone staring at me like they wondered who�d let the bars down.

We sat down, and while she and Dunlop chatted I studied her more carefully than I�d ever studied anything in my life before. With my eyes I tried to drain some of her qualities into me. I pressed every feature of her into my brain, where it never faded, even at the last. I watched her mouth, the way her lips moved and changed shape while she talked or smiled; and then I�d watch for the flash of the even white teeth beneath or the glimpse of a pink tongue-tip; next it would be her eyes and the way they sparkled and darted from side to side as if she couldn�t get enough of seeing Dunlop head-on. And I saw the change come into those eyes, too, before I sensed beneath their light talk that they were quarelling. I knew without listening what it was all about. She wanted him to give up his mad plans, get off this ship we were on, and come home to her and his family. It was a familiar old story to me. But it was then that I sensed that there was a shift of interest to me. I wasn�t dumb enough to misunderstand. She was angry and woman-like turned to the nearest man to demonstrate her anger. But it didn�t make any difference to me. I basked in her pretended interest, ignoring Dunlop�s glares. I knew I should have left that table; left them alone. Instead, for the next two hours as we sat in the St. Francis, I made myself drunk with looking at her, with absorbing her into my veins and pumping her through my heart. When she rose to leave, she faced Dunlop with a cold look. He stood looking down at her with a stubborn expression on his face.

�I�m so sorry I must go,� she said, turning to me with that warm smile she had. My heart trembled under its impact. Without another glance at Dunlop, she turned and walked away. We both watched her go. I don�t know how he felt, but me � something in me seemed to stretch out after her like an elastic band, and break with a �snap� you could almost hear when she passed out of sight into the waiting elevator.

We sailed the next day for Yokohama. The weather turned foul as soon as the ship�s bow nosed under the Golden Gate Bridge. The ship began to pitch and roll and the crew to curse and groan, especially the steward�s department. The building tension between Dunlop and Stemweather�s clique became as unpleasant as the weather. Dunlop made no bones about it now; he was openly asking for trouble with them. He allowed doors to slam in their faces; when hauling on a guy, he�d jab one of them with his elbow; or he might shoulder one of them as he passed in the narrow inside alleyways of the house. I knew, we all did, that he�d gone too far when he spilled a pot of grey paint down Stemweather�s back while they were painting the king posts from Bos�n chairs.

The rest of the deck gang stayed clear of the building storm. They were afraid of Stemweather�s group, and didn�t accept Dunlop as one of them. The old Creole bas�n just shook his head, looking gloomy. There was nothing he could do. He could find no fault with Dunlop�s work, which he performed with a kind of mechanical perfection rather than with the easy motions of the experienced seaman. I had a feeling, a very uneasy one, that this day, October 19th, was to be the showdown. I�d seen it happen before, and the signs were the same. At every chance Stemweather and his two ever-present shadows gathered together, muttering and glaring at Dunlop�s unconcerned back. They tried to rope me into their circle again, but I sheared off. After that I didn�t care much for the way their mean eyes began to fix on me, either.

�Ah nuts!� I�d say to myself, in an effort to head off my uneasiness. Then I�d start picturing what might happen when I told Dunlop�s girl what happened to him; how she might react if I made myself out a sort of hero who�d tried to help him, and failed. Impossible as these dreams were, and with my knowing it, I kept on with them.

This evening I came off watch certain the human explosion would take place. It had to, all the fuses were burned down to the nub. My guess was Stem�s gang would go for Dunlop tonight, while he slept. I�d seen it happen like that before. The best way for me to keep clear of the whole mess was to go out on deck and stay there until it was over.

I went down to the messhall for a cup of coffee, climbed the ladder back up to the main deck, carrying my heavy mug, and headed for the stern. I thought I�d be alone back there, but when I rounded the custom shack, I heard the sound of soft music. Dunlop, clad in a pair of khaki shorts, for the weather had now turned warm, sat perched on a neatly flaked mooring line, a small transistor radio in one hand. Light from two wall brackets highlighted the smooth bunching of muscles on his big frame. He appeared not to see me. I couldn�t very well walk away, so I sat on a bit, trying to gulp my coffee fast so I could leave on the excuse of getting another. It was lousy coffee, too.

�Nice night,� I commented without enthusiasm. I felt I had to say something. The silence was brittle, almost as if a sudden noise might shatter it.

He didn�t answer, and I cursed in silent embarrassment for speaking. Then I saw that he was listening to some sound, or sounds, other than the music. A shadow stirred in the darkness under the wings of the docking bridge. They came at him.

Nova came in first, a grin on his brute face. His close-cropped head was hunched between his shoulders. He swung a marlin spike in one hand like a club, holding it by the pointed tip. Reversed, it became a vicious dagger. Pigglia came next, Stemweather shoving him from behind. He held a whiskey bottle by the neck, shoulder high. Stemweather moved into the light, big fists out in front. He turned his glittering cockeyes on me.

�You dealt yourself out, it looks, Sam,� he growled at me. �You�d best stay out, hear?�

I nodded, my throat dry. Dunlop threw me a contemptuous look from where he now stood. Nova used his fractional inattention to spring forward, swinging the marlin spike at his head. It seemed impossible that he could miss, but he did. Nova staggered back, howling, as the transistor radio shattered against his face. Pigglia fell back with a squeal. Stemweather grabbed the bottle from his hand with a curse. The bloody-faced Nova came in again, the spike reversed in his hand. Dunlop threw a straight punch at him, the back of his fist up, with the knuckles of the first finger joints extended. The terrible blow caught Nova just under his blunt nose. There was a scream, a crunching sound, and a gout of blood. I think we all knew Nova was dead before he fell face forward to the deck. Pigglia screeched again, in mortal fear, tumbling to the deck as Stemweather thrust him aside with an oath.

�Got you, by God,� roared Stem-weather, swinging the bottle at Dunlop�s head. Dunlop ducked with incredible speed. The bottle shattered on a steel bracket which held an overhead storage space. Before Dunlop could recover, Stemweather, grunting with the effort, thrust the broken shard of bottle deep into his side. Stemweather, face twisted in a triumphant grimace, started a disemboweling slash down and then across Dunlop�s stomach. Dunlop grabbed his thick wrist and twisted. Stemweather�s hand slipped from the neck of the shattered bottle which remained embedded in the other man�s side, blood pouring from its spout. At the same moment both men shifted their grasp to lock their hands about the other�s neck. They stood facing each other, locked close together, glaring into each other�s eyes, each attempting to throttle the other. With their loud breathing stopped, the silence accompanying the death struggle between them served to intensify the horror of it all. But the grisly scene had not yet played itself out. A scuffling sound at the feet of the two dying men drew the eyes of the three of us.

The forgotten Pigglia, the fallen marlin spike in his hand, was rising to his feet to prove himself the most dangerous of them all. His piggy eyes darted and probed at the distorted faces of the two men who were slowly killing each other. A thread of saliva hung from a corner of his mouth. I watched him, frozen to my seat on the bits, as his gimlet eyes attempted to figure the probable winner. Like a shark, he would turn and rend the one who first appeared to be mortally hurt.

The eyes of the two struggling men rolled to watch Pigglia and the lifting spike in his hand. Both had bared their teeth, chests heaving for the air which could not pass tight-squeezed larynx�s. Their bulging eyes fastened upon the spike in Pigglia�s hand as if it hypnotized them,

Dunlop suddenly appeared to gain strength from some unknown source. He arched his back and his great corded arms began to strain upward. Stemweather�s big boots began to dance on the steel deck in an odd shuffle, as if he swung from the end of a short rope. Faster and faster his feet danced. His coarse face began to darken and turn blue, and the swollen tip of his tongue to emerge from between his teeth. Pigglia had found his wounded shark. He swung the marlin spike. It crashed against Stemweather�s head with a dull thud. And then it seemed like the whole crew was milling about us, shoving and shouting and cursing.

I liked being a celebrity, though I wouldn�t depart this now half-completed trial smelling like a rose. The district attorney�s pretended asonishment at my sitting idly by, during the death struggle, as I claimed had seen to that. Later, I began to emerge something like a hero when the two Filipinos took the stand and testified that they�d seen me trying to hold off the other three, Stemweather and his gang, from the badly beaten kid brother some three years before. That is, I was an almost hero while my court appointed attorney questioned them. But when I took the stand, the district attorney ripped me wide open. �Why didn�t you report the murder of the younger Dunlop to the proper authorities?� he thundered at me. The newspaper boys and girls didn�t seem to care. They loved me. I was good copy they said.

I felt good, too. Dunlop�s girl had given me a quick, warm smile of recognition when she first entered the courtroom. She sat in the row of seats behind me, now that Dunlop had finished testifying, about four seats to my right. I knew she didn�t mean anything by the smile, not really, but I went for it anyway, chain and anchor. My insides trembled every time I stole a look at her.

A breath of strange perfume eddied about my head as they were swearing the shrinking Pigglia in on the stand. I snorted when they addressed him as Mister Pigglia. I caught his darting, button eyes in a meaningful glance before I turned to see who belonged to the red fingernail tapping me on the shoulder. The perfume smelled stronger when I faced a pretty blond reporter in a tight red dress. She was with one of the wire services, I knew, for she�d interviewed me earlier with about twenty other reporters. Her green eyes were sparkling with excitement.

�I think I�m free to offer fifteen hundred dollars for an exclusive,� she whispered bringing her soft curls close to my cheek. �How about it, Mr. Hansen?�

I leaned my arm across the back of the long bench until I felt a pleasing softness against my elbow.

�Can�t you raise the ante, honey?� I asked, grinning at her.

�Aw, come on, Sam,� she pleaded, pouting and widening her big eyes at me. �It�ll be a real feather in my cap if you do.�

I pretended to fall for her baby doll look, enjoying myself.

�Okay, honey, it�s a deal.� I felt the tremor of excitement ripple through her breast where it touched my arm. �Come up to my hotel after the trial.�

�Oh, thanks Mr. Hansen,� she gasped, sounding like a kid waking up at Christmas.

��but I�m warning you,� I added, watching her, �it will take all night.�

The light dulled in her green eyes and her face went stiff and cold. �Sure, Sam,� she said, her voice metallic. �I��

She suddenly fell back in her seat with a gasp which was echoed from every mouth in the courtroom. I became conscious of Pigglia�s thin squeaking voice, gaining in volume as he spoke. A hush fell over the court. I found myself holding my breath. I began to feel sick; rotten sick.

��and they told me to stand watch near number seven hatch,� Pigglia was squealing. �I saw them walk back� He paused to cast a frightened look at me ��and then I heard a shout and a � you know � a blow. I was afraid someone might�ve heard. I ran back�� Again he paused, looking like a frightened slug as he stared at me.

He ran his tongue along his thick lips like they were coated with glue. He hunched up on the witness stand like a fat praying mantis. He looked up at the judge, his insect voice squeaking on. �I ran back to the stern, you know, to tell them to keep it quiet. I... I saw young Dunlop getting to his feet, holding his jaw. H... Han... Hansen�� He pointed a dramatic finger at me, and his voice suddenly screeched through the court like a saw hitting a nail. ��Hansen was standing over him with his fists ready... I tried to stop him�� He had tried, the fat slob. ��but he shoved me away and began hitting the Dunlop kid like a crazy man. And then...�

James Garth removed his wraparound sunglasses and parked them by the drink at his elbow. Earlier the sun had been strong enough to crack the patio tiles, but now it was mid-afternoon; the glare had diminished; the water in the pool looked blue instead of too-bright silver, and he could enjoy the sight of his wife in the water, sleek as a seal and almost as brown.

She disappeared, came to the surface at the pool�s edge beyond the tiled walk, and reached out a slim tanned arm. Her hair was several shades lighter than her skin.

�Toss me my swimsuit, honey.�

Garth grinned. �Which half?�

�Both.�

�Get �em yourself.�

�What will the neighbors think?�

�If they�re watching, they�ve already seen it all. If they aren�t, they don�t know what they�re missing.�

She made a protesting face that became a grin and climbed out, naked as Venus rising from the sea. And that, Garth thought, is what we can�t show in the domestic version � we have to cut away to a startled parakeet and then come back for a daring shot of the girl�s legs scissoring across the screen. We even have to cheat on the export prints. I ought to get a shot of her just like that, climbing unconcernedly naked out of a sunlit pool and see if� But then he remembered, and cut the thought off.

Her swimsuit was two small wet strips of cotton that lay by the foot of the chaise he was stretched out on. She stooped to pick them up. The corners of her eyes crinkled. �Thank you for the possessive look.�

�You�re quite welcome.�

She flicked the swimsuit at his toes as she went by and started for the house. Garth said casually, �Is that how Tony Trenton looks at you?�

She stopped, turned back to him slowly. She gave him a long cool stare but he could see the flush spreading under her tan. For a second he thought she was going to throw the wet bikini at him. Instead she curled her lip faintly and turned and walked away. Without hurry. Without sudden selfconsciousness.

Lots of poise, he thought, in spite of the blush. Poise and firm flesh and sleek supple lines. Killing her was going to be a crime against beauty.

He picked up his glass, cupped both hands around it to enjoy its pleasant chill, then ran a fingertip around its edge. The finger was long and flat and brown, backed with stiff gray hairs. The hand it belonged to was big and square. A fighter�s hand. But fighters grow old. James Garth was fifty-eight.

Fifty-eight, and embarrassingly rich. Fifty-eight, with the short wide heavily-muscled body beginning irreversibly to slacken, the never handsome but always powerful face growing blurred, its outline lost. Fifty-eight, and planning the murder of his lovely young wife.

He recognized with distant irony that he wasn�t too well equipped for the job.

The man in the street seemed to think that a big movie producer could do anything he wanted � or get it done for him. Like some gang lord of the Twenties. Boys, my wife of three years has become a liability to my self-esteem, get rid of her. Because of the business he was in, and the sometimes unstable people he had to deal with, Garth had long ago established good contacts on both sides of the law. He had only to pick up his phone to retain a pimp, a pusher, or the most discreetly reliable abortionist in the country. But I don�t suppose, he thought calmly, I�d know how to hire a small boy to throw a stone through the window of an empty house, much less someone to commit murder.

But of course that wasn�t the problem, because he had to kill her himself. And she had to realize it. That knowledge, appreciated for a few minutes, or moments, would reveal him to her in a new light. What a pity that he should have to kill her to gain her respect.

�When you�re an old slob of fifty-five like Jim Garth, and you marry a twenty-year-old sexpot, you gotta expect to get cheated on,� Tony Trenton�s voice had said through the louvered window of the men�s room in the Administration Building at the studio. He had an unstagily beautiful voice that carried and was instantly recognizable. Without it he would have stayed in the ranks of the TV series pretty-boys instead of making it to the top in wide screen and color, where he was big business. Women loved him. He loved them back with the forthright ardor of a goat in the spring.

�You just felt her up a little,� another voice said. There came the squak of a tap and the sound of running water. �You talk like you made it already.�

�Gimme a coupla days,� Trenton said. �Hell, it�s not as though it�d be Carol�s first time out...�

And it wasn�t. The first one had been two years ago. At least she had told him it was the first. Garth had heard about it at a cocktail party, one of those noisy professionally anxious affairs where only the waiters were calm and only the few really big men, like Garth, could talk without screaming. He had found himself standing next to Myrna Hartley, over-dressed as usual, her long face awkward and tragic, her large yellow eyes strangely empty. Her husband was a set designer with one Oscar to his credit out of three nominations.

She had said, �I can understand what my husband sees in your wife, Mr. Garth, but I can�t understand what she sees in him.�

Garth smiled. �I�ll ask her, and let you know.�

But the smile and the pose of tolerant humor had been hard to maintain when she went on, �Because he�s really not much good, you know, at that sort of thing,� eyeing him over the rim of her glass with large yellow eyes that were at once pitying and disdainful.

Fifty-eight, he thought now, is not fifty-five, just as fifty-five is not thirty. You would think a man could relax into the milder demands of age instead of fighting them, he was just regretting, in an abstract way, the sad fact that came to the forefront of his mind each time he looked at his wife � who enjoyed him, but also, at least on occasion, others too. The fact: that everyone seemed to think that the years that had slowed him down physically had also unmanned him, making him an object of pity and contempt, a sad old slob lusting with increasing helplessness for young flesh.

That first rime � if it was the first time � after the talk with Myrna Hartley at the cocktail party, he had asked Carol as soon as he got her home. She had been contrite and compassionate, which had taken him aback. She had spoken to him of loneliness and boredom, reminding him of the brutal schedule he had held himself to for the preceding six months, and said that when Jack Hartley started in on her she had welcomed him with something akin to desperation. Because he had actually talked to her. He made love with conversation � about the weather, the Dodgers, Hollywood, politics, gossip, anything � so that when one day he slid a hand up under her skirt it seemed like the pleasant and logical development of a rewarding relationship. He had made himself a real person to her, and therefore, in some way, she had become more of a real person to herself. Was she sorry? Only that she had hurt him, she said, and he didn�t think she was enough of an actress to have faked that kind of candor, regret, and affection. He had had to admit that he had been neglecting her, that he had never imagined that her conversational range went beyond pop music, movies, and local scandal; and then, in the second year of their marriage, he began to discover that she was more than young and lovely to look at and an enthusiastic bed partner. She was a person, and he liked her.

Which was why her second infidelity (if it was only the second) threw him into such a deadly fury. The man was a handsome muscular Adonis who played bit parts when he was lucky and spent most of his time at the beach with the other surfing bums and lived on unemployment compensation and what he could sponge. He had found them together in the back seat of her car, parked in their garage, like a couple of kids. The muscle-boy had started to make a blustering speech, had caught a good look at Garth�s face and run.

�Who is he?�

�A boy I used to know. Before... you know. Before we were married.�

Garth said brutally, �Before you got a contract by satisfying the curious appetites of a casting director named Michael McHenry.�

�Yes.�

�I�m sure you�ll have a very good explanation this time too.�

�I liked him. I mean I still do. I don�t mean I�m in love with him, I just like him, I just wanted to be nice to him.�

�Your friends are welcome in our house, our pool, even in the back seat of your car. But there are certain privileges, you silly little bitch, that are reserved exclusively for me. I thought I�d made that clear.�

�You knew what I was before you married me. You�d been sleeping with me long enough.�

�You are not what you were before I married you. You are Mrs. James Garth.�

�Yes, Jim.� She looked away. After a while she said slowly, �Do you want me to go away?�

He had said in a different tone, his fury subsiding before a surge of humor as unexpected as it was tolerant, �No, damn it, I want you to behave.� And that had been the end of it.

Except of course � it hadn�t. It had been the beginning, for James Garth, of an uncomfortable train of thought.

What was a man supposed to do in exchange for a romp in the hay? Pay well. Fine, he paid well, and especially well when it was worth it. But that wasn�t enough, was it? Not for the girls who tried the starlet route. They wanted more. A chance to be a star. Stars had been made that way. Or perhaps rent on a pad where, among luxurious gifts showered down by the benefactor, they could entertain younger and more appealing men. Perhaps what Carol get � a husband with more money than her mind could really encompass.

A crook of his finger had been enough to get her away from the casting director, McHenry. After all, Garth was a much bigger wheel, which made him a better investment for her time and energy. He had proposed to her in a moment of whimsy and five minutes later she had come out of what had looked like shock and said yes and married him two days later, in Vegas. What had she been thinking of? Money? Big cars, a big house? A quick divorce and a fat fortune to play with for the rest of her life? But she had stayed. And cheated. And stayed.

And cheated. How many times, really? He didn�t know. Twice admitted, by now presumably a third, most likely somewhere here in his own house; and he would never know if there had been others and what their number was. But twice was enough; the likelihood of the third was acknowledged by her blush and that made it as good as a fact. Because what counted was not how often she lay down for other men but what she thought of him for allowing it, for not preventing it, or perhaps for making it inevitable.

Each time he thought on it his mind went almost blank with stupefaction. How insignificant he must be in her regard if she could so totally ignore his standing in the eyes of everyone involved � his own, hers, and those of her lovers and their endless chains of confidants. That poor old bastard Garth, so hung up on that tramp starlet he married he lets her get away with it right under his own roof. The fact that he could still enjoy her company, and that she could still enjoy him in bed, were irrelevant because unbroadcast and because both were now becoming suspect to him. Perhaps he enjoyed her company because she was young and pretty and played up to him. And if she could enjoy Myrna Hartley�s husband she could probably enjoy anyone, even the unconventional McHenry.

If she had asked for a divorce, he thought, she could have had one without any fuss, taking half he owned plus alimony. Or she could have before the first time. Without argument. After the business with Jack Hartley he would have proved a little harder to deal with but she could still have had her freedom and a substantial settlement without having to get nasty about it. But the afternoon with the over-tanned, over-muscled bit player had moved Garth into a different emotional gear. The affront to his virility had begun to rankle, and he had begun hearing odd words dropped here and there that had not been intended for his ears.

Strange, he thought: here, I am, contemplating a status murder. I am going to kill her because she had reduced me in her mind and in the minds of many of my friends, a larger number of my enemies, and a still larger group consisting of people I neither know nor care to know, to a groveling thing without pride. I have to kill her to show her that I am not. To erase the image from all those other minds I would have to make this a public execution with consequent danger to myself. This isn�t necessary. They�ll suspect anyway. So he would let them suspect, according him that much respect at least. And meantime he would be free. Physically free, not having been arrested, tried, and convicted. And most important of all free from the fear of his image in Carol�s mind, which he would once and for all have changed in the process of killing her.

Simple, wasn�t it?

He smiled faintly, wrily, and downed the last of his drink. Now all he needed to do was devise a perfect crime. He did not believe in complicated plots. Something simple. A party, with lots of people to watch her getting high. Then when everyone was gone a fast, efficient �accident� out by the pool. She would be found with a horrible bruise where her head had hit the side in a drunken fall � the precise mechanics shouldn�t be too hard, to arrange � she would have fallen unconscious into the pool and quietly drowned.

He could draw her onto the pato, put his arms around her to complement her on the party, and then explain that he was going to kill her. Since she had to be a bit high for the stage-setting to accomplish anything for him, the assurance would mean little unless it was reinforced by a carefully built up structure of memories, hints, even promises, which she would suddenly, for a few brief satisfying moments, realize were now going to be made good.

Perhaps I should start it right now, he thought, getting up off the chaise. I could go in and say, oh, something like, �Carol, darling, has it ever occurred to you that I might get tired enough of your playing around to decide to kill you?�

Just that. Just the question. And then something unrelated, something friendly and indulgent, turning her response aside. He might make love to her.

He stretched, flexed his big flat fighter�s hands, and prowled barefoot toward the house with the pleasant awareness of power and wellbeing his muscular body still gave him when it was rested and relaxed. French doors admitted him to the hall with its informal lounging furniture. He turned to the left and found her in the master bedroom. The door to the bathroom was open and there was a hint of steam in the air. She had showered to remove the pool�s chlorine from her hair and its odor from her skin. She wore a short terrycloth robe and was toweling her head briskly.

He watched indulgently. She dropped the towel into a laundry hamper, pushed her pale hair back off her face and sat down in front of her dressing table, facing him. Her face was composed and grave. He opened his mouth to speak but she was a beat ahead of him.

�I�m sorry, Jimmy. I want a divorce.�

He was briefly appalled at the way the words took the play away from him. He adjusted without effort, made a non-commital gesture with one hand. This turn might make killing her unnecessary. He would have to think it over.

�I often wonder why you married me,� he said after a moment.

�I liked you. You were very sophisticated and accomplished. I thought you were very exciting. I thought that living with you as your wife would be exciting. I was a greedy little bitch and I thought it would be lovely to have money and a lovely house with a pool and clothes and everything. It made me feel very proud to have someone like you offer them to me.�

�Did you think it would last?�

�I didn�t think about it. Oh, in the back of my head I heard this voice saying Look kid, if you don�t like it, you can always quit. You know? Nobody gets married these days without that. But still I really didn�t think. There was just you and me living in this house and it was all sort of now. There wasn�t any future. That was the future, it had arrived.�

�That was a silly notion, Carol.�

�I guess it was. I�ve... well, grown up in three years. I�m terribly sorry for the things I�ve done wrong. It�s very strange � I don�t know quite how to put this � but I don�t think I made a mistake marrying you, just that it would be a mistake to go on.�

�I see.� His smile took on an ironic twist.

�No matter what I do � or don�t do � you�ll never trust me again. We can�t live like that.�

�Maybe not. I suppose you�ve made out a nice long list of the things you�ll want? This house? Fifty thousand a year? Maybe a��

�Nothing.�

��nice big Rolls Royce, with a Mercedes to keep it company.�

�No nothing. I don�t want anything.�

He said after a long moment, �What?�

�I�m sorry. Truly. I don�t want anything. It wouldn�t be fair. I just want out.�

�Out?� He said it again, in mounting incredulity and a sudden cold clutch of fear. �Out?�

She looked down at her hands, saw that her robe had fallen open and tugged it closed in an automatic gesture. Garth remembered his passing thought of love but now it was only an academic fact, a datum of memory. He was vulnerable � suddenly so vulnerable he had no choice, no time for subterfuge, no time for anything but self-preservation.

His right fist caught her on the temple. She fell half stunned to the floor and then for a while pummeled and gouged and scratched ineffectively while his hands around her slim brown neck did what they had to do. How easy it was, really � taking a life. He wondered if she knew why it was happening to her. Probably not. He had never fully realized � not until now � the degree to which he and Carol had been unable to communicate. It was unfortunate that he had to forego the element of comprehension but he could not afford luxuries now � not even the luxury of avoiding the inevitable murder charge. All that mattered now was that no one else would ever hear the voice that Garth could hear in the privacy of his own skull. The voice of Tony Trenton, summarizing Garth�s decline. �She wants out so bad, the poor kid isn�t asking for a cent.�

With a final jerk the Capitol Limited ground to a shuddering halt. Two minutes later the exit companionways were open and a hodgepodge of Christmas travelers, overloaded with suitcases and gayly wrapped packages, hurried along the boarding ramp toward Union Station, their breaths white vapor darts.

Buddy Merrill watched them sourly from his stool at the club car bar until the last passed the coach windows, wondered for the dozenth time since leaving New Orleans if he had made a mistake in accepting Steve�s offer. It was a shabby way to drop in on him after three years � almost broke, and not even a gift. It was the gift that was bothering him most. After all Steve had done for him he should have...

�Another gin and tonic, sir?�

�Wha�� He looked up quickly and found the Negro bartender, teeth chalk white and glistening, smiling at him. His eyes automatically swept the club car, found it empty except for the two of them. �No; I guess not.�

He downed the remainder of his drink quickly and stood: a tall, rangy young man with untidy black hair, a pair of deep-set brown eyes and a cleft chin. He was wearing a bulky maroon boatneck sweater, dark slacks and light colored moccasins that had seen more than their share of use. The clothing along with the freckles on his nose and full cheeks made him appear younger than his 27 years. Avoiding the bartender�s dark eyes he reached awkwardly in his pants pocket, laid the last of his change by his empty glass.

�Thank you, sir... and Merry Christmas.�

Buddy walked slowly back through the empty coaches recalling, for some unexplainable reason, the first time he had seen Steve. He was in high school, 15, and Steve was waiting for him outside the principal�s office: a broad-shouldered, bull-necked smiling Irishman, neat in his Marine uniform. There were seven colorful ribbons over his left-hand breast pocket. He remembered trying to pick out the one that represented the Silver Star� The one Steve had received trying to save Brad�s life.

�You�re Buddy Merritt,� he had said, and held out a hairy-backed, hamlike hand. �I�d know you anywhere... Same stubborn chin.� Then he had smiled warmly. �Buddy, I�m Steve McMann... I was with your brother when he died.�

That had been in 1952, shortly after the armistice in Korea. And from that day Steve had been like his own brother; later father and mother when his parents were killed in an automobile crash just after he turned 17. The money that had got him through art school, the periodic checks to tide him over through the lean years had all come from Steve� And now he was coming to him with no Christmas present.

He pushed his coach door open and dejectedly headed along the aisle, so occupied with the past that he didn�t notice the square-shouldered man in the tan trenchcoat � the man with the flat blonde crew-cut and the tracery of scars on his nose bridge � watching him from the seat where he had left his gear.

�I was beginning to think you fell out somewhere in North Carolina, kid.�

�Steve!�

�In the flesh. I waited at the gate: when you didn�t show I decided to see if maybe you got locked in the John. Then I found this crap.� He motioned to the scuffed suitcase, folded tripod and a two by three-foot sketching pad. �I figured if I just took it easy you�d come to me.� His rugged Irish features seemed to explode into a grin as he pushed himself up from the coach seat. �Great to see you, kid. It�s been a long time.�

For a moment. Buddy couldn�t find any words. He grasped the outstretched hand and held it tightly, his eyes locked with Steve�s. He couldn�t help thinking that Steve McMann looked like the typical storybook private investigator. Finally he said, �Too long... I�m glad I came now.�

�Now?�

�I mean...�

�What is it, kid? You got problems?�

Buddy couldn�t look at the probing eyes.

�You�re broke! That�s it! You were ashamed to come without cash!�

Buddy shrugged and looked up sheepishly. �I couldn�t even buy a present.�

�Jesus Christ!� For a long moment Steve McMann just stared; then he began laughing, a deep, bull-throated sound that filled the coach. �Come on; let�s get out of here before I start crying.�

Then Buddy found himself laughing, too. He�d been a fool: he should have known Steve couldn�t care less about a Christmas present� It was good to be close to him again.

They jostled their way through the crowded station, Steve carrying the tripod and sketching pad, Buddy the suitcase.

�Expect you to get a lot of work done here, kid. I�m counting on you staying at least a month. You�re not going to like the weather... pretty wet, but it should serve a purpose... Keep you inside with a brush in your hand.�

�It was raining when I left New Orleans. I�m used to it.�

They pushed out the main door into the damp December evening chill and headed past a long line of taxicabs toward the passenger parking area. Overhead the sky was a dark slate gray, and as they walked the street lights of Massachusetts Avenue went on. Christmas decorations glistened.

�And don�t worry about putting me out. I figure a painting or two will cover your end of it. Anyway, I�ve got a few cracks to cover.�

Buddy glanced at him, found him grinning. He realized then that he had needed Steve. He had needed a crutch to support him while he licked his wounds and tried to convince himself he wasn�t a failure. He needed to be near someone close while he decided what he was going to do with his life� He was still thinking about himself when a gruff voice behind snapped him out of it.

�McMann!�

Buddy jerked around sharply. The man approaching was tall, appeared to be in his early 40s. He was wearing a narrow-brimmed grey felt hat and grey topcoat. Buddy�s first impression was of a state department type, but as the man neared he saw something else there: hardness showing in the man�s eyes, the square jaw set in the same rock-hard manner as Steve�s, the thick hands. Buddy glanced at Steve, found his jaw muscles hard, his eyelids narrowed. �Trouble?�

Steve disregarded the question, waited until the man stopped in front of them; then the infectious grin exploded over his face. �Buddy, this is Hardy. He likes to play tag.�

Buddy watched Hardy study him momentarily, then look at Steve.

�You were supposed to call this morning, McMann.�

Steve feigned concern, shook his head. �Damn! So I was. I�ve got a hell of a memory. I guess I had too much on my mind... Buddy arriving... You know how it is.�

Buddy saw a flash of anger in Hardy�s blue eyes.

�You�re playing a dangerous game, McMann. You�ve done your part. It�s time to step aside... Or are you thinking about playing a different game now? Maybe you�ve, decided to sell�� He didn�t finish.

Buddy looked quickly at Steve, saw that his grin had hardened. For a moment he thought Steve was going to slug the man, but he just shrugged, said: �Hardy, why don�t you leave me alone.� Then he turned and walked stiffly away. Buddy was about to follow suit when Hardy grasped his left arm. The grip was uncomfortable, and he realized the man was concealing a lot of power beneath his topcoat.

�Merrill, if you think anything at all about that thick-skulled Irishman try to talk some sense into him. He�s in over his head.�

Buddy attempted to pull away, but the vicelike grip didn�t loosen. �Look, mister, I don�t know who you are, but I�m beginning to take a real dislike to you. If you don�t let loose of my arm I just may stuff this suitcase down your throat.� It was strong talk to a man who appeared to be in twice the shape he was, but Buddy couldn�t hold back the anger boiling up in him. He was surprised to feel the grip loosen and Hardy�s hand drop away. He started to turn, but stopped as Hardy spoke. The voice was softer.

�Merrill, I believe I may have to take a chance with you... You might be McMann�s last hope.�

Buddy studied the man�s eyes. Hardy seemed to be trying to make up his mind about something. �I don�t know what this is all about, but you can be sure I�m with Steve all the way. Just get that clear.� The statement had a different effect than Buddy had expected. The last trace of anger drained from Hardy�s eyes. He nodded.

�Yes, I believe you are. But I don�t think you realize what�s going on. You don�t, do you?�

Buddy felt the puzzlement show on his face. �Christ! No wonder Steve cut out. You make about as much sense as an auctioneer.�

Hardy�s expression didn�t change. �I thought so. You don�t... And that means you�re in more danger than McMann is.� He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a card and handed it to Buddy. �Keep this. Both my home and office numbers are on it. If you find yourself in trouble... call. And tell McMann he hasn�t much more time. We can�t let Josef Dobrynin get to him.�

�Josef Dobrynin?� But Hardy had turned and was already walking away. Buddy watched him head back along the taxi stand, tried to make some sense out of the crazy quilt pattern � when he saw a man who apparently had been staring at them from the depot doorway look quickly down at a newspaper. He was a tall, slim man with unusually wide shoulders, closeset eyes and a lean, dark face with a crescent-shaped cheek scar that was dead white against his swarthy skin. The brim of his black felt hat was turned down all the way around, European fashion, and one end of a dark wool scarf hung down the front of his heavy winter coat. For a moment Buddy believed the man might have been with Hardy, but discounted the thought when Hardy walked by him without recognition � Buddy was still staring at him when he realized Steve had pulled his car up beside him.

�Come on, kid. Don�t let Hardy worry you.�

Buddy turned automatically and found Steve grinning at him. �Who was he?�

�Nobody important. Get that crap in here; we�ve got things to do.�

Buddy disregarded the proding. �Who was he, Steve?�

McMann shrugged. �Jim Hardy... CIA.�

�Central Intelligence Agency? What the hell business have you got with CIA?�

�Less than Hardy believes, kid. Hell of a way to welcome you to D.C. Don�t let it concern you...�

�According to Hardy it does concern me.�

�Oh? What did he tell you?�

�As little as he could. He said I may be your last hope... that I should try and talk some sense into you... that he can�t let Josef Dobrynin get to you.�

�Hardy talks too much.�

�Maybe. But just enough to start me seeing things. I thought I saw some guy right out of an Eric Ambler spy novel watching while Hardy and I were talking.� Steve�s reaction sent a chill along his spine. He had stiffened momentarily, then covered it up quickly with one of those explosive grins.

�Yeah? Where?�

�Right over by the depot door. He�� But as Buddy turned to point he found the man no longer there. He turned back, a foolish look on his face, and Steve laughed.

�Get in, kid. You�ve been reading too many books.�

Buddy smiled sheepishly, shook his head. �Maybe you�re right. Let�s get out of here.�

They joined the chain of cars on Pennsylvania Avenue, past the Capitol, the White House and the Justice Department, and the gray granite doorways of government, Buddy trying to convince himself that what had happened was normal in Steve�s life. After all, Steve was a private investigator, and there was a certain amount of risk in the job. Even so, Hardy�s warning seemed pretty strong. And Hardy was CIA.

�You�re going to like the pad, kid. Get a chance to do much sailing down South?�

�Haven�t been on the water for a year.�

�I�ll fix that. I�ve got a ketch... We�ll go out tomorrow.�

�Don�t let me change your routine. I�m sponging, remember?�

�You�ee painting. But the rest will do you good. You�ll be back at the canvas soon enough... Then I want to see more like the last one you sent me.�

�Portrait in Blood?�

�That one�s got it, kid.�

�You�re the only one who thinks so, but thanks anyway.�

Steve glanced at him, cuffed him lightly on his chin. �It�s worth a lot more than you think.�

Buddy couldn�t help smiling as he looked at Steve. There was some unfathomable kind of amusement in his eyes. But he had stopped long ago trying to figure out Steve McMann�s mind and just let himself enjoy the man�s company. Steve always had a way of making him forget his problems.

If it hadn�t been for Hardy and the scene at the depot it would have worked now, but one thing Hardy had said kept digging at him. If what Steve was involved in was something routine, a normal private investigating case, then why was it that Hardy had called him by his last name. He distinctly remembered Steve had never mentioned it during his short conversation with the CIA agent � but Hardy had called him Merrill.

Steve had to be involved in something pretty serious if the Central Intelligence Agency had gone to all the trouble to check out a friend who lived a couple thousand miles away.

Buddy tried to get the thoughts out of his head by watching the steady stream of cars move toward them. The headlights looked like gliding fireflies. Red, blue and green Christmas lights winked along the edge of Pennsylvania Avenue. Far ahead the Washington Monument pointed like a great white finger into the sky � Five minutes later Steve�s voice pulled him from his thoughts and he realized they were skirting the Potomac River.

�It�s just up ahead. I�m ready for a drink: how about you?�

�I could use one.� He studied the shore homes as Steve turned off on a side street. They looked to be in the $50,000 class. Steve had been doing well. Then they pulled up before a two-story beach type. The light in the front window showed up the gilt letters on the glass.

�The palace, kid. Come on, let�s get this stuff inside. After a shower you�ll feel like a new man... Then I�m going to take you out on the town. We�ll hit it for old times sake... You still get sick when you drink?�

Buddy smiled as he opened the car door, remembered the time he upchucked when Steve got him loaded on his 21st birthday. It was good to be with him again.

They walked side-by-side with his gear to the door, neither talking, both lost in their own thoughts of the past. Buddy breathed the familiar smell of boats: paint, manila lines, turpentine. At the door Steve managed to fumble out his key, but as he started to stick it in the lock the door opened and a girl was silhouetted in the light.

�I heard you drive up, Steve... So this is Buddy.�

Buddy just stared. She was the prettiest girl he�d seen in years. Her seal-black hair was shoulder length, brown eyes enormous, eyelashes bigger than butterflies. She was about five foot four, somewhere around 23-years-old, and she couldn�t have weighed more than 110. Her breasts were beautifully defined in a tight-fitting turquoise sweater, her full hips beneath an autumn brown tweed skirt.

�Okay, kid, cover your fangs... She�s mine... Maxey, Buddy, and viceversa. My secretary, kid, and the Maxey�s short for Maxine.� He leaned down and kissed her on her cheek. �How come you�re still here?�

Maxey motioned with her head. �You�ve got a visitor.�

�Business?�

�John Reed.�

Buddy noticed Steve�s eyes narrow momentarily.

�I know you have plans for tonight... but I thought you�d want to see him... I told him he could wait.� Maxey�s expression showed that she thought she might not have done the right thing.

�You were right, princess. Never snub a State Department man.� He glanced at Buddy. �I�ll make this short and sweet, kid.�

After introductions in Steve�s office-living room Buddy sat on the edge of a paper-littered desk and studied the surroundings as the two men talked and Maxey mixed drinks at a portable bar by the rear picture window. Steve had done a good job making the place blend into both office and home � wall-to-wall carpeting, modern Danish furniture, French telephone, paneled walls and a big fireplace. There was a tarpon mounted over the fireplace and a half dozen of Buddy�s own paintings on the walls, his abstract Portrait in Blood hanging prominently behind Steve�s desk.

Out the picture window, in the wash of the house lights shimmering on the dark Potomac water, he could make out Steve�s ketch moored at a short pier. Beyond, in the channel, a buoy light winked on and off.

�Pretty, huh?�

Buddy turned, found Maxey holding a gin and tonic in front of him. Her teeth were even and small, her smile infectious. The fingers that held the glass were long and tapered, the nails perfect ovals. Looking at her he couldn�t help realizing what he was missing out of life because of his creative urge.

�I remember Steve saying this is your type of poison... Hope I made it right.�

Buddy took the glass, sipped at the drink. �Perfect.� Her smile practically melted him.

�So you still haven�t come to your senses, Steve. I was hoping Hardy was mistaken.� Reed had a soft voice and a relaxed manner.

�We�ve been through this a half dozen times. You know what I�m attempting to do.�

Buddy turned his attention back to Steve and John Reed. The mention of Hardy�s name renewed his interest. Reed apparently had something to do with the mess Steve was in. That realization set him to studying the man more closely. Reed was fairly short, about 60, and obviously the VIP type. His face was handsome, florid, and his silver hair lay back from a high broad forehead as if it were engraved. His eyes were gray and very wide awake for a man of his age. He looked to be in the sort of condition that comes from daily squash sessions. A custom-made silk shirt and a silver brocade tie showed from the open black felt collar of his topcoat. He was holding a dark Homburg and a pair of pearl-gray gloves in his right hand.

To a man who wasn�t observing, John Reed might have appeared to be the typical Washington phoney, but Buddy realized after listening to the man that such an observation would be a mistake. Reed was alert, calculating and extremely intelligent.

�Yes, Steve, I know what you are attempting to do. You�ve made it very clear.� Reed took a gold cigarette case from his inside breast pocket and snapped it open. He extracted a slim oval tube with an elegant gold crescent, had it lit and inhaled deeply before he spoke again. �And I warned you what a dangerous game you�re playing. You�re a fool to think Josef Dobrynin will come to you. The man is too smart to take such a chance. And you�ve been fortunate so far. Dobrynin won�t be as easy to handle as the man from whom you took the plans.�

Steve shrugged. �Perhaps.�

Buddy watched John Reed draw again from his cigarette. The man stared steadily at Steve, the smoke trickling out his nostrils. It looked like lamb�s wool, and when it reached him Buddy found it the mildest and sweetest of Turkish tobacco.

�Steve...� There was a note of pleading in John Reed�s voice. �You�ve done your part. Now, why don�t you hand over the microfilm and be done with this thing. I�ve no doubt you�re an excellent private investigator; you�ve proved that. But now you�re getting in too deep. You haven�t been trained. Dobrynin is a master spy. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants... Nothing! He�s managed to avoid detection by the best agents of both the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You�re no match for him.�

Buddy recognized the stubborn set of Steve�s jaw. �And it�s because nobody has located him that I�ve got to try. This is the closest anyone has been. Nobody has ever dangled this kind of bait under his nose before. He�ll come out in the open... And when he does I�ll be here to meet him.�

Reed lifted his hands in a motion of defeat. �Well, I see it�s no use talking to you, but I�ll give you one last chance anyway. Will you hand over the microfilm... now?�

�No.� There was finality to Steve�s voice, and his jaw was set rock hard.

�Then I guess there is nothing more for me to say. If you are bent on continuing in your insane plan... I believe Dobrynin will not hesitate in killing you.�

The blunt statement stiffened Buddy. He heard a slight intake of breath from Maxey, frowned as Steve turned and winked.

�Don�t pay any attention to him, kid. Government men tend to lean toward the dramatic.�

Reed ignored the gibe. He smiled and his manner changed. �Perhaps you�re right, Steve... I hope so... for your sake.�

Buddy, despite the man�s sudden affability, didn�t care for the constant reminder that Steve was in danger � serious danger. He was glad to see John Reed put on his Homburg and walk to the door.

�Oh, Steve... I almost forgot: I sent my chauffeur home when I realized I might have to wait for you for some time. I�ve a dinner appointment at the Sheraton... I wonder if I could impose upon you��

�No trouble.� Steve winked at Maxey again and puckered his lips into a kiss. �Sweetheart, see that Buddy finds his way upstairs.� He turned to Buddy and grinned. �I�ll be back by the time you�ve showered and shaved, kid... And swallow some butter before I take you out on the town. I�m still not too sure about that stomach of yours.� He was still chuckling as he closed the door.

It was while he was beneath the shower that the real seriousness of the past hour�s happenings really started to get to Buddy. At first it had seemed exciting: Steve McMann, private investigator, holding both the State Department and the CIA at arms length while he played a game of life or death with a Russian spy. But now the full impact of John Reed�s warning � that Steve could actually be in danger of losing his life � was weighing heavily on him. Steve had always been able to take care of himself in any situation, yet, as Reed, and Hardy for that matter, had pointed out, he certainly hadn�t received the proper training to pit himself against a master spy.

And Maxey�s concern after Steve had left them hadn�t helped him discount his worry. She had attempted to cover up while she mixed him a second drink. But while she was saying good-bye at the door 10 minutes later Buddy was aware of her anxiety. As he watched her walk toward the bus stop her shoulders seemed to be rounded forward beneath her blue gabardine raincoat as if she were carrying the weight of the worry with her.

Buddy was dressed and downstairs 20 minutes later mixing himself another drink. He smiled as he remembered Maxey telling him not to get Steve too drunk because he had a lot of work to do in the morning. If Steve was anything like he used to be they would be getting in just about the time Maxey came to work. He knew it was going to be one hell of a night� It wasn�t until 15 minutes later that he remembered Steve said he would be back before he finished his shower, and another 10 minutes after that that the first tinge of uneasiness began to take hold of him.

It was 9:30 when he quit rationalizing and admitted to himself that something definitely might be wrong: it had been an hour and a half since Steve and John Reed had left the office. He knew he should do something, but what? Maybe Steve had been detained with John Reed. Perhaps the man hadn�t really given up and was still attempting to convince Steve to cooperate with him, to turn over the microfilm he had talked about. He would look like a fool if he called the police only to have Steve call or come home after a search was started. That�s when he remembered Hardy, the card the CIA agent had given him at the railway depot.

He had just dialed Hardy�s home number when there was a knock on the front door. �It�s unlocked.� His first thought was of Steve, and a sudden relief flooded through him, but as the door opened a cold chill passed through him. It was Hardy, and the agent�s face was pale with strain� And there was a uniformed policeman standing behind him.

�Merrill... I�m afraid I have some bad news... It�s McMann.�

Buddy stood frozen, the phone receiver clutched tightly in his hand. He could hear a woman�s voice on the other end saying hello.

�He�s dead.�

A week later Eric called at downtown headquarters for permission to ship out on the Mohawk for Panama. Guy had no reason to detain him. Certainly no evidence that a grand jury would consider. So he told him to go.

Guy had nothing on anyone. The finger print tests had merely shown the prints of Mary, Sean and Diedre in the bedroom and they had every right to be there.

Next day Barnes came back, this time leaving his car for Jake to paint. Looking at the polished unmarred finish Jake thought, �It needs painting like I need a hole-in-the-head.� But he didn�t say anything to Barnes.

During the next weeks Barnes came in every few days, sometimes for auto repairs that, for the most part, weren�t needed; other times he�d drop by just to talk. The fact that Barnes was a cop gave him three strikes and out as far as Jake was concerned. He wasn�t a typical policeman but he was what an uneducated, slum-reared boy would consider typical. The over-bearing manner and flat, expressionless eyes that never seemed to look directly at a person bothered Jake. He tried to make it clear that he didn�t like Barnes, but his hints were either unnoticed or ignored. Jake started to worry. Barnes must be after something, feeling him out, maybe, but for what reason Jake couldn�t figure. Well, he didn�t have a hell of a lot of choice but to wait and see.

One night just before closing time, Barnes drove in and offered to buy the drinks. Curiosity made Jake accept the offer; locking the doors, he thought �Well, well, here�s the pitch.�

�Jake,� Barnes said, as they settled into a booth, �How would you like to make some real money, a lot more than the chicken feed you�re pulling down now?�

�Thought you had something on your mind,� Jake murmured, �but you haven�t said anything yet. Keep talking.�

Barnes looked around carefully, making sure they wouldn�t be overheard, then hunched forward in his seat. Just like the bad guy in the movies, Jake thought, wanting to laugh. Then Barnes was talking again.

�Well, I know some boys who can use a good mechanic. General repairs, painting and such, plus a place to store cars for a day or two at a time.�

The term �to store cars,� told Jake what he wanted to know. �Hot cars,� he said. �That�s why you had me do the paint job and repair work on yours: to see if I was good enough to fill the bill. Your boys steal �em and bring �em to me for camouflage, then out of the state for a sale. Right?�

Barnes laughed. �Smart Boy. It�s OK, then?�

Jake wanted to say yes. It sounded good, and he knew he could dress up a car so the owner himself wouldn�t recognize it. And the money; there were lots of things Kathy needed for the house. Besides, with a little money he could branch out, start setting up that string of garages.

�Go to Hell,� he said.

The good humor left Barnes� face. �Think about it, Jake.� He finished his drink and stood up. �Think about it real hard.�

�I said go to Hell,� Jake replied easily, �I meant it.�

Kathy wrinkled her nose when she smelled the liquor on his breath, but didn�t mention it, determined not to be a �nagging wife.� Jake told her about it while they were doing the dishes; and Kathy changed her mind about being a �nagging wife.� She wanted Jake to go to the police with the story. Jake was sure that�s what she wanted because she told him, dozens of times; throughout his favorite television program; in the bathroom as he got ready for bed, and in bed. At midnight Jake finally blew his top.

�Shut up, Goddammit,� He yelled. �How the hell do I know which cop to talk to? For all I know, they could all be mixed up in this. And besides, wouldn�t I look cute, pointing the finger at anybody, especially a cop, without a damn bit of proof. Now, shut up and go to sleep.�

This was a long speech for Jake, but it brought the desired results. Kathy lay quietly on her side of the bed for awhile. Then soft hands and warm lips told Jake, without words, that he�d won the argument. As he put his arms around her, he thought, �I�m going to have to raise Hell around here more often.�

On Fifth Avenue it�s Tiffany�s or Cartier�s. But they haven�t got all the carriage trade sewed up. There�s Sutro�s on Madison. Not quite as large, but just as elegant, with a liveried doorman at the entrance.

He bowed and smiled and pulled the heavy plate-glass door wide open.

A floorwalker in morning coat and oxford trousers showed me his teeth. �Can I help you, sir?�

�Mrs. Brownlee,� I said.

His deference expanded. You might think I had asked for the Duchess of Luxemburg. �The elevator on your left, sir. Third floor.�

He gave me a personal convoy past the blond wood display counters in front of which set gracefully carved chairs with black patent leather seats. The rose-colored broadloom underfoot was soft as grass. The indirect lighting was subdued and easy on the eyes.

The sales personnel were distinguished-looking and impeccably garbed, supplied with smooth-writing fountain pens to facilitate the writing of checks, on the theory that few people carried enough cash to pay for the original designs executed by Sutro�s own artisans.

An angular female sat at a reception desk on the third floor. She raised an inquiring eyebrow as I approached.

�Mrs. Brownlee,� I said.

�Have you an appointment?�

�At two o�clock.�

She checked her wrist watch and looked up disapprovingly. �It�s five after.�

�Sorry,� I said. �It�s that Turkish ambassador. He always dawdles over his schnapps.�

She glared at me. �Your name, please.�

�Jordan,� I said. �Scott Jordan.�

She plugged into a small PBX and spoke my name, listened, got me the green light, and pointed to a door against the far wall.

It was quite an office, very sumptuous, with a wide expanse of desk fashioned out of English walnut and polished like a mirror. A woman stood up from behind the desk. �Scott Jordan,� she said warmly, and came around to greet me.

�Hello, Eve.�

At forty, Eve Brownlee was a tall, sinewy, well-nourished woman with dark hair pulled severely back from a pale forehead. In a tailored suit, with the bloom of youth gone, she could still activate the hormones, and there was no doubt that she had a lot of enthusiastic mileage left.

She owned Sutro�s. She inherited the establishment when her first husband, Jacques Sutro, carelessly stepped out into the path of a Fifth Avenue bus. She had mourned briefly and then gone to work learning the business.

I had met her a year ago in Mexico, while her second husband, Charles Brownlee, was on a fishing trip. They had been secretly married, she confided, and were spending their honeymoon. When she called me this morning I had no idea what was on her mind.

She got me seated and came straight to the point. �You�re still practicing law, I suppose?�

�Vigorously.�

�Can you handle a problem for us?�

I shrugged noncommittally. �Depends on the problem.�

�Have you ever heard of Joyce Arnold?�

I thought and shook my head.

�Then let me enlighten you.� Eve put her fingertips together. �Joyce Arnold is a character. Good family and good background. Her father is in the diplomatic service, vice-consul somewhere in the Balkans. But the girl never settled down. She was briefly headed for a career. Studied law and even practiced for a time. She was married twice and divorced twice. About a month ago she came into the store and��

Eve glanced up as the door opened.

A man�s voice spoke apologetically. �Didn�t know you had company, Eve. I�m sorry.�

�That�s all right, Charles. I want you to meet Scott Jordan, the attorney I told you about. This is my husband, Charles Brownlee.�

I saw a tall gent with an aristocratic air, straight and thin, with a touch of gray at the temples. He reached for my hand with a grip like a pipefitter in good shape.

Brownlee had been employed at Sutro�s for several years before marrying the boss. Marriage had moved him up the ladder. He was general manager now.

Eve said, �I was just telling Scott about Joyce Arnold.�

He looked at her with a pained expression, frowning. �You�re not really going to sue that girl, are you, Eve?�

�Why not?�

�Because I�m not sure it�s the wise thing to do.�

�Look, Charles, we�ve got to run this firm on a business basis, not as a philanthropic institution.�

He shook his head stubbornly. �But there must be some other method.�

�What, for instance?�

�Give me time and I�ll think of one.�

�Time? Haven�t we waited long enough? Suppose we let Scott decide.� She appealed to me. �Here�s the situation. It�s simple enough. As I was saying, Joyce Arnold came into the store some time ago, six weeks to be exact. She was looking for a piece of jewelry. Nothing pleased her until she saw a certain pin, rather expensive diamonds and emeralds, but she couldn�t make up her mind, so Charles let her take it home, sort of on consignment. We do that with certain customers. Gives them a chance to reach a definite decision. That was six weeks ago. The pin is worth ten thousand dollars. She has neither paid for it nor returned it.�

�Have you communicated with her?�

�By mail and telephone. She ignores the letters and acts evasive on the telephone. It�s a ridiculous situation and I can�t understand it at all,� Eve said indignantly.

�Did she sign a receipt?�

�Of course.�

I took it from her hand and looked it over. Everything was in order, ironclad and legal.

Brownlee cleared his throat. �What do you suggest, counselor?�

�You have one of two remedies. An action to make her pay or an action to recover the merchandise. Providing you want to sue.�

Eve looked first at her husband, then at me. �Is there any other way, Scott?�

�Maybe we can settle out of court. I usually try to do that first.�

�You have our authorization.�

�That all right with you, Mr. Brownlee?�

�Er... yes,� he said absently. �Whatever you think best.�

�Then it�s settled.�

We exchanged some small talk, shook hands all around, and I left.

Mrs. Milburn�s view from her third floor apartment in the Hallman Arms is excellent. She has a clear unobstructed view of the lake and of the Milburn Racquet and Yacht Club which is sprawled out below her and borders the lake on six acres of very valuable property.

Being an invalid, Mrs. Milburn spends a great deal of time at her living-room window contemplating the blue-beauty of the lake and watching the tennis players perform beneath her in the sun.

The Milburn Racquet and Yacht Club was named after its founder and principal benefactor, John R. Milburn. The Club consists of six outdoor courts and three indoor, a swimming pool, and a large, white sprawling clubhouse, complete with dining-room and bar. There is also a dock which fingers out into the lake to which both power and sailboats are anchored.

Occasionally, Mrs. Milburn, since her husband�s death no one seems to call her Sara anymore, has her chauffeur, Ramsey, take her over to the Club so that she can visit with the other members and so that she can get a closer look at the players.

Before her accident, Sara Milburn was a tennis player, never a good one, but a fair club-player, and even after she became an invalid she still retained her interest in the game of tennis. It was through her doing that one of the brighter lights of the tennis-world was brought to Milburn to serve as the Club-Professional.

When Barry Cole accepted the offer of the position at Milburn he was tired of tournament-tennis. He had followed the tennis-trails from Forest Hills to Wimbledon. He had been up and down the coast of California so many times that even the beauties of that sprawling state had begun to pale for him.

Barry Cole had become a topflight tennis player in a roundabout way. When he was five-years old, his Father threw him into a pool to teach him to swim. Barry was retrieved from the water, almost dead, by an exasperated lifeguard who happened to notice his pathetic struggles. From that moment, Barry feared and hated water.

It was Barry�s luck that he was born and raised only a quarter-mile from the Pacific Ocean. The rest of the children in the neighborhood spent their summers at the beach enjoying their youth on the edge of that blue expanse of water. Barry, to escape, spent his time at the public tennis courts only two blocks from his home.

Barry began to go to the tennis courts when he was six years old. That first year, it was difficult for him to find anyone to play with. With most of the other children at the beach, Barry left for the courts each morning shortly after dawn. Barry used the practice board by the hour. He knew that his fear extended in the direction of the beach and that danger waited for him there at the water�s edge. He spent hour after hour of summer-morning-volleying, knowing, as he relentlessly battered that ball at the board that this was a place to be, a time to be occupied, and as the morning wore toward noon and he watched the other children walk toward the beach he was grateful that he had this place and that he need not go with them.

By the following summer, the tennis courts were no longer just an excuse. Barry grew to love the game � the feel of the ball against his racquet, the clean arc of his forehand, feeling the power of an overhead smash extend from his racquet to his arm and down into the trunk of his young body, he knew that tennis was going to be his life.

Soon, everyone in Goodrich Falls knew that young Barry Cole was a tennis-dynamo. By the time Barry was thirteen, his serve, a white shocking-blur, was more than anyone in town could handle. Mr. Stanley, the high-school tennis coach knew that he had a potential star. Barry won the State Junior title that year and the year after that. At the age of fifteen he won both the Junior title and the State Men�s Singles, the first time that a Junior ever accomplished the feat in the state of California.

After that, Barry became the pampered-darling of the tennis world. He grew up into a very handsome young man. He had light, sandy hair that covered his head in a casual manner and he had the deepest blue eyes that any girl had ever seen. His body grew straight and strong and he was always a deep bronze from the sun. His deep blue eyes smiled constantly in his handsome young face and he felt that the world was his for the taking.

Barry Cole never did take the world, simply because he was never able to win a major-championship. He was a winner many times but he was never able to win a �big-one�. He won tournaments too numerous to mention, but Forest Hills, Wimbledon, when the stakes ran high, he didn�t have it. Barry was twenty-eight before he would admit that he would never make the really big-time, and when the offer for the job at Milburn came he accepted it.

Barry had been at Milburn a little over a month when Sara Milburn entered his life. From the beginning, Barry enjoyed the job at Milburn. He enjoyed teaching the youngsters that showed up every afternoon for lessons. He used the mornings to stay in shape in case he ever decided to play tournament tennis again. He would get up shortly after dawn and run along the lake. There was a path for bicycles and horses that ran along the lake�s edge. Barry ran along this path, seldom looking at the lake�s blue, because water still bothered him, but he ran head down with the long easy strides of the athlete. He could feel the strength in his legs and his breathing was easy and deep. He ran past the Club�s private beach, past the boat dock that stretched out into the water, a mile or so down the path and then back again.

After his morning run, Barry was back at the Club for a shower and breakfast and then a set with one of the Club�s members. For the first time in years he was beginning to enjoy the feel of the racquet in his hand again. He was glad to see new faces and hear new voices. He was beginning to forget the tournaments he had lost. He was beginning to lose the fears and doubts that had gnawed at him the last few years because he hadn�t been able to win a major tournament, and he was beginning to feel his youth and his confidence return.

Coming off the court one Tuesday afternoon, after just giving his last lesson of the day, Barry noticed a man standing on the sidelines in a chauffeur�s uniform. The man came toward Barry as he walked off the court.

�Excuse me, Mr. Cole, my name is Ramsey, I�m Mrs. Milburn�s chauffeur. Mrs. Milburn asked me to deliver a message. She would like to know if it would be possible to see you this evening? At her place, on a matter about the Club.�

Barry wiped his face with a towel. �I suppose so. I don�t have anything planned. Yes, you can tell her that I�ll be there.�

�Fine, Sir. It�s right across the street in the Hallman Arms. Should I say, eight o�clock?�

�Yes, I�ll be there at eight o�clock,� Barry answered.

Barry had dinner at the Club. He had taken a steam-bath and a rub-down and he felt completely relaxed as he stood before the door of Mrs. Milburn�s apartment. He was dressed in a blue sport-coat, gray-flannel slacks, white shirt with button-down-collar, and a dark blue tie. He felt very good. His skin felt taut and very clean and his legs were strong from his morning runs and his stomach muscles felt hard and firm.

The Milburn maid answered the door. She ushered Barry through a small vestibule and into a large living-room. Mrs. Milburn was sitting at the window, her back to Barry. The evening twilight filled the room. Mrs. Milburn didn�t turn. She was confined to a wheel-chair. Her hair was blue in the evening light and there were silver streaks running through it.

�Mr. Cole,� she said, turning her chair, �It was good of you to come. I have been watching the sun set. I do almost every evening. Since my accident I spend much of my time at this window.�

Mrs. Milburn was a very handsome woman. Barry had seen her at the Club a few times and had decided that she must be in her forties, but here, she looked younger, perhaps her middle thirties, he thought.

She rolled her chair over to a portable-bar and she said,

�Let me fix you a drink. This is my maid�s evening out. She was just leaving when she showed you in. What would you like?�

�Scotch with water, will be fine,� he answered.

Mrs. Milburn fixed two drinks and handed one to Barry.

�Won�t you sit down. What I have to say won�t take long, but it may come as somewhat of a shock.�

Barry seated himself on a large, blue divan.

�Mr. Cole, life has taught me to be very frank. When you are my age you realize that people waste too much time with formalities. Pain and confinement have brought me very close to the truth. I have come to realize that the shortest distance between two points has always been the truth.�

It was almost dark in the room now. Barry sipped at his drink.

�For the past month, from this room, I have watched you run almost every morning. In the afternoon I have watched you play or give lessons. You are a beautiful, young man, Mr. Cole. Your body responds with an ease that others can only envy and admire.�

Barry settled back on the divan and listened to Mrs. Milburn. He knew that he liked hearing about himself.

�I am forty-seven years old, Mr. Cole. That surprises you, doesn�t it?�

�Yes it does,� he answered, �You look much younger.�

�Doctors have restored youth to my face. But Doctors can only do so much, Mr. Cole. I want what I never had from John, my husband. Mr. Milburn was an old man. He was old twenty-eight years ago when I married him, and he was ancient two years ago when he died. I waited so long for him to die. With John, I had nothing but money. I prayed all during my marriage for him to die. I prayed that he would die before I lost my youth and my beauty, but fate is more than funny, when he finally died, at the age of eighty-four, it was in an automobile accident that crippled me for the rest of my life.�

Mrs. Milburn wheeled back to the bar and fixed two more drinks. She brought a drink to Barry and remained there a foot or so from where he sat staring directly into his blue eyes.

�I want you, Mr. Cole. I want your youth and your sex. I want to know that your strength and your beauty are mine. There is no one to whom I care to leave the Milburn fortune, so it will be yours. You will become the benefactor of my Will. The Milburn fortune will be your�s on my death.�

Her voice lowered and trembled as she continued, �My spine was injured in the accident that killed my husband. I have less than a year to live. I want the best during that remaining year and I think you are the best, Mr. Cole.�

Barry remained silent. He wasn�t sure as to what he should say. He had been among many older women on the tennis-tour. He had even made love to a few. At times, he had made love out of desire, and once or twice out of curiousity, perhaps even sympathy, but he had never been bought. But even as he was thinking about the past and about Mrs. Milburn�s offer he knew that he was going to accept it.

�When will you have the Will drawn up?� He asked.

�Good. I like a man that knows his own mind. I�ll have my attorney take care of it first thing in the morning. Everything will be your�s at my death. I lived with John for all those terrible years and I earned every cent of the Milburn fortune. I guess, I can do with it as I want, and what I want is you, Barry.�

She turned her chair and wheeled herself toward the bedroom, �Now, let me see if you make love as well as you play tennis.�

Barry got up off the divan, finished his scotch, and followed Mrs. Milburn into the bedroom.

Inside of a month, Barry learned to hate Sara Milburn. He hated being seen with her. He hated hearing her voice, but most of all he hated touching her and being touched by her. He found her physical demands on him constant and bordering on the psychopathic. The calm, middle-aged woman that sat and gazed out of her living-room window was trying to make up in a few months time what had been denied her for so many years.

The only thing that kept Barry going was the thought of Sara Mil-burn�s impending death and the realization that he would then have all the money he would ever need. He gave up his early morning runs, instead he now took Sara on early morning walks along the lake. Four or five mornings a week, Barry pushed her chair along the lake�s edge. They would walk for an hour or two and then have breakfast together at the Club. During the afternoons she would nap while he gave his lessons and then he had to spend his evenings, every evening, with her.

A few months later, Barry was playing a set with Sara�s Doctor. After they had finished playing, Doctor Cunningham invited Barry to have a drink with him. It was during their second drink at the Club bar that Doctor Cunningham brought up the subject of Sara Milburn.

�Barry,� he said, �I want you to know, and the other members of the Club have commented on it, that it is really wonderful how you manage to spend so much time with Mrs. Milburn. We all know that her money keeps the Club going, but your morning walks along the lake are really beyond the call-of-duty. I think that it is a wonderful gesture. You�d be amazed at how much her spirits and her condition have improved since you began to spend time with her.�

�Thank you, Doctor,� Barry said. �By the way, Mrs. Milburn never does talk about her condition. How serious is it? I mean, if I might ask, how much longer does she have?�

Doctor Cunningham looked directly into Barry�s eyes.

�I�m afraid, I don�t understand. There�s no telling how long she has. Except for the injury to her legs, and I doubt that she will ever recover their full use again, her health is very good. She might outlive the both of us.�

�You mean, there�s nothing wrong with her spine?�

�Her spine was injured. That is why she is in that cumbersome metal-brace, but I am sure that it will be alright within a year, two at the most. There is nothing terminal about Mrs. Milburn�s condition.�

Barry finished his drink without tasting it.

�If you�ll excuse me Doctor, I have a lesson in about an hour. Thank�s for the game and the drink.�

Barry left the bar and went to his office.

�The old-bitch,� he thought, �So, she might even outlive me. I wonder how long she thought she could have me. Well, we�ll see. We�ll see.�

The next morning Barry picked Mrs. Milburn up at seven o�clock for her stroll along the lake. It was a bright, clear morning. The sun had just broken out over the lake and the water was still and green in the early morning sunlight. The lakefront, except for Mrs. Milburn and Barry, was deserted. Mrs. Milburn was telling Barry what a wonderful person he was and how much he had come to mean to her. As she talked on, Barry wheeled her out onto the dock. The conversation that Barry had had the day before with Doctor Cunningham kept running through his mind. He could still hear the Doctor�s voice saying, �She might outlive the two of us.�

The lake was very calm. The boats anchored to the dock were lifeless. Barry wheeled Mrs. Milburn toward the end of the dock. The dock, like the Club grounds, was completely deserted. As Barry neared the end of the dock, he didn�t stop. Mrs. Milburn didn�t notice, she was still talking. She was saying something about buying a boat so they could take early morning cruises around the lake.

Barry, simply wheeled Mrs. Milburn over the end of the dock. It happened so suddenly and so naturally that she didn�t even have time to scream. Barry watched the chair splash as it hit the water. He watched both the chair and Mrs. Milburn sink into the quiet of the lake. He recalled his feelings, years before when his Father had thrown him into the water. He shivered with remembered fear. He looked down and he could see Mrs. Milburn struggling on the bottom of the lake. She was in about twenty-feet of water and he watched as she struggled to free herself of the metal-brace that held her trapped to the bottom of the lake.

Barry looked about him � there was no one around. He watched Mrs. Milburn a moment longer. She had given up with the brace and was clawing at the water. She looked like a person trying to struggle her way out of a dream. Barry turned and started back toward the Clubhouse. When he got to the shore he began to run. He wanted to be out of breath when he reported the accident.

Barry knew that it would look bad for him at the inquest when it came out that he was the sole beneficiary of Mrs. Milburn�s Will. He reasoned that his fear of water was common knowledge; it was a sport legend how Barry Cole had turned to tennis because he was afraid to go swimming, so he assumed that it would be understood that he wouldn�t have been able to go to Mrs. Milburn�s aid.

At the inquest, Barry actually cried when he admitted his cowardice, but he said, that his fear was too old and too deep and though he hated himself for it he just wasn�t able to save Mrs. Milburn. He explained that Mrs. Milburn�s chair had been on the edge of the dock, he had turned for a moment, and he had heard the chair splash. Whether, she fell accidentally, or was tired of living the life of an invalid, he couldn�t say. He preferred to think that it was an accident. He went on to say, that he would always remember her as a woman with a great deal of courage.

Barry decided to remain at Mil-burn until the Will was probated. After that, he thought that he might travel for awhile, not as a tennis-bum but as a man-of-means-and-leisure.

A few weeks later, he was in his room at the Club reading a magazine article on the advantages of living in tax-free Switzerland, when the phone rang. It was a woman�s voice:

�May I please speak to Mr. Cole.�

�This is Mr. Cole, speaking.�

�Mr. Cole, this is Mrs. Kruger. I don�t believe you know me, but I was a good friend of Sara Milburn�s. We knew each other for years. I was her neighbor; I lived right above her in the Hallman Arms.�

�In what way can I help you, Mrs. Kruger?�

�Well, it�s about Sara Milburn�s Will. There�s something that I am sure you should know. When can I see you?�

�Anytime. How about tomorrow evening?�

�Tomorrow evening will be fine. Make it my apartment at nine o�clock. I am sure that what I have to tell you will interest you very much.�

Barry placed the receiver on its cradle. Now what the Hell can she want, he wondered.

The next evening at nine o�clock, Barry was in the elevator at the Hallman Arms.

Mrs. Kruger answered the door. She was older than Mrs. Milburn. She was well into her fifties. Barry saw that no knife had ever worked her face. Her age showed clearly in the wrinkles and creases that betrayed her.

�Come in, Mr. Cole, let me introduce myself. I�m Judith Kruger. As I told you on the phone, I was a very good friend of Sara Milburn�s. Did she ever mention me?�

�I don�t believe she did,� Barry answered.

He followed Mrs. Kruger into her apartment. She led him into the living-room. There was a window with the same view of the Club and the lake.

�Sit down,� Mrs. Kruger said, pointing to a large, orange reading-chair. �Can I fix you a drink?�

�Scotch and water will be fine,� Barry said, sitting down.

As Mrs. Kruger prepared the drinks, Barry looked about the room. It looked exactly like Mrs. Milburn�s apartment except for a screen against one wall and against the opposite wall a movie-projector on a small end-table.

Mrs. Kruger handed Barry his drink.

�I�ve watched you play tennis many times, Mr. Cole.� She was standing next to the fireplace, her drink in her hand. She had on a green silk cocktail dress and her hair was dyed a redish-orange.

�I saw you play last year at Forest Hills. Since my husband�s death, I often accompanied Sara when she traveled anywhere. I was a companion to her until you came along. I can�t blame her for replacing me with you. I am sure that you were able to do much more for her than I ever was.�

Mrs. Kruger sipped at her drink and continued, �You were wonderful at Forest Hills last year.�

�Wonderful? I lost in the semifinals.�

�Yes, but you were so majestic in your defeat. Perhaps, that is why women find you so attractive. You seem to lose better than most men win. You know that women find you attractive, don�t you, Barry?�

Barry didn�t answer. He knew that sooner or later she would get to the point and tell him why he was there.

She took his drink, �Let me freshen this for you,� she said.

When she bent over to take his glass, her decollete was so low that her soft, flabby, dried breasts were almost completely exposed. The sight of them sickened Barry.

Mrs. Kruger gave him another drink. �You�re probably wondering just why I asked you up here?�

�As a matter of fact I am.�

�I will get to the point then. Sara Milburn and I were good friends. Sara confided in me. I knew all about your affair. I admired Sara for having the courage to take a young lover, no matter the cost. What good is money if you can�t enjoy it? Unfortunately, Mr. Kruger did not leave me so well off. Oh, I have enough money to get by on but there isn�t much left over for expensive luxuries.�

She put the glass to her lips, drank deeply, and went on.

�From my window, here, I used to watch the two of you going along the lake. How I envied Sara � but to get to the point � my husband�s hobby was photography. When he died, I turned to photography to help pass the time. I had all of his equipment and there was nothing much else for me to do. I have a full reel of you playing tennis. I watch it often. Your body is fascinating. Sara and I used to watch it together. I got a vicarious pleasure out of listening to her talk about you. She went into your affair in detail. But I�m digressing,� she reached over and switched out the light.

�Let me show you this film strip and it will explain everything.�

Barry heard the projector go on and he watched the screen glare with a silver brightness.

�I took this film from the window. The new Zoom-lense is remarkable. See how clear everything is and it�s even self-focusing.�

Barry watched himself on the screen. He was playing tennis with one of the members at the Club.

�I took this a few months ago. I like to study your body as well as your tennis style. You really have a beautiful body. I also have quite a collection of pornographic-film that Mr. Kruger left but that can wait until another day.�

The scene on the screen cut to a shot of Barry wheeling Mrs. Milburn along the lake.

�This is sometime later. I happened to take this section of film just a few weeks ago. Watch closely, Barry.�

Mrs. Kruger didn�t have to tell Barry to watch closely. His attention was riveted to the screen. As he watched his image wheel Mrs. Milburn along the lake, he realized what was coming. It hit him like a physical blow. He watched as he pushed the wheel-chair out onto the dock. He saw himself look around to see if anyone was about and he watched, fascinated, as he walked Sara Milburn off the end of the dock.

There was the slight splash as the chair hit the water. He stood there looking down into the water. Then he walk off the dock. Mrs. Kruger had followed him with her camera as he, finally, broke into a run toward the Clubhouse.

Mrs. Kruger clicked the projector off. The two of them sat there in the dark. Barry could hear his own breathing.

�Before you get any ideas, Barry, my lawyer has a negative of this film. It is to be taken to the District Attorney�s Office on my death. I want assurance that you will do every thing possible to prolong my life. I want you to pray for me, daily. You are lucky, I am only fifty-eight and in fairly good health. As soon as you get Sara�s money we can travel. It will take us a while to get used to each other but I am sure that we will.�

Barry barely heard Mrs. Kruger. He knew what she was saying, but there in the dark, the images of what he had seen on the screen were still running through his mind. He wondered if they would ever stop.

�I will spare you the light, Barry, until you get accustomed to me. Now come here. It has been a long time for me � long time.�

As though in a trance, Barry got up from his chair. He moved over to the couch. He felt Mrs. Kruger�s arms go around him. He was surprised that she had removed her clothes. He felt the loose folds of her flesh and he became nauseous. He felt like a deep-sea diver that has run out of oxygen at the bottom of the sea. He knew that he was going to explode from the pressure that was building up inside of him. Sharp pains tore through the inside of is head. He was trapped. He felt Mrs. Kruger�s wrinkled mouth on his and he let her draw him to her. After all this time, he realized that he was finally drowning. He knew that Barry Cole had never been destined to be a winner. The last thing that he remembered was Mrs. Kruger�s voice saying, �Darling, you will have to learn to call me Judy.�

Athens, New York, didn�t resemble Athens, Greece, any more than it did Honolulu, Hawaii; it was a straggle of tenements and railroad yards along the banks of a narrow, turbulent river, with a few grim-looking, old fashioned factories on the side of an overhanging hill, and an outlying section of seventy-year-old mansions where the owners of the factories lived, counted their money, and tried to kid themselves that they were aristocrats. The whole town was owned by a dozen families, and it didn�t look as if they worried themselves sick over its appearance. But then, they didn�t have to. Nobody came there to study town planning or the five points of 19th century American architecture. There was no tourist season in Athens. I only came there myself to prevent a kid being killed.

The day before, I�d found a letter waiting for me in the office. It was made up of words cut out of a book, possibly a dictionary, and pasted onto a piece of paper. What it said was, �Go to Athens, N.Y. See Henry Jackridge. We have his kid. He will give you ransom. No cops. Work fast, or kid killed day after tomorrow. You will be watched. This is no bologna.�

That was all. No signature, no address, no bologna. So I had gone down to Grand Central with an overnight bag, and hopped a train for Athens, N.Y.

It was a fine day March, sunny, but a little chilly, with the wind sifting dust and old newspapers down the Main street of Athens. The minute I got off the train I knew I was being tailed. The plainclothesmen of Athens police force didn�t look like cops, they looked like farmers dressed up for a Saturday night in town. Their shoes squeaked. At least, I knew that this Jackridge had gotten in some law on this case, although I had read nothing of it in the papers. Still, the law can be pretty close-mouthed when they know a kid�s life is at stake. That makes them all the madder afterwards, when the money has been paid, the kid returned, and they have five continents in which to look for the kidnappers.

I dropped into a cigar-store, and got Henry Jackridge on the phone and explained who I was. �I got a letter telling me to see you about a family matter,� I said.

He caught on quickly.

�Yes, yes, I understand,� he assured me. �Come to my house immediately. 22 Livingston Avenue.�

�Oke.�

I left the Cigar-store, checked to see that my squeaky-shoed friend was still with me, and looked about for a cab. When I found one, it proved to be a ten-year old Chrysler Imperial that had probably once belonged to one of the aristocrats on the hill. I hopped in and left squeaky-shoes to shift for himself.

We went up to Livingston Ave. The streets, cobble-stoned and dreary, crawled and wound around the granite hills, and the cab did most of its driving in second. The few people I saw in the streets were all leaning forward or backward. Living in this town could become a habit, but not a good one. If you slipped on the ice in winter-time at any point in Athens, you probably wound up cracking your skull against the railroad station down in the valley.

When we were pretty high up, Livingston Avenue became genteel. Shady trees, bare, stony lawns, and, situated at odd angles and several levels, huge gingerbread mansions, built when labor was cheap and taxes were low. A number of them were boarded up, haunted by the ghosts of dead bank-accounts and failing businesses. The Jackridge house was a red-brick affair, bristling with cupolas and brown woodwork. It had hell�s own amount of steps leading up to it, and looked about as cheerful as a boarding-school for apprentice torturers.

I got out, paid the cabby half his week�s wages, and began to fight my way up the steps. It was cold and windy up there, and when I arrived on the veranda I felt that the worst part of this job must surely be over. After those steps the rest would be a cinch.

I was admitted by a decrepit old bird who was only held up by the starch in his shirt, and led into a cozy cavern where three people clung together to keep from getting lost. The decrepit old bird took the breeze after announcing my name, and I wore out some more leather crossing the room to the lonesome three.

They were grouped around a fire-place you could have parked a Cadillac in, two men standing, and one woman sitting. There was a fire, but it didn�t even light up the fireplace. The room was vast, shadowy, furnished with what looked like antiques, and chilly.

One of the men said, �Mr. Krag? I�m Henry Jackridge. This is my attorney, Mr. Lovell, and this is my... er... Mrs. Jackridge.�

I gave them all a nod. The lawyer looked like a lawyer. Jackridge was fairly tall, well-built, about forty years of age, and as handome as the law allows. He had light blond hair, and a sort of noble- looking face, like a matinee idol who has grown up. The only things that spoiled its calm, aloof perfection were the little lines of worry between his eyes, and the tiny network of red arteries in his eye-balls and on his nose and jaw. In that gloom anyone else might not have seen them, but I get paid for seeing things. A noble-looking rummy.

Mrs... er... Jackridge was good to look at. She was anywhere between thirty and forty, and it didn�t matter much just where. She was small, dark-haired, dressed in something dark, simple, and expensive, and she looked the type that would draw whistles at fifty. That is, if you were crude enough to whistle. She had a look of such calm superiority, such inborn good manners, that she could bring out the best in the worst of us. You wouldn�t have the nerve to whistle. The heavens would fall and the earth swallow you up of you did. She looked a trifle haggard and worried, as was natural, but you could tell she wouldn�t let it get her. Nothing could.

I thought I�d put things straight right from the start. �I�m not in any way connected with the kidnappers,� I said. �I�m a private detective. Why they picked me for go-between I don�t know. Probably just got my name out of the phone-book.�

�Why didn�t they use one of their own gang as a go-between?� Mrs. Jackridge asked. Her voice was almost a whisper, low and genteel.

�In the first place, it may not be a gang. There may be only one of them, or at most two. If so, they need themselves, or don�t trust each other. So they pick a neutral stranger. They can keep an eye on him, without exposing themselves.�

�I see,� the lawyer said. �Well, Mr. Jackridge received this communication yesterday.�

He handed me a paper. It was like the one I�d received, with printed words pasted onto it. They read:

�It was mailed from Grand Central.�

�Have the cops seen it?� I asked.

�Yes.� Jackridge answered. �I asked them to leave it with me. They�ve checked up on you, and they think we should let you handle it as the kidnappers say.�

�You reported to the police as soon as you found the boy missing?�

�Well, soon after. We didn�t know he was kidnapped for sure until we got the first letter informing us.�

�Weren�t you afraid to bring in the cops? Afraid for the boy�s safety�?�

Lovell spoke up. �Kidnapping is a crime, Mr. Krag. To suppress knowledge of a kidnapping is to compound a felony�.�

�It was I who informed them,� Mrs. Jackridge said. She stood up, and looked me square in the eye. �I love my boy. I want him back safe and sound. He�s worth more than $50,000 to me.� Her eyes grew narrow, and she clenched her jaw. �But they�ll be caught. I�ll see to it. No one can do this to me and get away with it.�

�Well, maybe they�ll be caught, maybe not. The cops can�t act until the boy is returned. By that time the trail can be as cold as a mackerel. However, that�s not my business, and the cops wouldn�t care for me to act as if it were.�

�Precisely,� Jackridge said, as if he were glad I took that view of things. �The police agree that we are to give you the money, and that you are to leave it as prescribed in the note. There�s really nothing else you need worry about, is there?�

I shrugged. �I guess not. Except my two hundred bucks. I hate to take it, because I feel I�m working more for them than you, but I guess it won�t make much of a dent after fifty thousand.�

�I guess not,� Jackridge said.