Readers who have been with us for a while will know that Double Issues are usually an occasion for some stories from AHMM�s archives, stories we think warrant a new readership. This time, however, we are departing from that tradition. All the stories in this Mid-December issue are new ones, with the exception of Josephine Bell�s �The Silver Snuffbox� � which will, however, be new to readers in this country.

For those who like seasonal stories to add an extra fillip to, say, Halloween, we have not been neglectful. �Many Are the Traps of the Crafty� by Robert Wm. Klein directly involves itself with this ominous time of year. Dan Crawford�s �The Thousand Toes of Bliss� gives a new tweak to the tale of the Ruler of the Underworld (hmm). Don Marshall�s �As Ye Sow So Shall Ye...� is appropriately horrific.

Nor have we forgotten Thanksgiving: our �Unsolved� is about bringing home a turkey.

And those are just a few of the puzzles that await you.

So as not to puzzle our faithful readers unduly, however, in future issues anyway, we wish to announce that this is the last of Carol Harper�s �Booked & Printed� columns for AHMM. Ms. Harper, who has been keeping us so well informed about the latest in mystery novels for almost four years, has moved to London and so can no longer continue. Starting in the January issue, her place will be taken (retaken, actually) by Mary Cannon, who wrote �Booked & Printed� from its inception in 1982 till early 1989 and has been a twice-yearly reviewer for us since.

We welcome Mary back, we thank Carol enormously and wish her all the best, and we hope the stories herein entertain you through these end-of-year long nights.

Alone with the soft humming of the freezer cases at the rear of the supermarket, Klauder lifted his head at what sounded like a small scream filtering from the front. Nothing followed but silence. Probably another shopper stung by a sharp price increase.

He tumbled a few more frozen dinners into his cart atop the half dozen already there and continued his meandering along the deserted aisles, roaming alone and free among the boxes, cans, and jars, which was why he always shopped on Wednesday night in the last hour before the store closed.

Fifteen minutes later he emerged at the checkout to see the lone, white-faced checker, both her mouth and her cash drawer wide open and her trembling hands pressed to her cheeks, leaning back in her little stall. Behind her, the young, sandy-haired, mustachioed manager and a teenaged boy seemed to offer support as they all faced Meg Boniface, the county sheriff.

Solid, erect, shoulders back, graying brown hair cut short, heavy winter jacket open, Meg held a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other; a stalwart and reassuring presence patiently waiting for the younger checker, a frizzy-haired blonde with a prominent nose in a narrow face, to calm down.

The familiar tableau gave Klauder the reason for the scream.

As his clattering cart drew her attention, Meg�s eyebrows lifted hopefully when she saw him behind it.

�Holdup,� she explained unnecessarily. �Like the others. See anything?�

�Nothing.�

�Damn. You might have helped if you had.�

�If he had the usual gun, I�d have done nothing.�

She flicked the notebook impatiently. �Wouldn�t expect you to play hero, but you�d have made a good witness��

�He was short. Small. The gun was big,� said the checker loudly, her moment in the sun threatened. After all, she was the one who�d been held up.

There are no small guns when you�re looking down the muzzle, thought Klauder.

�Clothes?� asked Meg.

�Tan parka. Hood up and something across his face. Didn�t say anything. Just pointed the gun at the register. I knew what he wanted. I gave him the cash. He waved for me to get down on the floor and ran out.�

Klauder began unloading his cart.

�Hey,� said the manager, anger fluttering his droopy blond mustache, �we�ve just been held up. We can�t handle that now.�

Klauder stacked his frozen dinners alongside a half-dozen cans of heat-and-serve equivalents, an array that stamped him as a man living alone who hated to cook for himself. �Life must go on.�

�There�s no cash in the register.�

�I�ll give you a check for the exact amount.�

�Our policy on checks is��

�The sheriff will vouch for me.�

�Like hell I will.� Meg turned to the manager. �His checks bounce higher than golf balls on concrete.�

The manager blinked, swallowed, saw the grin, and disgustedly said, �Jeez,� in a low voice, obviously disapproving of a law officer who could joke at a time like this, not realizing that her good humor expressed relief at not finding bleeding people sprawled on the floor and that only money was lost.

�Okay,� said Klauder. �But you�ll have to take the frozen food back before it thaws because I�m not doing it.�

The manager looked at the stacked pile, rolled his eyes to indicate that the retail business was surely the first step toward martyrdom, and motioned the checker out of the stall.

Meg took the girl aside as he noisily totaled Klauder�s week�s supply of food while the teenager dropped it haphazardly into two paper sacks.

Klauder gave him the check. �Look at it as a new start. Just be thankful no one was hurt.�

Meg fell into step as he headed for the door, a large and formidable bastion of law and order, but an attractive woman none the less.

�Same as the other three,� she said. �Like someone is running a computer program. Maybe someone saw him this time.�

Klauder glanced down the line of stores in the small shopping plaza. All were dark except one fifty yards away.

�Laundromat,� she explained. �Novachek�s down there. Either he found someone to talk to or he�s washing his socks.� She marched along as he headed for his Blazer, her voice now carrying a trace of concern. �We have to stop these holdups, Klauder. We�re approaching critical mass.�

He agreed. It was only a matter of time until someone became foolish, that gun went off, and more than cash was lost.

�How about putting aside getting rich from carving those ducks and giving us a hand?�

He set the bags down on the passenger side floor.

�Be happy to, but I�m driving to Baltimore tomorrow for a meeting with Halley and to pick up a check. I�ll be back Friday afternoon.�

�One of the boys saw Natalie Something heading west well over the speed limit this afternoon, and I see you�re back to frozen dinners for the microwave. Sounds like a permanent departure. Hurt her feelings?�

She did have a way of putting two and two together. Natalie Thurman, the tall blonde who had rented the cabin next to his, wouldn�t be back.

�I have an open invitation to visit her in Pittsburgh any time. Since you won�t be happy until you know why, she left because she saw herself in a mirror once too often with her hair in a ponytail, a sweatshirt, jeans and boots. That wasn�t her, she said. She�s the beauty salon every week, silk blouse, tailored suit with short skirt, pantyhose and spiked heels type. She called her former law firm and got her job back.�

�Too bad, but both of you can now look forward to becoming rich. And speaking of money, I hear you�re doing so well you can afford a housekeeper.�

He grinned. Since his ad in the weekly last Friday had carried a box number, the only way she could have known was because Harry and Jane, the couple who publish the paper, had told her.

He slid behind the wheel. �Only for three days a week.�

She closed the door. �Have a good trip and hold the speed down. Staties give you a ticket, there�s nothing I can do for you.�

She was, he thought as he drove home on the dark, deserted roads, a perfect example of how the people who wear badges can�t do it all alone. Very little went on in the county, good or bad, without someone�s saying, better tell Meg. It was remarkable how people did things for her. Himself included. She�d always had to call in the state police for investigations, but when she�d found he was a Philadelphia homicide detective on early retirement, she�d enlisted his experience, eventually talking the County Board of Supervisors into taking him on as a detective-consultant so that when she used him he�d be paid for what he was willing to do for nothing. Perhaps that was her secret. She played fair with everyone.

He pulled into his carport, extracted his bags, and stood for a moment in the cold, still night. To his left, the blackness of the water was discernible only because of the lighter value of the lakeshore snow. Some hundred yards up the road, the darkened cabin owned by Charlie and Grace Boynton couldn�t be seen at all. They wouldn�t return from Florida for another two months.

Natalie, who had rented it for the winter, wouldn�t return at all. The cold nipped at his face, the night feeling harsh and empty. That he�d miss her was putting it mildly. She�d been responsible for the thawing of the emotions that had been in a deep freeze since his wife had died, and he was grateful.

They both handled her departure very lightly. Very adult approach. But both knew that trading casual clothes for designer fashions hadn�t been why she�d left. A relationship needed a more solid base than gratitude.

Friday afternoon he returned early enough to deposit a fat check into his account before the bank closed. The talent for carving wild ducks in flight had emerged from nowhere and the price had skyrocketed since Halley had begun featuring them in his outdoorsmen�s catalogues, some of the earlier ones already collector�s items.

He picked up his mail at the post office and walked over to the newspaper to find two replies to his ad.

One demanded transportation, twenty dollars an hour, lunch, and no chore that would require the woman to get her hands wet. The other, shakily penned, he handed to Harry Persky, the owner, editor, and publisher.

Harry grinned. �Mabel. She answers almost every ad we run. Either it�s her way of denying she�s eighty-nine years old, or she�s hoping for the basis of an age discrimination lawsuit. Very feisty lady, Mabel. Want to run the ad again?�

He waved him off. �Wouldn�t do any better, would we?�

Meg was behind her desk, eyes closed, chin propped up in her left hand, an inactive ballpoint in the right. He cleared his throat.

�Supermarket Bandit still running loose?�

She opened her eyes, stretched, yawned, and shook her head. �A wisp of smoke, Klauder. Just wondering why he�s never said a word. Easy enough to disguise a voice, if that�s what he�s afraid of.�

�All stores get hit on an off night just before closing, like the other night?�

She nodded. �Tuesday or Wednesday. Even though he gets a lot less that way. The managers aren�t stupid. They run only one register with just enough cash to make change. The night you were there, he got three hundred or so. The others were around that figure. One armed robbery a month with that kind of return is hardly worth the risk.�

�Not exactly an overwhelming crime wave. A schedule like that gives you plenty of time to set up stakeouts.�

�Sure, but you tell me where because I don�t have enough men to cover all the markets.�

�Make any traffic stops on suspicion after the reports came in?�

She sighed. �No vehicle description, Klauder, and the judges don�t consider roadblocks playing fair.�

�What did Novachek end up with? A witness or clean socks?�

�Young woman with a baby. She didn�t see or hear anything.�

�Anyone else in the laundromat?�

�Only the kid who makes change and sympathizes when a washer or dryer swallows your quarters without operating. He was raising his cultural values by drooling through Penthouse with his Walkman plugged into his empty head. Wouldn�t have seen or heard a massacre in the parking lot.�

He rose. �I�ll come back Wednesday evening, go over the file, and take a look at the four markets that were hit. Might stumble across something that will tell us which one may be next.�

He was halfway out the door when she said, �I�m sorry about Natalie.�

He paused. �I�ll survive.�

�On frozen dinners,� she said dryly. �But have faith, Klauder. There�s always another good cook around the corner.�

He should never have mentioned Natalie�s culinary skills.

On Wednesday, he looked at the dinners in the freezer, glanced at the microwave, said to hell with it, slammed the freezer door, and drove into town to Trevane�s bar and grill.

When he�d first moved here, getting a table on an off night had been no trouble, but since the opening of the ski resort, Trevane�s was always jammed with lean, healthy, bright looking, trendy young couples wearing turtlenecks, sweaters with flowers, and pants tucked into boots, to whom being caught on one of the more publicized ski slopes elsewhere was a social disaster from which they�d never recover. The rest of the year, it was filled out by their clones, who had bought the undistinguished but expensive conglomeration of angles, skylights, patios, balconies, brick and wood condos at the far end of the lake.

Nursing a beer at the bar, Klauder thought they all looked as though they�d come off a production line in a secret factory tucked away in the mountains, run by elves with a sense of humor, which had spewed them forth complete with gold cards.

Trevane himself rescued him, leading him to a table in the corner.

�Sorry, Klauder. I hate having old customers wait, but��

�No apology necessary,� said Klauder. �Just take the money and run. They�ll be gone as soon as they discover somewhere else.�

The influx had brought more than money. They�d forced Meg to expand her small force, increased her controlled substance problem exponentially, and forced her to spend more time behind her desk administrating.

�Those people are like dandelion seeds,� she said. �Look pretty drifting in the wind, but when they land and take root you get ugly weeds.�

She wasn�t there when he walked into the office, but she�d left the file for him. As she said, the holdups could have come off a computer program. He made a note of the dates. The first had been at the end of October, the others following at four and five week intervals. All had taken place between eight and nine. He noted the locations and found them on the map. No discernible pattern there.

Wanting to arrive at the sites at the time the holdups took place, he spent an hour commiserating with a morose Novachek, the two-month rookie on inside duty for neglecting to get the name of the woman he�d interviewed in the laundromat. �Teach you to keep your hormones in your hip pocket when on duty,� Meg had told him.

The sign loomed suddenly out of the darkness and the uncertain flakes of an approaching storm. Village of Andorra. He wondered how a group of homes went about qualifying as a village. Just beyond them was a stop-signed intersection, a self-service gas station on one corner, evidently the magnet for a small row of stores fronted by asphalt paving that ran up to the concrete of the station itself. Hardly a supermarket, the one at the end � yet too big for a minimarket or a convenience store. The others ranged from a dry cleaners to a real estate office. All dark, except for the market. He parked and mentally reviewed the report in the file. There had been only two people in the store. A wave of the gun had sent them to the floor before the man left, and neither had been foolhardy or brave enough to get up until several minutes had passed. The only other possible witness had been the man in the booth at the service station, who had seen nothing. Walled in, thick bulletproof glass in front of him, his view was confined to the pumps. He might have had a customer about the time of the holdup � a young woman driving an old car. A cash customer. Locating her for questioning fitted into the category of miracle.

The storm was getting down to serious business by the time he reached the second. Slightly larger shopping plaza and store, as though the man was working his way up in the world. Again, only one checkout person who had been waved to the floor before the man left. Three other shops had been open, but two were at the far end and the third in the center. Even if those in the two at the end had a reason to look out, they were too far from the market to see much of anything except a moving figure. In the card and gift shop in the center, the woman had been talking to a young mother who had her baby with her. Like most women, she�d been more interested in the baby than anything else.

Beautiful, thought Klauder. If this guy decides to go bigtime, Meg is in real trouble.

By the time he reached the third market, he was cruising through three inches of snow. He didn�t stop. The pattern of two still-open shops and the market jigsawed neatly with that of the other three shopping plazas. Meg would find it easy to fill in the missing pieces with similar ones to complete the picture.

And as she did, the M.O. could have come off a computer. Tan parka � every second person in the county wore one, including him � face concealed, man silent, gun, people waved to the floor, the usual special sale banners and stacked impulse merchandise blocking their view through the plate glass windows even if they�d had enough nerve to stand up to see him take off, only a couple of other stores open, the man disappearing as fast as a politician queried about voting himself a pay raise at midnight.

That vanishing act was the real puzzle. If nothing else, the laws of chance said someone would have noticed something, seen someone, noted a car leaving fast. Surely, the man didn�t hang around�

Uh-huh. Klauder grinned. He couldn�t remember seeing it in the interviews in the third investigation, but if it weren�t there, he�d bet he could come back tomorrow and confirm it.

It was in the file. He looked out the window at the snow deepening the six inches already on the Blazer. If he didn�t leave soon, he�d be here all night with Meg, Novachek, and a pot of coffee for company. He turned to Meg.

�That�s it,� he said. �A young woman in the gas station, a young mother in the card shop, a young woman in the hardware store, a young woman with a baby in the laundromat. No one knew her and she wasn�t important enough to rate a detailed description. In fact, Novachek didn�t even bother to get her name��

�Dummy,� she said. �By the time I realized � hell, she was gone.�

��but the gas station attendant seemed to think the one he saw was driving an old car, and there was a heatup one in front of the laundromat. Send Novachek to the state police artist, have a sketch made of the woman he saw, and show it to the other three. If I�m right, they�ll say it�s the same woman. She drives the holdup man there. If it looks clear, she diverts the attention of anyone in the only open shop close enough to matter, while he holds up the market. By the time the people there work up enough nerve to get off the floor, he�s hidden in the back seat��

�Dammit,� she said softly, �you mean he could have been fifty yards from us that night?�

�You were there before she had time to pull out, so she was interviewed as a possible witness. You were looking for a man, not a woman. When she drove away, she took him with her. That�s how he disappears so fast. It�s so simple we ought to give him the Thief of the Year award.�

Eyes closed, she sat as if picturing it in her mind. �There�s an inconsistency in your theory, Klauder. If it�s the same woman, why did she have a baby with her twice?�

�Assuming that no mother deliberately takes a baby along on a holdup, especially on a cold winter�s night, maybe she had to.�

�Had to?�

�No babysitter available. The first step is to have the sketch made. If the people identify her as the woman, all you have to do is stake out any shopping plaza that fits the configuration of the first four � only the market and a few other stores open � and wait for a young woman in an old car to show up, with or without baby. How many come to mind?�

�Only two. Unless he goes back to one of the first four.�

�Too smart to risk that.� He glanced out the window. �What�s with this storm?�

�Twelve inches by morning. The county�s on emergency status.�

He reached for his parka. �I�m gone. The drifts along the lake road are probably that high already.�

She walked with him to the door.

�Let�s hope you got it right, Klauder. Didn�t come up with why they pull only one a month, did you?�

Klauder shrugged. �Maybe they need rent money.�

He stood at the window with his morning coffee, looking out at�least twelve inches in the flat areas and drifts double that. At the ski resort, the manager would be ecstatic.

The state would plow the main roads while the county would open up the secondaries, particularly those where the school buses ran. The sheriff�s department would have its hands full until things settled down. �It�s a natural law, Klauder,� Meg had said. �When it snows, the crime rate goes down but the aggravation rate goes up.� Some of the aggravation in this case being Novachek delayed in getting to the state police artist and showing copies of his sketch to the three people who had seen the young woman. Annoying, but not vital. Even though this was a short month, the next holdup had to be at least two weeks away.

He worked all day wondering if he was becoming money-hungry in the number of carvings he�d committed himself to do for Halley, breaking for lunch and several sessions of wrestling with the heavy snow blower George Boynton had insisted on giving him. �Hell, I�m too old to use it any more, Klauder. You might as well have it.� By the time he�d cleared his way to the road, he had a good idea of how George had developed his bad heart.

The roar of the plow coming through that night brought on a few mental calculations. With all the roads now open, Novachek was free to see the artist in the morning. He�d be back in time to show copies of the sketch to the three people who had seen the young woman, giving Klauder two good excuses to go to town on Saturday morning. One, for a good breakfast that required no dishwashing on his part, and two, for a visit to Meg�s office to see what the young woman looked like.

The soft lines of the sketch gave more of an impression than detail. She appeared somewhat older than he�d imagined, with a great deal of character in the square-jawed, pretty face. Generous mouth, long hair falling to her shoulders from beneath the wool cap. Looking at the line of the jaw, he thought that the no-babysitter guess was probably right. She�d brought the baby along because she�d had no choice.

�Yeah, they all agree it could be the same woman,� said Meg, �but wipe that smug look off your face. None knows her, and neither does anyone else in those four shopping plazas.�

�How tall?�

�Five two or three, hair dark, eyes blue, according to Novachek. I�m showing the sketch around in the two plazas I think might be next, to see if anyone there knows her. If not, I�ll leave a copy so they can give us a call if they see her. I figure she has to be along when he cases the store he�s going to hit next. What do you think?�

Outside her window, clanking front end loaders filled trucks with snow to be dumped into the lake. Before the condos and the ski resort, solar power had removed the snow. At no cost, a few irate taxpayers had bitterly pointed out. The environmental benefit had been cast aside when civic and business groups had insisted that you had to spend money to make money, tactfully not mentioning that those who did the spending and those who did the making weren�t necessarily the same.

He handed her the sketch. �It�s all a guessing game. Can�t hurt to canvass those plazas once. You might luck out, but I wouldn�t leave sketches. Most people are lousy actors. Someone who sees her walk in might get nervous. If either of them is sensitive enough to pick it up, they�ll not only call off the holdup, but probably take off. Which leaves you nowhere. You can�t prove a thing on the other holdups, so you have to collar these two while this one is going down. I�d rather canvass once. No results, I�d gamble on the pattern and stake out the markets on the two slowest nights, Tuesday and Wednesday, during the last week of this month and the first of the next. I can�t see them changing a successful M.O.�

�Sounds good, but with this snow, we�ll have schussing yuppies coming out of our ears every weekend, which means extra duty for everyone. That leaves me a little thin during the week. I may not be able to tie up two men just sitting around for hours.�

He grinned.

�What men?� he said. �We�ll do it. Since all you�ve been doing lately is sitting around doing nothing, it�ll do you good to get out.�

She leaned back, folded her arms, and regarded him balefully. �Sitting around? Doing nothing? Very diplomatic way to present the suggestion, Klauder.�

�Don�t be so damned sensitive. Do we do it or not?�

�Oh, we do it, Klauder.� She smiled at him. �As you say, it�ll do me good to get out.�

When it came to smiling false smiles, she could win an Academy Award. He�d touched a nerve, and it was going to cost him.

He wondered when and how much.

Ten nights later he was parked in the smaller of the two plazas, a row of twelve shops anchored at one end by a branch bank and at the other by the market. All the shops were closed except for the video rental near the darkened back, a beer-selling deli two doors from that, and a pizza place in the middle. A temperature of eight had kept everyone but the brave or insane at home. The video rental hadn�t done enough business to pay for the electricity, the pizza place not far behind, but the sixpacks had been flowing out of the deli all evening. Beer must be warming. The deli was doing better than the supermarket. If the holdup man had any brains, he�d zero in on that.

This was the second night of the stakeout. The first had yielded nothing but derogatory remarks about his intelligence from Meg while she massaged what she claimed were frostbitten toes in thermal socked feet propped on an open drawer. If nothing turned up tonight, they�d have to try again next week. And hope it was warmer.

He stamped his feet and clapped his hands, insulated boots and gloves notwithstanding. Without the heater going, the interior of the Blazer was the approximate temperature of his freezer at home, but exhaust curling from a parked vehicle would alert any sensible holdup man.

Even the thermos of coffee he�d brought along hadn�t helped. If he had to give chase, he�d be too stiff to move fast:

Since the night before, he�d had the feeling he was wasting his time. It took a car parked an inordinately long time in front of the pizza place to tell him that distracting the attention of anyone inside wasn�t the only reason the woman selected the shop closest to the market. Her car had to be convenient to it so that a running man was exposed for as short a time as possible. Each had been the type of place she could leave when she pleased. Even the laundromat. She�d been delayed there only because Novachek and Meg had appeared too quickly.

But like the unknown parker, at the pizza place she�d have to wait until her order was ready. Leave without it and several very angry pizza makers would remember her for wasting not only their time, but the extra pepperoni. And if several people were ahead of her�

He hadn�t thought it through. The store in this plaza couldn�t be the target. At Meg�s, though � but she hadn�t yet called for backup, so he�d probably missed there, too.

Realizing he�d been wrong suddenly made the cold colder, his feet icier, his hands number. Damn.

Might as well stop by and give her the bad news on the way in.

The Blazer skidded as he hit the highway.

The radio squeaked his name. �Come on in, genius. It�s all over.�

He grinned with relief and reached for the mike. �You have them both?�

�What we have is going to surprise you so much you�ll be happy to get back to your carving. I�m thinking of replacing you with a Ouija board.�

The first sentence told him he had missed something important. The second that collaring the supermarket bandit wasn�t enough to make her stop throwing verbal darts at him for saying she sat around doing nothing.

A doll of a woman was seated before Meg�s desk, head down, hands clasped in her lap, wearing jeans, boots, and a bulky white turtleneck sweater; short and small indeed, but a competence in the face and the long, thin hands. The sketch hadn�t done her justice, but only a color photo or portrait would � the subtle nuances and shadows necessary for the full impact. She�d have looked in character handing Trevane a gold card.

�Meet Mrs. Andrea Sharon, the supermarket bandit,� said Meg. �She did them all, alone.� A smile tugged at her lips. �You always underestimate the capabilities of women, Klauder.�

He shrugged out of his parka. Still throwing darts, but the lack of her usual wrath focused on the cowering perpetrator puzzled him. Women had never escaped it before � if anything, she was harder on them than on men.

�Since she�s sitting here, it seems that was the only mistake I made.�

Meg smiled at the woman. �You can get mad at him if you like. He figured out what you were doing and how, except he was sure you were only helping a man.�

This thing was rolling before his eyes like a TV with the vertical hold out of whack. No indignation at all. Sympathy, if anything. She sympathized with lawbreakers as often as NASA sent men to the moon.

The woman�s eyes flashed up to Klauder and back to the hands in her lap, the expression in them reminding him of the frightened look of a doe he�d surprised next to the cabin one morning.

Meg rose, patted her shoulder, said, �Don�t worry about the baby. I sent someone to get her,� and motioned Klauder out of the office.

She slid a hip onto a deserted desk as he poured himself a cup of hot coffee and held it with half-frozen hands.

�First female yuppie holdup person I�ve ever come across. Shows you where society is headed.� She punched him lightly on the arm. �I really can�t fault you for thinking someone else was involved. We might�ve had a clue if the woman in the gift shop and that dummy in the laundromat had had enough sense to tell us she left the baby and ran out to her car to get something. Car, hell. She used them as babysitters while she held up the markets. They never put two and two together. Why should they? Who would think that a mother would ask them to keep an eye on her baby while she ran out and committed a holdup?�

He sipped the coffee, wondering how long it would take for the hot liquid to filter down to his feet. �I would.�

�Naturally,� she said smugly. �If your mother came around the corner after a crime went down, she�d make your list of suspects. I�m talking normal people here, Klauder. But no baby tonight. She had a sitter. She parked, went into the card shop, checked to see if it was clear, and walked up to the market, pulling that turtleneck collar up over her face and the hood over her head so fast it took me by surprise. My frozen old bones wouldn�t let me move fast enough to stop her��

�You were supposed to call me for backup.�

��I don�t need backup to handle a lone woman, Klauder. Zip, she was out again. Fifteen feet from the door, she was just another longhaired female shopper heading back to her car. Never occurred to us, either, that the reason the holdup never said a word was because a female voice is a female voice, no matter how it�s disguised.�

In the office, the woman was still staring down at her hands.

�Why?� he asked.

�We�ve had a long talk��

�Long talk? How long has she been here?�

�Oh, the babysitter�s schedule forced her to move early tonight. I guess I picked her up about seven thirty.�

�Thank you very much. Nice of you to let me freeze out there for more than an hour. Okay, we�re even,�

Her voice was syrupy. �Even? I have no idea of what you�re talking about. I just wanted to be sure I had the right party. Anyway, her sleaze, of a husband cleaned out all their assets and disappeared. Even took along the credit cards, since they were his, he said, leaving her in one of those condos with a nine-month-old baby��

Aha. The rolling picture was slowing down. The sleaze had better have settled in the Gobi Desert, and he might not be safe from her even there.

��Nice place to live, sure, but you can�t eat it. Even if she could sell it, which she can�t without his signature, it would take months, and public assistance � those people don�t set any speed records, especially when someone who looks like her is across the desk.�

�I thought they had things like emergency grants.�

�Try getting one with an expensive condo as your address.�

�No relatives?�

She sighed. �Klauder, get with it. Any Option you can think of, she�s been there long before you. She�s begged for help at every agency the social engineers have dreamed up, called every number in the book, and filled out every form ever created to baffle the poor and needy. And don�t say she could have gotten a job. She tried until she had to sell her car for grocery money along with most of her clothes and furniture. The one she used was borrowed. And what could she do with the baby if she found one? Not many jobs where you can keep a nine-month-old around, and daycare centers around here are expensive and jammed up.�

The picture steadied and cleared.

�When the sleaze cleared out, he left her with nothing. The kindness of strangers is highly overrated, Klauder. She needed money. She tried every legitimate way to get it until she ran out of options, so she got a sitter for a few hours while she held up a market. Once a month. Until some assistance came through. From somewhere. She and the kid had to eat.� She paused. �Know the occupation that forces some women into, Klauder?�

He cocked an eyebrow. �With her looks, she�d have made far more than three hundred a month, that�s for sure.�

She backhanded his arm sharply. �I should have left you out there until the store closed. Talk about people falling through the cracks � we�re up to the wahzoo in social programs, yet here�s a woman and infant going hungry because she doesn�t qualify for this one, her papers got lost in that one, the condo kills her for another, and in general, no one gives a damn.�

He looked at the bowed head of the woman. If she had to hold up supermarkets, she picked the right reason and the right county to do it in.

�Why do I think that if her story checks out you have something in mind that doesn�t involve a prison sentence?�

�Oh, her story will check out. I don�t get conned very often, and never by a woman. And yeah, I do have something in mind��

�Beneath the badge on your broad bosom beats the heart of a dedicated do-gooder.�

�Forget my broad bosom. The most important thing right now is to keep her and her baby together. I can do that by swearing to the D.A. and the judge that her criminal career is over because she has a job. And if I handle the rest right, she�ll get probation��

�Not in this state. Mandatory sentence for using a deadly weapon��

Her eyes widened. �A plastic pistol a deadly weapon, Klauder? No way.�

Might be true. Andrea Sharon would have had no money for a real one, but if it hadn�t been a toy, Meg had magically turned it into one.

�Where�s the job coming from?�

�A car is no problem. Dealers have loaners��

That they did. For customers. And when they were wise enough to stay on the good side of a polite sheriff in pursuit of a good cause.

��and I know a man who not only needs a housekeeper but wouldn�t be disturbed by a baby while he�s carving away, making all kinds of money��

�Hold everything.� He started to retreat, but she clamped one hand on his shoulder so hard he winced.

�After all, Klauder, it�s your fault she was caught. Something might have come through for her next month and the Supermarket Bandit would have been history. I think that ten dollars an hour and all she and the kid can eat would be fair.�

He opened his mouth, but before the words came, she said, �Hey, it�s only temporary while I start fires under a few appropriate bureaucratic posteriors. And now that Natalie Something�s gone, you have nothing else to spend your money on.� She patted his shoulder gently. �I always seem to be doing something nice for you, Klauder.�

�Nice for me?�

�She can cook. Now, consider how much you hate those frozen dinners.�

Surrender sometimes carried benefits with it, as a couple of world powers had discovered. He removed her hand and smiled.

�How in the hell do you come up with these ideas?�

She threw her final dart, speaking slowly and with obvious relish, like a poker player fanning out four aces and saying �read �em and weep� while raking in the pot.

�Oh, when a person sits around all day doing nothing, they just sort of pop up.�

�It�s Devil�s Night tonight, Pops,� Crazy Joe said to me at�the edge of Hobb�s Woods where he sometimes slept. �Don�t let the devil burn your house down tonight.�

Crazy Joe still wore the red toboggan cap and scarf I�d given him the week before when the temperature had unseasonably plunged to freezing. I�d half expected him to have pawned them by now for the price of a bottle of Mad Dog.

�Devil�s Night or not, it�s gonna be cold tonight, Joe,� I said. �Why don�t you head for the shelter downtown?�

�I found me a shelter, Pops, and it ain�t downtown,� Crazy Joe said, casting an eye back at the woods. �Nice warm shelter. Nice warm. But I gotta watch out for the devil tonight. Don�t want him to catch me.�

�We don�t want the devil to catch any of us,� I said.

I read a lot of poetry. It fills the hours better than watching the trash they show on television nowadays. My favorite poets are the old dependables � Tennyson, Poe, Longfellow. None of this modern junk that eschews rhyme, meter, and meaning. Give me the old masters every time. They touch upon the truths of life.

Tennyson, for instance. He sums up my longings for Muriel exactly: �But O, for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!�

It�s been ten years since Muriel died. She was my wife, a true helpmate and a comfort to me.

It sounds callous, but I miss her most in the mornings when I�m preparing for my paper route. Muriel would always be up and waiting for me at four o�clock in the morning when I�d return home from the pickup site with stacks of the day�s Herald-Trumpet still smelling of fresh ink and pulp paper. She�d have the coffee brewed and poured, and she�d help me roll the papers and pack them into my double-pouched carrier bag. And then, like a squire assisting his armor-burdened knight, she�d help me lift that fully-laden carrier bag up over my head and onto my shoulders. Unlike the medieval squire, she�d kiss me on the cheek as I set out the door to walk my route and throw my papers.

Nowadays, I have a Mr. Coffee machine that gurgles and brews my coffee while I�m at the pickup site, and I roll and pack my papers alone. I fill the carrier bag as it sits upon the kitchen counter and then I crouch down, stick my head through the yoke, and wriggle the bag into place on my shoulders. Sometimes I can even avoid knocking over the coffee cup or the chair while putting the bag on. I just don�t have the strength to lift it by myself. The awkwardness of it all makes me feel like a contortionist, but at my age I should be proud of my flexibility.

I�ll be seventy-three years old at the end of the year.

I don�t need the paper route, mind you. That is, I don�t need the money it brings in. I just enjoy the work. It gives me a sense of discipline and makes me feel useful. Every day, seven days a week, I wake up at three thirty so I can go out and throw my papers. My alarm clock, a trusty wind-up model with a luminous face and a loud tick, is set for three thirty-five, but I never need it. I�m used to the early hours. I�ve risen at this hour for almost thirty years now.

Of course, in the beginning we needed the money, Muriel and I. The factory had closed and the handyman�s job just didn�t cut it with the bills. We had three kids in high school and two in grade school � all of them eating like horses � and we had a mortgage to meet. So, rather than have Muriel go out to work, I took a second job in the early mornings throwing papers for the Herald-Trumpet.

I know, it was old fashioned of us � chauvinistic of me, say my daughters � for Muriel to stay home, but that�s the way we were in those days. Mothers stayed home with their kids, fathers worked, married couples stayed married, and kids were a helluva lot happier and healthier. Not like today. Today we live in the age of the two-career family, the age of the neglected child.

In the afternoons, when I get too restless to read, I take long walks through the neighborhood, as if my route in the mornings isn�t enough exercise for an old bird like me. It�s like walking through a ghost town � empty houses, deserted driveways, a burglar�s paradise. Mommies and daddies are at work, the kids are at school or daycare, and Fido is chasing his tail in the back yard. The only traffic in the street � hell, the only sign of human life � is the postman shuttling his jeep from mailbox to mailbox; you can hear his approach from blocks away, and if you listen closely, you can hear the clockwork clink-clunk, clink-clunk of the mailboxes opening and shutting.

It�s a different world today.

I try not to think about it because it makes me blue, but the paper route and the poetry are really all I have left now. Muriel is gone, my kids and the grandkids have all moved out of state � except for my fool son Francis � and I retired long ago from the handyman�s job.

My kids all say I should retire from the Herald-Trumpet, too.

�Are you still out walking in the cold and the dark?� Chrissie says whenever she calls. �C�mon, Dad, you�re getting too old for that stuff. Why don�t you move down to Florida? You know you can stay with Jack and me and the kids.�

Well, I�m not moving to Florida. Muriel and I moved here when we first married fifty years ago, and this is my home and I intend to be buried by Muriel�s side. And as long as I can walk and throw papers and not get so senile I forget the addresses I�ll keep my route, thank you.

So then Chrissie will call Francis and remind him to drop by often and keep an eye on me. As if Francis is capable of watching over anything other than his plants and his computers. I�m the one who keeps an eye on him.

Even Slattery, my district manager, has hinted I should quit.

�Don�t you think it�s time to slow down, Pops?� he asked me one morning at the pickup site.

�You want me to quit, Bingo?� I said, using the nickname he went by as a teenager when I trained him on his first paper route. �Have my customers been complaining? Have I been missing houses, not meeting my six o�clock delivery deadline?�

�No, Pops, no. I�m just thinking of you.� Bingo got my route shortened. A lot less walking for me now, as well as less money. �Just thinking of you, Pops.�

But like I said, I don�t keep the route because of the money.

You see, there�s something invigorating about walking in the dark of the pre-dawn hours. It makes me feel close to the neighborhood. I walk right up to the front doors of the sleeping households � it�s a point of honor for me that all my customers receive their Herald-Trumpet on the porch, within easy reach, not on the lawns or in the bushes � and I feel an affinity for the slumbering inhabitants. I recognize their cars, and I know when they have visitors and when they�re on vacation. I check the growth of their children by the evolution of the toys left in the front yards � tricycles and beachballs give way to bicycles and basketballs, and finally one day there�s an extra car on the driveway and I know the kids have grown up. I see houses improved upon, rebuilt and repainted. I see houses deteriorate, too, shedding their good looks and their dignity like an old friend succumbing to Alzheimer�s. People move away, people die, new folks arrive to replace them. It�s an eternal cycle.

I�m witness to the cycles of nature as well.

I watch the changing of the seasons, the waxing and waning of the moon, the slow shifting of stars in their celestial positions. I�ve walked in the oven-dry heat of droughts when even the night air doesn�t cool. I�ve seen the first snowfalls of the year delicately drifting to earth, winking in the halos of street lights, and I�ve watched the trees bud out in springtime like a green slow-motion explosion. I�ve slipped on ice in the winter and on wet leaves in the fall. I�ve thrown my papers in blizzards and in downpours. Back in August I even saw a meteor shower over the city; for about ten seconds the sky was streaked with white lights like Lucifer falling, streaks marking the descent and death of outer space visitors. They seemed so close I thought I heard them hitting the ground in Hobb�s Woods. And on clear mornings, when I�ve thrown my last paper and my carrier bag is reduced to a feather�s weight, I�ve strolled back home as the sun, still below the horizon, transforms the eastern sky into a cathedral window with tints of rose and pink.

I still almost expect Muriel to be waiting for me at home, with a second cup of coffee in her hand and a hot breakfast of bacon, eggs, and oatmeal sitting on my plate at the table. But the house is empty, always empty, so I pour my own coffee and fix myself a bowl of bran flakes. On cold mornings I warm the milk before I add it to the cereal.

Crazy Joe disappeared as quickly as he had appeared, swallowed up by the shadows of Hobb�s Woods. Joe was one of the few people I would meet in the mornings. He wasn�t a customer, obviously, and sometimes I wouldn�t see him for months at a time. Other times he could be a nuisance, like an over-friendly dog, following me for blocks. On those days I�d put him to work, let him carry some of my papers for me. Then I�d slip him a couple of bucks. He was a sad case.

As I continued my route, I puzzled over why Crazy Joe would prefer sleeping outdoors on nights like this when at a shelter he could depend upon three hots and a cot.

So tonight is Devil�s Night, I thought as I twisted an arm around to grab a paper from my back pouch. October thirtieth, the night before Halloween. The Eve of All Hallows Eve, so to speak. This is the night firemen dread, the night teenagers and arsonists set fires to derelict buildings. This bizarre �tradition� � another sad sign of our times � seems to have originated in Detroit, but isn�t limited to that burg. Even in our small city authorities have had to battle more suspicious fires on this night than at any other time of the year.

The only thing that might keep the arsonists at bay was the record cold spell, said the very issue of the Herald-Trumpet I was throwing that morning. The freezing temperatures and light snows might serve some purpose other than to make me uncomfortable, I thought as I tried to work the stiffness out of my fingers.

A thin layer of snow clung to the lawns I walked across. Except for its brilliant whiteness, it might have been just a heavy frost. I remembered to use the sidewalk to reach Mrs. Irena�s porch; she objected to my tracking up the snow in her yard each year. I try to cater to my customers� whims. Like the Gilhooleys: they want their paper delivered to their back door. It�s out of my way, but I do it. And like I said, all my customers get their papers �porched.� If you do a job, do it right; that�s the one lesson I hope I taught my kids well.

I reached the end of Azalea Street. My route had been changed over Labor Day weekend, a fairly routine situation � routes are always being merged, divided, or adjusted. My next street was now Dahlia, and the fastest way there was to cut through Hobb�s Woods along one of its footpaths. I flicked on my flashlight and entered the woods.

The woods were larger when I was younger, but over the past twenty years new housing developments have encroached upon the trees and shrunk the forest to a strip of land about one mile long and a quarter-mile wide. I remember taking the kids into the woods when they were little to hunt for mushrooms. I guess that�s how Francis first started his fungus collection. Hobb�s Woods has always been a breeding ground for lichen and fungus and all kinds of fuzz that grows on rocks and trees � something about the damp and the dark, Francis says.

Last time Chrissie and Jack were here I took the grandkids into the woods. They didn�t like it. Gave �em the creeps. I hadn�t been in the woods for years myself, and the funny thing is, it gave me the creeps, too.

Especially the house in the woods.

I�d never noticed the house before, hot in all the years I�ve lived here. It was a small house, more of a one story cabin really, and I guess it was easy to miss back when the woods were bigger. Perhaps it was at one time a hunters� lodge of some kind, although I don�t remember much hunting ever done in Hobb�s Woods.

I discovered the house Labor Day weekend, the first time I cut through the woods. I�ll admit it startled me that morning. I didn�t expect anything to be there, and the house just loomed up like a dark blot in the middle of a clearing about twelve yards to the right of the footpath. I�m used to seeing new homes and shopping centers sprout up like mushrooms, seemingly overnight, on long-vacant lots, but this house was apparently an ancient structure, gray and crumbling, with its windows and door boarded up.

I played my flashlight over the house that first morning, but an odd reluctance, a feeling of something�s being wrong, kept me from exploring further. I had my papers to throw, I told myself. Dahlia was my last street, and then I could sit down to breakfast.

But that afternoon, in the daylight of my customary walk, I found myself � unintentionally, I believed � at the edge of Hobb�s Woods. Even then, at summer�s end, the woods smelled dank. I walked by some of the neighborhood children who were enjoying their last weekend before school, playing cowboys and Indians � or maybe astronauts and aliens � among the trees by the street, where the crosshatching of foliage wasn�t heavy enough to block out all the sun.

The clearing in which the house sat was hidden by heavy growth until you came right upon it. It was an odd clearing � round and devoid of vegetation, almost like a fairy ring. There weren�t any discernible property lines around the building, just that circular clearing. The house squatted in the exact center of the circle, an ugly pile of rotten-looking wood. �House� was perhaps too elegant a word for it; it was really a shotgun shack that couldn�t have had more than three or four rooms to it. Its roof sagged in, its sides bulged out; it looked as if it had dropped from the sky. A child might have expected the striped legs of the Wicked Witch of the East to be sticking out from under its foundations.

The house gave off a mouldering smell, like leather that�s lain in the damp for too long. The boards across the windows and the single door in front that was the only entrance to the building seemed as ancient and gray as the wood of the walls. The nails were encrusted with rust the color of dried blood. I pressed my hand against the wall; it gave beneath the pressure, releasing a small cloud of dust. I withdrew my hand and wiped it on my coat. It was amazing that the house was still standing; it seemed more a growth of soft vegetative matter than a manmade structure. But then wood is vegetative matter, isn�t it? And this wood was crumbling back into the earth of its origins.

�Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,� I said aloud as I kicked a corner of the foundation and left a gouge in the wall.

The place gave me the creeps, but at least, I thought, having examined it in daylight, I wouldn�t be bothered walking past it in the dark each morning.

The kids were still playing on the edge of the woods as I headed home. �Hansel, Gretel, where are you?� one child called out to two others, and I smiled to think that not all the fairy tales of old had been replaced by Star Wars and Ninja Turtles.

It also occurred to me it was a good thing the house was nailed shut. For some reason it reminded me of a derelict refrigerator with its door chained shut to prevent children from locking themselves into it.

I�d meant to replace the batteries in my flashlight, which had been growing dim lately. But by now I�d been cutting through Hobb�s Woods for almost two months and the footpath was as familiar to me as the sidewalks on either side of the woods.

But the familiarity didn�t make walking past the house in the woods any easier. I always felt like I was walking past a graveyard. And I can�t whistle to save my life. Some mornings I could swear the house was breathing. Its walls seemed to expand and contract ever so slightly as I passed; I could almost hear it wheezing.

The footpath is wide enough so I can walk along the middle without branches and brambles tugging at me or my carrier bag. But the path narrows just before it reaches the clearing, and I always blunder into a low-lying branch at that point.

That morning the branch knocked my flashlight out of my hand, breaking whatever tenuous link there was between batteries and bulb. No amount of rattling would make it work for me.

But the woods weren�t as dark as I�d expected. The path before me seemed illuminated by a faint glow, almost a phosphorescence. The glow came from the clearing ahead. I stepped forward. The house looked different. The glow, which was steady but dim, came from within it. The front door was open.

�What the devil...?�

Now how long had that door been open, I wondered. Surely, I�d have noticed before this morning. Was the house inhabited? I could just make out some of the house�s interior � a chair slid up under a table, a mirror on the wall, some kind of camp bed or cot in a corner, and all suffused with a light that was not electrical. It was a cold light that reminded me of the face on my alarm clock.

I didn�t venture off the footpath. The reach of the house�s light did not extend beyond the clearing that encircled it, and for some reason I didn�t want to step within that enchanted fairy ring.

I must have stood gaping several minutes before I realized that of course the house was inhabited. Some hobo or tramp was holed up in there, with a kerosene lantern no doubt. Of course. Could this be the shelter Crazy Joe had referred to a few minutes ago?

�Hey, Joe,� I called in a wavering voice. �That you, Joe?�

Only silence answered me.

On a cold morning like this, even that wretched house would look warm and inviting to a homeless person. Especially if it were furnished, no matter how sparsely.

Warmth. The very word reminded me that I was shivering. The temperature was near freezing, and I felt it bad if I didn�t keep moving. My circulation isn�t what it used to be: the older I get, the worse the cold affects me. My hands and feet were numb and heavy. A warm place to sit and stretch would be most welcome now, I thought.

No sooner did I think that than a wave of warm air hit me in the face. I shed one glove and held up a bare hand. Sure enough, a warm breeze was blowing from the circle � from the house at the center of the circle � like hot air from a heating vent.

�Well, I�ll be...� I addressed the house: �Is my wish your command? What else can you do for me?�

But I had no time to stop or step into the house. Not even to warm up. My customers were expecting their papers. Duty first. I fumbled my glove back on and turned to leave.

That�s when I smelled it.

Funny thing about our sense of smell. It�s probably the most acute yet underrated of our five senses. Scientists say we can distinguish hundreds of different odors, some almost subliminal, and all capable of triggering intense, all-but-forgotten memories and of setting off long chains of vivid thoughts.

It was a simple smell, a homey, comfortable smell that wafted with the warm air from the house. The smell of oatmeal.

Oatmeal... and the images it evoked came instantaneously. Milk and sugar, cinnamon and maple syrup. Muriel at the stove, frying bacon and eggs. Sky-blue bowls full of hot, creamy cereal and side dishes of strawberries in season. The kids banging about in the bathroom upstairs or sitting at the breakfast table, chattering and fighting over the funny pages, Muriel shooing them off to catch the schoolbus. The two of us alone for a few stolen moments of love before I have to go to work. The kids grown up, Muriel and I lingering over our second or third cup of coffee, the radio turned low to a classical station, the sun peeking through the kitchen curtains. Muriel and I. Muriel. Oh, sweet God in heaven, how I miss that woman!

I was halfway across the clearing before I roused myself from my reveries. I was almost to the door of the house. I saw myself in the mirror on the wall inside: an old man, wrapped and bundled like a papoose against the cold, stooped under the weight of a double pouch hanging in front and back, looking like a turtle and feeling like a pregnant woman with a backpack. An absurd figure, an old guy who should never risk taking himself too seriously. The mirror didn�t show the tears in my eyes.

� �Tears, idle tears,� � I murmured under my breath. � �Thinking of the days that are no more.� �

I walked away. A sigh, almost of disappointment, rose from behind me. Just the wind in the trees.

In another two minutes I was on the sidewalks of Dahlia Street, throwing my papers under the impersonal gaze of the street lights.

�Devil�s Night, indeed,� I said out loud to a dark-colored cat as it bounded out of my way.

The sun broke through the haze that afternoon, nudging the temperature up a bit, so I walked back to Hobb�s Woods to see the house again. Water was dripping from trees and eaves, and the few patches of snow to escape the sun�s rays lay in shadows and declivities.

I jumped when I saw the house. The front door was not open; not only was it closed but it was boarded up, exactly as it had always been boarded up. I walked right up to the door and pulled at the boards. They were soft and crumbly, like the rest of the house, but they held. And they were the same gray boards, crisscrossed and attached with the same rusted nails, as had always been there. I peeked through a chink in the boards at one of the windows. The house was empty, with not a stick of furniture anywhere.

Had I been hallucinating that morning? Surely, I�d seen the door open, I�d seen a light on and furniture inside, I�d felt heat and smelt oatmeal cooking. Or was it all a dream? Is this senility? Second childhood? No, not senility, I told myself. Not for me. I�d always been too sharp for such an end. There must be some other explanation.

I fixed a light dinner for myself that evening, topped off with a hot toddy heavy with whisky, and went to bed early.

The weatherman was right. It snowed again that night, and the thermometer dipped to twenty-eight. The roads were encased in ice when I got up, and it was a slow drive to the pickup site for my papers.

�It�s too icy for you to be walking out there, Pops,� Bingo said to me. �Why don�t you drive your route, throw the papers from your car?�

�Can�t porch the papers from the car. My throwing arm�s not what it used to be. I�ll be okay, Bingo. I�m a tough bird.�

�Just thinking of you, Pops.�

I slipped and slid all over the sidewalks that morning, but luckily kept my balance. I remembered not to disturb Mrs. Irena�s snow, and I successfully navigated to the Gilhooleys� back door. Getting too old? Ridiculous! I was as strong and as stable as ever.

When I reached the end of Azalea Street, I realized I still hadn�t fixed my flashlight. I debated whether to cut through Hobb�s Woods or to take the long way around to Dahlia. The cold decided for me. I took the shortcut.

The woods � powdered, iced, and glittering � possessed an unearthly beauty that I tried to ignore as I stepped quickly along the path. I kept my eyes firmly focused on the ground.

The snow reflected the light from the house well before I came upon it. In spite of my resolve to not look, to just walk on by, I turned my head.

The front door was open. The light inside the house shone brighter than yesterday and the warmth radiating from within seemed stronger. What�s more, the furniture beyond the front door had changed in the past twenty-four hours. It looked less rundown, better kept. The table was similar to the one in my own kitchen and several chairs now kept sentry around it. Both the mirror on the wall and the bed in the corner appeared bigger, more ornate.

There were a number of smells now riding on the currents of warm air � oatmeal, coffee, bacon and eggs. And I heard a sound, faint and indistinct, from within the house � a sizzling, scraping sound, like food being fried and flipped in a pan. I thought of Muriel cooking my breakfast.

From where I stood on the footpath, the front door offered a very narrow view of the house�s interior. I thought if I were only a little closer I could get a better look inside. I could peek around the door to the right and the left. I could see who was in there, who was cooking at that unseen stove.

I approached the front door. I noticed the circular clearing was free of snow. Why is that, I wondered. The heat, that�s why. It was so warm within the clearing. I knew it would be even warmer in the house. Maybe I�d be able to take the chill off my bones inside. Maybe I could even get something to eat. Something warm. Something tasty. Something...

I stepped on something. Something soft. I recoiled and glanced down. It was a red toboggan cap.

The one I�d given to Crazy Joe.

Lying not far from the cap, unfurled like a shed snakeskin, was the scarf I�d given him. And beyond that, a brown jacket, frayed and mended just like the one Joe wore. And just before the front door, a pair of old work boots lay discarded on their sides.

I stumbled back to the footpath. Those were Joe�s clothes scattered all over the clearing. Like he�d pulled them off and thrown them aside. Just doffed them like a summertime bather about to take a dip. Ripped his clothes off in freezing weather before entering that house, that house that should be abandoned but isn�t.

I ran out of the woods. Behind me a door slammed and something sighed in frustration. My breath steamed from my mouth like exhaust from an old engine. On Dahlia Street I calmed down enough to throw the last of my papers. Duty first. And then I called the police from a phone booth.

I had to make it sound plausible. I didn�t want them to think I was a crank or a nut case. I identified myself, told them I was a newspaper carrier, and said I thought someone was in the deserted house in Hobb�s Woods. Maybe a squatter. I said I saw lights on and clothing strewn about. I didn�t say anything about the heat or the open door or about Crazy Joe.

Back home, I chased my breakfast of bran flakes with a shot of whisky.

And then I pulled Muriel�s Bible off the shelf. I don�t know why � to find some words of encouragement or comfort maybe, or maybe just to hold something that Muriel once held, to feel a little closer to her.

I�m not a very religious man. My people were rock-ribbed Protestants, but Muriel was a Catholic, so I converted when we married. We raised the kids Catholic, but I never much took to it; couldn�t see the use of all that ritual. That was always Muriel�s big disappointment with me. I guess I haven�t been to church since her funeral.

I opened the Bible at random to Ecclesiasticus, one of the books not in the King James version. A phrase jumped out at me: �Many are the traps of the crafty.�

It reminded me of something I read about the war in Afghanistan, about booby traps the Soviet soldiers left in the hills and villages, bombs made to look like toys so children would pick them up.

After sunup I called the police again to ask about the results of my report. I spoke to a pleasant sergeant who explained that yes, the responding officers had found some clothes in front of the house, but no, the house showed no signs of habitation or entry. In fact, the door and windows were boarded up. But thank you anyway for your concern. �We depend on alert citizens like yourself, sir,� he said.

It was easy to resist another daylight visit to Hobb�s Woods. Instead, I drove to my son Francis�s house. As I�ve said, Francis is supposed to be keeping an eye on me, so I occasionally pay him a visit so he can fulfill his filial duty.

Francis might charitably be called the family eccentric. He works out of his home as some kind of computer consultant and his place is littered with all kinds of electronics, but his real love is botany. He has an attached greenhouse that he keeps hot and steamy where he raises tropical plants, and a basement that he keeps dark and damp where he raises fungi and mushrooms. Two different circles of hell is how I categorize them.

�Dad! What a surprise. C�mon in. Join me for lunch.�

�That depends, Francis. What are you serving?�

�Uh, well, hummus and alfalfa sprouts on pita bread, but I think I can throw together a can of soup and a ham on rye for you, Dad.�

He also served some home-brewed beer that wasn�t half bad. He�s clever, Francis is. He just lacks common sense.

We didn�t talk much � I find it hard to talk about more than generalities with my adult children � but Francis sensed something was troubling me.

�What�s the matter, Dad?�

�I�m an old man, son. �Twilight and evening bell. And after that the dark!� �

�Still reading Tennyson, I see. You always were an autodidact, Dad.�

�Don�t call me dirty names, Francis.�

�Go on, you old faker. You can�t fool me with any of that innocent yokel stuff. You�re a well-read man. A self-educated man. You and Mom raised all of us to have a great respect for education.

�Now get up and come with me, Dad. I�ve got some new specimens in the greenhouse to show you. Don�t roll your eyes like that. This will take your mind off your melancholia.�

Francis was wrong. All those fleshy orchids dripping in the steam of his greenhouse just reminded me of that soft, mouldering pile in the woods. I declined a similar tour of the basement. The correspondences of lichen to Hobb�s Woods would be even stronger there. Even the phosphorescence of some of the moss would be too similar to that light in the house.

�Look, Dad. Over here.� Francis indicated a small potted plant consisting of half a dozen green stems, each topped with a spike-lipped, hinged leaf colored red on the inside. �Ever see one of these?�

�Only in horror movies.�

�Ah, so you recognize it,� Francis said. �Dionaea muscipula. The Venus flytrap.�

�Nasty-looking thing.� The red leaf-traps made me think of the hell�s mouth in medieval mystery plays.

�It�s all a part of nature,� Francis said. �The plant appears to offer the fly what it wants � a little nectar, a little nourishment, some bright color � but it�s really a trap. It really is like a horror movie.�

The cold and the snow kept the Halloween trick-or-treaters to a minimum that evening. Only two groups of costumed kids rang my bell. I snacked on the leftover candy before turning in, and maybe it was the unaccustomed sweets that kept me awake most of the night. When sleep came, it was disturbed by chaotic dreams, dreams of mushrooms shaped like Venus flytraps. I dreamt of Muriel standing in Francis�s greenhouse and of Crazy Joe running, not away from some unknown peril but toward it, tearing his clothes off as he ran. I dreamt of meteors and of a witch�s house made of gingerbread and of bombs disguised as toys.

I fumbled the papers a good deal the next morning as I rolled them in the kitchen. A late-breaking news item was boxed on the Herald-Trumpet�s front page, two or three paragraphs about a pair of kids who didn�t return from trick-or-treating last night. At deadline time a search party had been organized.

The kids lived in my neighborhood.

All along my route I noticed lights on in houses and small groups of men and women coming and going. Conversations carried across the chilled air in staccato phrases and hushed whispers. Dogs barked, and cars skidded on the ice. Police cars were parked near Hobb�s Woods, and voices resounded among the trees. Never in all my years of paper-throwing had I seen such life in the neighborhood at that hour.

I wasn�t surprised when I came to the house in the clearing and found it as it was in daylight � closed, dark, and dead. Just an innocent, deserted house, boarded up and neglected.

The house had survival instincts, you see. It couldn�t show its true nature, no, not with the woods full of tramping, shouting search parties. It couldn�t work on a crowd, couldn�t risk the exposure. It only preyed on the helpless and the lonely � children and derelicts and old men � like a carnivore attracted by the thrashing of the sick and the wounded.

A piece of cloth lay on the ground in the fairy ring around the house. Part of a child�s Halloween costume.

My customers on Dahlia Street got their papers a little late that morning.

I hung around the house after I had shouted for the attention of the search parties. I watched as the cops and the volunteers converged from all directions into the clearing; watched as they examined the costume and scanned the grounds; watched as they easily broke down the rotted door to the house; watched as they entered and played their lights through its interior; watched as they emerged, pronouncing the house empty and uninhabited for years; watched as the crowds began a systematic search of the woods, fanning out from the clearing like beaters on an English hunt.

I hit the whisky bottle pretty heavily when I got home. I can�t take the cold any more. My hands were as stiff as an arthritic�s.

The cops came by later to interview me. After all, two mornings in a row I had reported discarded clothing in front of that house. I don�t know, maybe they suspected me in the children�s disappearance. I let �em believe I was just an old guy with an eye for detail. A male Miss Marple.

I didn�t tell them what I really knew about the house, didn�t tell them what it really was. I didn�t want them to lock me up as a lunatic, a whisky-swilling loner who might be a threat to himself or to others.

I spent the rest of the day thumbing through Muriel�s books, books that had lain unopened for years. They were mostly religious books � devotionals, missals, lives of the saints.

I remembered it was All Saints Day. A Holy Day of Obligation for the Catholic Church. Muriel and I used to get the kids corralled and dressed up for Mass on such holy days, just like on Sundays. All Saints Day. All Hallows Day. A hollow day today. No one cares any more. Can there really be saints in a world where children are victimized by bombs and perverts and... powers of darkness?

Muriel�s a saint. Of that I was certain. What would she do in this situation? What would she say to me? Oh, God, how I missed her.

I poured the rest of the whisky down the kitchen sink and set the empty bottle on the counter. Then I staggered to bed and another night of bad dreams.

For the first time in years I didn�t wake up before my alarm clock went off. I�d forgotten how its bell sounded. It clattered like a tocsin.

On the way back from the pickup site I stopped at a twenty-four-hour gas station.

It was another bitter cold morning. The snow crackled beneath my boots. I walked my route slowly and carefully. I tossed my papers gingerly. I was carrying something extra along with the papers.

In Hobb�s Woods the bright lights and warm air and delicious aromas emanating from the house assailed me long before I reached the clearing.

It knew I was coming. It was ready for me. Today it would not let me pass. I knew too much.

The low-lying branch that always grabbed me almost knocked the ice cold whisky bottle out of my numbed hand.

I stepped in front of the clearing feeling like a gladiator marching into the Colosseum. Or like a martyr about to face the lions.

The house was glowing like a palace lit up for a ball. The heat in which it basked made the structure waver and dance before my eyes. Music came from within, classical music. I recognized a piece of Offenbach that was one of Muriel�s favorites. The smells were all a hodgepodge of breakfast and Christmas cookies and baby powder and champagne and a perfume Muriel used to wear when we first dated half a century ago, in the days when we used to...

�No, no, don�t think about it!� I said aloud, snapping my mind back to the job ahead of me.

The door to the house was open. Of course it was open. It had been broken down yesterday.

Inside the house, in the lights that glowed like the aurora borealis, I saw the interior of my own house. I saw my kitchen and, beyond it, my living room, not as they are today but as they were years ago when we first moved into the house. I saw the old Hot-point refrigerator, the gas range stove, the white cabinets and gray table on the black and white linoleum floor of the kitchen. In the living room images of TV programs from the fifties flickered across the screen of a clunky TV/stereo console, programs Muriel and I used to watch together on quiet nights after putting the kids to bed. And all the while Offenbach�s �Orpheus in the Underworld� reverberated from within.

Oh, yes. It had pulled out all the stops for me this morning. This morning it would snare me for sure.

I stepped into the fairy ring. I walked deliberately and steadily across the clearing toward the front door. I tightened my grip on the gasoline-filled whisky bottle in my right hand. With my left hand I retrieved the cigarette lighter from my pocket.

Helpless old man, am I? Doddering old fool? We�ll see who�s the stronger one here. We�ll see who the survivor is, you devil-spawned, murdering pile of...

�Michael! What are you doing?�

That voice! I stopped on the spot.

�Don�t be silly, Michael. Put that thing down and come here.�

My hands trembled. The lighter slipped from my grip and fell to the ground.

That voice. I hadn�t heard that voice in...

�Ten years, Michael. Ten years. I�ve missed you so. Come here, sweetheart.�

Muriel.

�Come to my arms, Michael.�

It was Muriel. Muriel standing in the doorway, smiling her shy sweet smile, her arms spread open for an embrace.

�Give me a hug, darling. It�s been so long.�

Muriel. Muriel greeting me again after all those years, all those lonely years.

�Don�t keep me waiting, Michael. What�s the matter with you? Come here.�

Muriel stood before me, as solid and as real as I was, and yet she was more than one Muriel. She was Muriel at every stage of our lives: Muriel as a sixteen-year-old, the night I first met her at the Holland High School dance, dressed in peach taffeta and with a bow in her hair...

I let the bottle fall with a soft clunk to the ground.

...Muriel on our wedding night, beautiful and alluring; Muriel pregnant with our first child; Muriel dressed for church, with the children in tow...

I took my first step toward her.

...Muriel at the Wilders� New Year�s Eve party in �63, the night she was giddy with champagne and we clutched each other at midnight like long-lost lovers...

I opened my arms and quickened my pace forward.

...Muriel on the beach, the year our adult children treated us to a surprise vacation in Hawaii; Muriel across the breakfast table, reading the paper and blowing on her coffee to cool it; Muriel old before her time, brave and dignified in spite of the pain of her final illness...

...Muriel as she lives in all of my memories.

�I love you, Michael. Please come to me, Michael. I love you.�

I was almost there.

�Please hurry, Michael. Please.�

I reached the door�s threshold. One more step and Muriel would be in my arms again. I felt her breath, sweet as apples, on my face.

�That�s right, Michael. Come to me. I love you. I want you.�

I placed my foot on the doorstep.

�I want you.�

A look of triumph flashed into her eves. A look of cunning.

�No,� I said. �No. You�re not Muriel. Muriel�s dead.�

I fell back, away from her and the house.

�You�re just my memories. Get away from me.�

�No, Michael! Don�t say that!� Her face collapsed in grief, as though I�d struck her. �Please, Michael!�

I tried to look away from her but couldn�t. I continued to stumble backwards. My carrier bag kept me off-balance. My foot kicked against something hard and round.

The bottle. The gasoline.

�Michael,� she pleaded. �Don�t do this to me!�

I dropped down into a crouch and picked up the bottle. I swept my hand across the ground, feeling for the lighter.

�Michael, no!� she sobbed.

I found the lighter and snatched it up.

�I beg you, Michael, please!� She was crying.

I dragged myself upright under the weight of the carrier bag. I brought the bottle and lighter together in front of me. I held the lighter under the fuse of rags stuffed into the bottleneck. I clicked the lighter.

It didn�t work.

�Michael! I love you!� she screamed.

I clicked the lighter again.

It sparked, but it didn�t take.

�Michael! Don�t!�

I clicked the lighter a third time. A yellow flame shot up from it. It caught onto the rag. The rag burst into flames.

�Michael!�

�Shut up!� I screamed. �You�re not Muriel!� I lifted the bottle behind me. �You�re not! You�re not!�

My throwing arm was still good after all.

I hurled the flaming bottle at the figure, in the doorway. The figure dissolved as the bottle arced through it. I heard glass smashing on the floor of the house, followed by a phoomph and a flash of light.

I turned and ran, ran like I was a kid again. The flames threw my shadow ahead of me, while behind me the house whistled and sighed and screamed as it died.

I cried all the way down Dahlia Street.

I went to church later that morning. It was All Souls Day. After Mass I lit three candles and said a prayer for three lost souls.

I didn�t need to say a prayer for Muriel. I know she�s in a better place and that I�ll be joining her someday.

Until that final reunion there�s no need for me to dwell in the past any more, because �the tender grace of a day that is dead will never come back to me.�

There�s only the future to think about.

The five o�clock news offered several headline stories. None of them was about an airplane explosion above the runway at JFK. This made Leland Somers, who was watching the news from a hotel room in Chicago, nervous.

If the plane had blown up, as it had been supposed to, the blazing wreckage would have been featured at the top of the hour. Instead, the lead story had been something about prime lending rates and the Federal Reserve. News teams love fiery footage, Leland knew, and do everything short of setting their own explosions to get it. There was no way they could pass up a story as big as this. Unless there wasn�t any story.

No news was bad news.

Leland rode the elevator down to the hotel�s underground parking garage, then took his Volvo to the freeway. The nearest diner was a mile away, and when he reached it, it turned out not to have a phone. So Leland drove on. Five minutes later he pulled in at a Texaco station with a phone booth in the back. He dug a handful of change out of his pocket and sent the attendant away to pump a tankful of gas. Leland laid his quarters and dimes out on the metal ledge next to the phone and started making calls.

Yes, the information desk said, flight 717A took off safely from O�Hare. Delayed by forty minutes, but that was to be expected with the weather. The flight should have arrived in New York City at four thirty. Would Leland like for her to check?

Leland hung up, then dialed New York.

Yes, flight 717A had arrived safely. Forty-five minutes behind schedule, but�

Leland hung up, dialed Los Angeles.

No, the luggage checked on flight 717A had made it all the way to New York � except for those pieces that had been taken off at the stopover in Chicago. Why? Was Leland missing a bag?

Leland hung up, swept the remaining change into his palm, and dropped it in his pocket. Was Leland missing a bag? He certainly was, but he could hardly ask for it.

What did it contain, sir?

Oh, this and that: some shorts, some, souvenirs, five feet of firecotton wadding, a sensitively calibrated igniter, and enough C-32 plastic explosive to scatter pieces of your plane from Hoboken to Beijing.

Oh, that bag. Yes, we found it. We�re holding it for you at the courtesy desk.

Leland paid for the gas and a change of oil he hadn�t needed or wanted or requested. Three minutes of doubling the speed limit brought him back to his hotel room. He switched on the news again.

Another coup attempt in the Philippines, housing starts on the decline, a shootout between rival gangs outside a downtown packing plant � no airplane explosion, no panels of airline toadies insisting that flying is still the safest way to travel, not even a small item about a suspicious package at JFK being intercepted, opened, defused, and investigated. That would have explained the failure, at least.

Leland tried to figure out what could have gone wrong. Maybe a malfunction in the activation mechanism, he thought. It was attuned to rapid drops in altitude near the ground: the first such drop � the stopover landing in Chicago � primed the explosive, while the second � the landing at JFK � ignited it. Or should have. This was all controlled by a tiny microprocessor, and Leland was the first to admit that microprocessors were as unreliable as they were indispensable. Leland had tested the system, of course, but that didn�t rule out the possibility of a last-minute breakdown. Wires might have jiggled loose. Yes, that made the most sense.

But even this did not explain why the bomb hadn�t been found after the flight had landed at JFK. Airline security would have opened any unclaimed bags by now�

Of course, Leland realized. They had found it. They simply hadn�t released this information to the public. Nor would they. You can�t cover up an explosion, but a bomb that did not go off is another story. Leland could imagine the higher-ups telling the security team to keep quiet: chalk it up to good luck, men, and shut up. We don�t want to frighten away ticket buyers.

Or, hell, maybe the bag had gotten lost, had ended up on a plane to Miami or Jacksonville or Guam. And the bomb had malfunctioned. Or maybe the mechanism had worked and there was something wrong with the explosive itself�

Never mind, Leland told himself. What difference does it make why you failed? The point is that you did. The point is that flight 717A ended up in one piece instead of a million bits of scrap.

Leland knew he had two choices. He could go to Murami Al-Fasad and tell him what had happened, either the truth or a more self-flattering lie; Leland could ask for another chance to earn his fee, he could offer a freebie on top of that, he could even return the hundred thousand dollars Al-Fasad had deposited under his name in a Zurich bank account. Or he could run across the border into Ontario and hide out in the safehouse Thor Szkolar had set up with situations exactly like this in mind.

Leland weighed the alternatives carefully. Though some members of the Jihad were legendary for their brutality, Al-Fasad himself was a civilized man. He had been educated in the West, after all, and surely he would listen to reason � surely he would not forget Leland�s past record of success after success � surely, Leland thought, he would be sympathetic.

Al-Fasad was only a telephone call away. Leland stared at the phone by the bed for a good ten minutes.

Then he started to pack.

The breath of hungover GI�s steamed the windows of the rickety army bus as it swerved around potholes on the road to ASCOM City. Things couldn�t have been better. Except that we weren�t going there to run the village, we were going there to look at a corpse.

My name is George Sue�o, Criminal Investigation Division, 8th Army Detachment, Seoul, Korea. When my partner Ernie Bascom and I got the assignment from the first sergeant, we thought it was harassment.

�GI�s turn up dead in business girls� hooches all the time,� Ernie said. �Carbon monoxide poisoning. Routine.�

�Maybe so,� the first sergeant said. �But this time the girl wasn�t lying next to him. She cleaned out her room, and she�s gone.�

Ernie shrugged. �She probably got scared. The Korean National Police will find her.�

�Or you will.� The first sergeant looked at his watch. �A bus leaves for the Army Support Command every other hour. I expect you two guys to be on the next one.�

Ernie started to say something, but I slapped him on the elbow. He looked at me, I jerked my head towards the door, and we got up and walked out. We didn�t speak until we were halfway down the hallway.

�The team from the inspector general is going to be here tomorrow,� Ernie said. �That�s probably why he wants us out of the way.�

�Maybe. Or maybe his cop�s sense of propriety is offended when a GI wakes up in the morning dead.�

�Yeah. Maybe.� Ernie slammed through the big double doors of the red brick C.I.D. building. �At least it�ll give us a chance to run the ville in ASCOM City.�

�Yeah,� I said. �Maybe.�

We flashed our identification to the desk sergeant at the ASCOM MP station.

�Lieutenant Crane has been waiting for you,� he said. �Straight down the hallway. Third room on the left.�

Lieutenant Crane was a gangly man in his early twenties with fatigue pants covering the length of his stilt-like legs. When we walked in, he looked up from a scattering of paperwork and ran a hand through his hair.

�I don�t know why they sent you down here. The KNP�s are still looking for the girl, but other than that it�s nothing more than a carbon monoxide poisoning.�

Ernie let me do the talking. He usually did when we talked to officers.

�Let�s go see the hooch anyway, lieutenant. You never know.�

His face went through suspicious contortions, but then he came to the conclusion that since we were from 8th Army headquarters, and since we were on an official investigation, it would be best to cooperate. In our business those thought processes are familiar.

He strapped on his .45, perched his shiny MP helmet liner atop his head, and ambled out into the hallway. As we went through a doorway, the top of his narrow shoulders hunched forward and stayed that way. �I�ll be in the ville,� he told the desk sergeant, �on the VonEric case. Send a patrol for me if you need me.�

The desk sergeant nodded.

At the gate, armed MP�s carded Ernie and me but just saluted the lieutenant and let him by.

The ville started right across the street: Lee�s Tailor Shop, the Brass Emporium, Chosun Souvenirs. Farther down the road came a few nightclubs: the Hideaway, the Lotus Blossom, the UN Club. And then the alleys. Narrow. Mud-filled. With more nightclubs, more neon, and more rock and roll blaring out of darkened doorways. Little eateries were interspersed throughout the maze, advertising fried chicken and yakimandu. Old women carried bundles of laundry atop their heads. Young girls scurried back and forth from bathhouses, flat sandals slapping against the balls of their feet.

Ernie took a deep breath.

�Nice place they got here,� he said.

We wound down another couple of alleys � Lieutenant Crane at the point � until he turned down an opening that was nothing more than a gap between cement block walls. As we passed through, I turned slightly sideways to keep the arms of my leather coat from getting scuffed. A quick jog to the left and then he pounded on a high wooden gate.

�Ajjima,� Crane said. �Hon-byong!�

I was impressed. He announced himself in a polite way as being a representative of the military police. And his pronunciation was good.

An old woman opened the gate and let us in.

The hooch was, typical. A small dirt-floored courtyard surrounded by a tile-roofed building divided into four or five rooms. Without bothering to speak to the woman, Lieutenant Crane stepped up on the wooden porch in front of the nearest hooch and slid back the wood frame door.

�It was here,� he said. �We found Specialist VonEric dead about 0700 this morning. This old lady called the Korean National Police, and they relayed the message to us.�

I talked to the old woman. She was surprised at first that I spoke Korean, but she went on to explain that she had heard nothing with the possible exception of the front gate slamming some time before dawn. Of course she might�ve been dreaming it, she said. I liked the old woman. She had a fat oval face that broke into concentric circles when she smiled, which she often did. The smile disappeared when I asked her about the body.

It was late, the sun was already up, and she knew the GI who was staying in the first hooch should have been on his way to work, but she had heard no noise. She called to the woman who lived there, her name was Yu Kyong-hui, and when there was no answer, she rapped on the rice-papered door and slid it open.

She couldn�t smell the carbon monoxide, of course, because it�s an odorless gas, but she saw the gray pallor on the GI�s face and smelled the evidence of the loosening of his bowels. She opened all the windows and called the police, but it was too late.

Ernie wandered around the courtyard, restless. A few young Korean women were playing flower cards in their room and had slid back the door when we came in. Ernie winked at them. They giggled.

The old woman said she recognized the GI. He had lived with Miss Yu in the past but hadn�t been around for over a month. Who had Miss Yu been seeing during that time? No one. She kept talking about an old boyfriend who would be coming back to Korea. The old woman didn�t know who he was. She had never seen him, that had happened before Miss Yu ever moved here. The old woman also had no idea where Miss Yu had gone, and there had been no indication that she was planning to leave but, yes, most of her clothing had been taken with her. It didn�t look like she was planning on coming back. She�d left a deposit on the room, the old woman said, but it didn�t cover the back rent she owed.

Ernie and I slipped off our shoes before we stepped into the hooch. A large western-style bed filled most of the room. There was a beat-up old hi-fi set, a few scattered jars of makeup, some loose scraps of clothing, and a jumble of naked coat hangers in the small plastic wardrobe.

�The KNP�s have already searched the room,� Lieutenant Crane said. �They�re very thorough.�

�I know that,� I said.

Just for drill I lifted the mattress, and Ernie poked around behind the wardrobe.

After a little searching Ernie said, �This must have been where the gas came out.�

There was a Crack in the cement floor. Most Korean homes are heated by charcoal gas that is pushed through ducts beneath the floor. When the floor is covered with vinyl and a soft mat is laid down, it makes a comfortable place to sleep during the cold Korean winters.

Ernie lifted his fingers. They were dusted with powdered cement from the edges of the crack. �The hole opens directly into the gas duct,� he said.

We stood up and straightened our clothes. On the way out I noticed something white and pointed peeking out of a crack in the wallpaper. It was flat against the wall, and I had a little trouble getting my fingernails under it to pull it out.

It was a wallet-sized photograph of a GI. His smiling face beamed out at the world over his neatly pressed dress green uniform. Blue infantry piping draped his arm.

The morgue was in the basement of a thick-walled cement building that was so heavily fortified it must have been an ammunition storage building at one time. I shivered when the white-smocked attendant slid the body out of the refrigerated cabinet.

�The remains of Specialist Four Rodney VonEric,� Crane said. �Former stalwart employee of the ASCOM Repo Depot.�

I compared the pasty gray face of the corpse to the bright suntanned face in the photograph. Not even close.

Lieutenant Crane decided he had pretty well wrapped up the case for us, so he left us and went back to his office. A small army compound is always a little nervous when somebody from 8th Army comes poking around, but Crane figured that the case was so clearly an accident he�d be able to tell the ASCOM provost marshal that there was nothing to worry about from us.

Probably he was right.

After he left, we wandered around the compound. Neatly clipped patches of lawn had been bleached yellow by the cold breath of autumn. A few crinkled leaves hadn�t given up for some reason and still clung stupidly to skeleton branches.

�Should we catch the last bus to Seoul?� Ernie said.

�I keep wondering why that girl disappeared.�

�The KNP�s will find her. That�s not for us.�

�Yeah.�

We wandered past the facade of the post theater. A fantasy was playing, with the half-naked daughter of some movie star in the lead. Nothing I wanted to see.

�Anyway, let�s check out the Repo Depot,� I said. �Give us some more notes for our report. Then we can spend the night here in ASCOM City. Go back to work late tomorrow.�

Ernie shrugged. �The ville looks pretty good, but I don�t know.�

�Don�t worry,� I said. �It looks even better at night.�

What was commonly called the Repo Depot was more properly known as the Army Support Command Replacement Detachment. After a GI lands at Kimpo Army Airfield, he is hustled through a maze of inoculations and customs procedures and then bused to the Repo Depot here at ASCOM. A day or two later, the unit he will be assigned to is decided upon.

This is a crucial moment in a GI�s life. He could get assigned to the sunny beaches of Pusan in the south of the country, or he could be banished to freezing night patrols along the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

When he strode into the Replacement Detachment area, Ernie snorted.

�They kept me here for four days. Couldn�t decide what to do with me.�

�It�s those lousy efficiency ratings you got,� I said.

�Yeah. Sure. That�s why they sent me to 8th Army headquarters.�

�To keep an eye on you.�

He shrugged. �Fuck up and move up.�

A wall-sized map of Korea greeted us as we walked through the entranceway. The U.S. Army compounds scattered throughout the peninsula were marked in red, and a chubby hand pointed to Pupyong over the stenciled message, �You are here.� The map had been there during my first tour in Korea, and it had probably been there for years before that. A geographical anchor for disoriented troops.

There was a little traffic in and out of the Replacement Detachment. Unusual for a sleepy compound on a Sunday afternoon, but not so unusual if they just got a flight in full of replacements. We sought out the Charge of Quarters. The thin old crewcut man took us directly to Buck Sergeant Freddy R. Waitz.

He had just sent some men away from his desk and was rummaging through a short stack of paperwork, checking off blocks with a pencil. He looked up when we approached.

�Spec Four VonEric used to work for you?�

Waitz was not a tall man, about five seven or five eight, with a husky build and a flat, hooked-nose face that would have looked Indian if he hadn�t been fair-skinned, blond, and blue-eyed. He spoke with an Alabama drawl. On a small compound like this, he didn�t have to ask if we were C.I.D. He knew.

�That�s right.�

�Where�s his desk?�

�There.� He pointed past some filing cabinets and a stencil machine on the other side of the room. �I was gonna have it cleaned out today, but we got a flight in.�

The desk was standard army issue. Gray. Metal. Boxlike. There was an in and out box on top of it and a few manuals but no pictures of relatives. I riffled through the paperwork and then checked the drawers. Ernie wandered over to the water cooler and got interested in the pure spring refreshment from Mount Sorak.

It was the bottom right drawer where I found them. Stacks of neatly folded newspapers. The last few weeks� worth of the sports page of the Pacific Stars & Stripes. On each page penciled figures surrounded the pro football betting line.

Waitz looked down at me as I rummaged through them.

�He bet football?� I said.

Waitz shrugged. �I don�t know.�

I stood up and looked down at him.

�Come on, Waitz. Betting football is a petty offense. Not nearly as serious as getting yourself dead out in the ville. Now, who did he bet with?�

Waitz turned his face. The profile would have looked at home on the flip side of a buffalo nickel.

�He bet with Phil Austin. I don�t know much about it, but it was just innocent stuff. You know, to have a little money down on the games so he could look forward to the Tuesday issue of Stripes, so he could see who won.�

�Who was his favorite team?�

�Huh?�

�Didn�t he have a favorite team?�

�Not that I know of.�

�Where was he from?�

�Somewhere up north. Indianapolis, I think.�

�They don�t even have a pro team there.�

�Oh. Well, we don�t have one in Birmingham, either.�

Waitz reached in his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. He lit it with a match from a brightly colored box.

�Do you know the girl Von-Eric was with last night?�

�No. I�ve seen her around, but I never paid much attention. He�s been moping around because they broke up a few weeks ago.�

�Broke up? Did you see them together last night?�

�Not out in the ville. At the EM Club. I stopped in there to get something to eat, and I saw him all smiles, leaving with her.�

�What time was that?�

�About ten.�

�You eat late.�

�Flight in last night.�

Waitz fiddled with the matchbox in his hand, and I saw the logo of the Olympos Hotel and Casino in Inchon.

�Do you go to the ville often?�

�I stay away from that dump. I got a section to run here. I don�t want my men to see me out there.�

�What do you do for recreation?�

�Work.�

His blue eyes squinted at the smoke curling up from his nostrils.

�Where can I find this Phil Austin?�

�I don�t know where he is today. He works at the printing plant, though.�

I searched through the remaining drawers of the desk and found nothing except army issue office supplies and a few notes concerning the assignments of GI�s to various bases throughout the country.

A group of sergeants came in for processing, and Waitz got busy handing out forms and explaining how to fill them out. When he wasn�t looking, I slipped a couple of things into my pocket and then we left, without saying goodbye.

�Zilch,� Ernie said. �It�s time to hat up.�

�Why are you in such a hurry to get back? Is the nurse waiting for you?�

�Yeah. You know how she is. Freaks when I stay out overnight on a case.�

�With good reason.�

Ernie snorted.

�But you�ve never run the ville of ASCOM City,� I said. �You don�t want to miss your chance. And tomorrow we can sleep in late before we catch the bus back to Seoul. We�ll check with this guy Austin at the printing plant, just to wrap things up, and tell the first sergeant we were working on the case.�

�How many clubs you figure they got out here?�

�More than we can hit in one night.�

A thin beam of greed emanated from Ernie�s pale green eyes.

We stopped at the ASCOM NCO Club, had the pork cutlet special with a big bottle of chilled red wine, and then I.D.�d our way through the heavily fortified gate. After trotting through the traffic of the Main Supply Route, we strolled into the neon night of ASCOM City.

The Pupyong Police Box, Western Area, was a small cement block building painted yellow with a winged flower over the entranceway. We showed our identification to the sergeant on duty and told him we were here to investigate the death of Rodney VonEric from carbon monoxide asphyxiation.

He immediately knew which case we were talking about � GI�s don�t die every day in ASCOM City � but his English was very poor and he was relieved to find out that I could speak Korean.

�Have you found the girl yet?�

�No.� He thumbed through a notebook in front of him. �The police in her hometown have been contacted. They talked to her mother, but she claims that they have not seen her for many months now.�

�What is her hometown?�

�Pankyo. A little country village outside of Taejon.�

�Was she registered here with you, as an entertainer, I mean?�

�Yes.�

He took us over to a large booklet with the names of nightclubs stenciled neatly on top and dozens of small photographs pasted beneath. Blank female stares winked at us as he thumbed through the book.

�Here she is,� he said. �She worked at the Blue Dragon Club, and her name is Yu Kyong-hui.�

I thanked him, and we walked out of the police box. He didn�t have an extra copy of the photograph, but even considering the poor quality of the black and white snapshot, I wasn�t likely to forget that face.

No matter how many years I spent in the Orient I would never get used to the number of gorgeous, women who were forced to work in dumps like ASCOM City.

We rolled through the alleys. Rock and roll blared from darkened nightclubs, brightly manicured fingers clutched at us as we passed. Finally we found the Blue Dragon. From the outside it appeared to be one of the larger clubs, and it sat in one of the most crowded and brightly lit alleys. I figured we were approximately in the center of the red-light district known as ASCOM City.

We pushed through the beaded curtain, and thirty sets of blinking eyelashes followed us as we stepped carefully through the multicolored darkness to the bar. The place was mostly empty, just a few GI�s at tables in desultory conversation with a couple of the girls. An old woman approached and brought us a couple of cold beers, and then a pair of mini-skirted girls materialized out of the darkness. They got a little standoffish when I mentioned Miss Yu Kyong-hui, but they swore they hadn�t seen her for two nights. �Two nights?�

�Yes,� one of the girls said. �She wasn�t here last night. And the night before that she went out early with a GI, but she never came back.�

�Did Miss Yu have a boyfriend?�

�Yes. But she finished with him about a month ago.�

�Why?�

The girl shrugged her slim bare shoulders. Ebony hair cascaded around them and glistened in the gyrating light.

�Maybe not enough money. I don�t know.�

�This GI who took her out night before last, do you know him?�

�No.�

�What did he look like?�

She conferred with the other girl, they chatted, and soon some of the other girls had gathered around and were offering their opinions. Finally the girl I had been talking to turned back to me and said in English, �We don�t know what he looked like. Just GI, that�s all.�

The old woman brought another couple of wets, and Ernie gave one of the girls some money and sent her out to buy some dried squid and peanuts. I found out that the girl I had been talking to was named Miss Kwon, she was from Taegu, and she had high hopes of becoming a secretary some day. For the rest of the night we drank and feasted, and when curfew came, I put away all thought of going back to Seoul.

After pounding on a small wooden door for about five minutes I got Ernie up. It took him about thirty seconds to get his clothes on, and we promised the girls we�d be back and bundled out the door into the cold Korean morning.

Ernie looked up at the sky. �Oh, good,� he said. �It�s cloudy.�

A sharp wind whipped particles of grit into my face.

�What time is it?�

Ernie checked his watch. �Ten thirty.�

I groaned.

We showered at the post gymnasium and then got shaves at the PX barber shop. By then it was almost noon, so we went over to the NCO Club and had lunch. By the time we got to the 8th Army Printing Plant it was already past one o�clock.

�Maybe we ought to call the first sergeant,� Ernie said.

�With no news? Let�s wait a little longer.�

The 8th Army Printing Plant was a huge, thick-walled building, so brightly whitewashed that it almost hurt my eyes. The only thing I could figure was that the Japanese Imperial Army that had built this compound must have kept a lot of valuables on hand. The whole place was like a fortress.

We walked into the admin office and flashed our identification, and it wasn�t long before we had the plant manager, an American civilian, buzzing around us.

�Corporal Austin is one of our most reliable employees,� he said. �I can�t imagine what could be wrong.�

�Maybe nothing,� I said. �We just want to talk to him.�

Austin was at his printing press, ink smeared on his fingers and a folded newspaper covering his head.

He was almost as tall as me, but lanky, and muscles stood out on his arms, pulsating in almost as steady a rhythm as the machinery behind him. He stared at us with intelligent brown eyes.

�It�s about your bookmaking operation,� I said.

He said nothing.

�How much was Rodney Von-Eric into you for?�

He didn�t move. The only change in his face was a little moisture that appeared in his eyes. Finally he made his decision. �Over fifteen hundred dollars,� he said.

Ernie whistled.

�But I didn�t kill him.�

�Where were you Saturday night?�

�Out.�

�Where?�

�I go hiking sometimes. Through the Korean countryside.� He waved an inkstained hand. �It�s very peaceful out there, once you get away from the city.�

�Where did you stay?�

�In a grove of trees.�

I stared at him.

�I take my rucksack and a few C rations. When it�s cold enough, I take my sleeping bag.�

�Was anybody with you?�

�No.�

�Did anybody see you leave?�

�I doubt it. Most of the guys in the barracks were already out in the ville. You know how they are.�

�Yeah,� I said. �I know.�

Apparently the civilian manager had taken it upon himself to call the MP station because just then he walked in with Lieutenant. Crane at his side. Crane started snapping questions, and Austin told him the same story. Crane turned to me.

�Why didn�t you notify me?� he said. �This case belongs under our jurisdiction.�

Ernie piped up.

�You weren�t doing nothing.�

Crane glared at him for a second and then turned back to Austin. He took a green walkie-talkie off his belt and fiddled with it until it beeped. Thirty seconds later, two MP�s came into the printing plant at a brisk walk.

Crane looked at. Austin. �You�re under arrest. Clean off your hands and step over here against the wall.�

He did as he was told, and soon the MP�s had him trussed up and Crane got into feverish conversation with the plant manager.

We left. I was happy to be outside in the fresh air and away from the noise of the churning machinery.

Back at the Blue Dragon Club we sat at a table nursing a couple of wets, waiting for Miss Kwon and her girlfriends to come back from the bathhouse. When they came in, they were wearing only T-shirts and short pants and had towels wrapped around their hair, and their clean, fresh faces bubbled with laughter. When they saw us, they surrounded our table.

Miss Kwon said, �You come back.�

�Sure,� Ernie said. �We�re not number ten GI�s. We came back to say goodbye.�

They went upstairs to change, we ordered another round of beers, and Miss Kwon was the first one back.

I was fiddling in my wallet, looking for the first sergeant�s number, thinking of calling him so we wouldn�t get in too much trouble. The photograph of the GI I had found in Yu Kyong-hui�s hooch fell out. Miss Kwon snatched it up.

�Where you get this?�

�From Miss Yu�s hooch.�

�She taaksan crazy about this GI. He�s infantry, but he was stationed here before. He almost married Miss Yu, but he ran out of time to get an extension and had to go back to the States.�

�Well, she kept his picture for a long time.�

�Not so long. Maybe two years. She still gets letters from him, and she told everybody in the club that he got orders and he will be coming back soon.�

�If she is waiting for him to come back to Korea, why would she leave here so suddenly?�

Miss Kwon shrugged. �I don�t know.�

Then it clicked. The whole thing. I slammed my palm down on the table. Ernie jumped back.

�What the...�

�We�ve been idiots, Ernie. If VonEric needed money to pay off gambling debts, where would he get it?�

�Well...�

�Sure. I�m going to call the first sergeant right now and let him know that we�re going to be here a little while longer. We�ve got some paperwork to do.�

Ernie frowned at that. But while I was on the phone behind the bar trying to get through to Seoul, he made sure to finish all the beer.

Word of our snooping would spread quickly, so I waited until Waitz was off duty to start going through the records of the Army Support Command Replacement Detachment. I compared some of the entries to the notes I had pilfered from VonEric�s desk. As we went over the assignments for the last few months, Ernie started to see the pattern.

�Waitz has been diverting guys to posts in Korea where their specialty is not required.�

�Right.� I stood up and reached for my coat. �Let�s get off base and find a taxi.�

�Where are we going?�

�To Inchon.�

�What the hell do you want to go there for?�

�They�ve got a nice place there I want to visit. The Olympos Hotel...�

�You don�t need a room. Miss Kwon will put you up.�

�I don�t want a room. It�s the other half of the title I�m interested in.�

�What�s that?�

�The Olympos Hotel and Casino.�

The cab driver swerved rapidly through the countryside, and I kept telling him to slow down so we wouldn�t slide off the slick roads. When we came over the crest of the hills surrounding Inchon, the huge harbor spread out below us like rippling green glass. Rusty merchant ships nodded lazily on the gentle waves like drunken sailors sleeping against lampposts. At the edge of the water, on a slight hill above the rest of the city, stood the Olympos Hotel. Half of its square eyes twinkled in the sunset.

Chandeliers, plush red carpet, beautiful women flashing brightly colored cards across green felt tables.

�Let�s get out of this dump,� Ernie said.

�I just want to see if he�s here.�

�Who?�

�Waitz.�

There was not much of a crowd, since it was Monday night. A few Japanese tourists, a couple of high-rollers from Hong Kong at the baccarat table, and a smattering of be-whiskered merchant marines. Although there wasn�t much foliage for camouflage, I didn�t have to take any extra precautions to conceal myself from Waitz. He was humped over one of the blackjack tables, jabbing his finger into the green felt when he wanted a hit, waving his hand from side to side when he wanted to stay. His small pile of chips dwindled and then disappeared before our eyes. Without looking up from his cards, he reached back into his wallet and pulled out another short stack of twenty dollar bills. The dealer arrayed them like a fan on the table, counted them quickly, and then made a pencil calculation converting them to won, the Korean currency. She pushed two small stacks of chips out to him, and Waitz dropped almost half of them into the betting circle.

We waited outside the hotel. I figured it wouldn�t be long.

He walked through the lobby rubbing his face, and the red-coated attendant opened the door for him. I couldn�t see his face, but his shoulders were still hunched and he stumbled a little as he walked. We put down the beers we had been drinking in the small garden overlooking the bay and followed.

His cab pulled up in front of Whiskey Mary�s, one of the oldest establishments in Inchon�s nightclub district. I told our driver to cruise by, and we watched Waitz walk in.

By the time Ernie and I peeped through the beaded doorway, Waitz was already too busy arguing with a Korean woman to notice us.

�Who is she?� Ernie said. �Miss Yu Kyong-hui.�

�How do you know?�

�Waitz and VonEric were both gambling. One out here at the casino, the other on football, placing bets with Austin. When Waitz got in too deep, he started taking bribes to give GI�s choice assignments.�

�If VonEric was in on it,� Ernie said, �how did he get in so deep to Austin?�

�From checking the records, it looks like he wasn�t taking any bribes. Maybe he figured he�d rather be in trouble with an illegal bookmaker than get caught by the army for abusing his official position and face a court-martial. But he worked in the same room with Waitz, so eventually he must have found out what Waitz was doing, or maybe Waitz told him, figuring to enlist him as a collaborator. Who knows? But when VonEric wouldn�t go along with the program, it made Waitz nervous. Maybe real nervous. And maybe VonEric even threatened to turn him in. The records were there, the ones we saw this afternoon. Enough to convict him, or at least build a hell of a case against him. If anybody knew about it.�

�So Waitz decided to kill VonEric.�

�Right.� I jerked my thumb towards the club. �And he knew that Miss Yu Kyong-hui had jilted him, so he talked to her. It turned out they had something in common. Miss Yu�s old boyfriend was infantry. He had probably just gotten lucky on his last tour to Korea and got assigned down here, maybe to the Special Forces detachment they got. But he probably wouldn�t be so lucky again. It would be the DMZ for him. Miss Yu might not even be able to see him for weeks on end.�

�And Division isn�t real big on helping GI�s get their marriage paperwork through.�

�Right. So Waitz made a proposition to Miss Yu. Just take VonEric home with her, loosen a crack in her floor that was already there, and her boyfriend would get a choice assignment away from the DMZ and away from ASCOM City.�

A shriek rippled through the beaded entranceway to the club. Ernie was first in. I pushed my way through a gaggle of sweet-smelling business girls and found Ernie wrestling a bloodied knife away from Miss Yu. Waitz was on the floor. The wound in his neck was deep, and pumping blood out fast. I squeezed an artery and slowed it down, but no matter what parts of his loose flesh I grabbed, the red stuff kept coming out.

Miss Yu screeched and clawed at Ernie�s face, like some great warrior bird come suddenly to life.

�He�s got to fix the assignment!� she said. �I don�t care about MP�s. I don�t care about C.I.D. I did what he wanted me to do, I made the hole bigger and let the gas in, now he must help me!�

Abruptly she stopped clawing at Ernie and squatted down into a little ball on the floor. Sobbing.

I held on to Waitz�s neck until the Korean police burst through the door. But by then his big bleached Indian face was slack and devoid of life.

It poured cats and dogs outside the diner�s windows. I called Margie Neilsen and told her not to bother reporting in. I didn�t expect many customers. Only a duck that lacked common sense would come out on a day like this.

I�ve owned Levicy�s Gourmet Grub for nearly twenty years now, and I have to say I don�t do half bad. When I first bought it, the place was a sorry heap at the edge of town. The floors were sticky with grease. The counters and tables were grimy, but Ma and Pa didn�t raise me to be afraid of a little hard work.

�Any dirt that washes off is good, honest dirt,� my ma always told me, and I�ve kept that in mind all these years. So, with some soap and water and a fresh coat of paint, I whipped that restaurant back to rights. I had a modest beginning, to say the least, but nothing worthwhile is easy. I dug in and held on till folks got used to me and I started making a profit. I�ve been solvent ever since.

Joe Freemont came out of the kitchen to sit next to me at the counter. �Miserable day,� he said between sips of coffee. Joe had worked as a handyman on farms around Derbyville most of his life until his strong back went out on him and he found himself retired early with no pension. That�s when I hired him as my chief cook and bottle washer. Even made a back room into a little apartment for him. It doesn�t take much to make Joe happy � a roof over his head, a decent day�s pay, and a word or two of gratitude. We have a lot in common.

�It�s sleeting now. Not gonna be much business,� he stated.

I nodded. It was the dead time between shifts. Usually at three thirty me and Paula Markle would be cleaning up from a big lunch crowd and setting tables to get ready for supper. Today, Joe and I sipped an extra cup of coffee and ate a piece of pie.

It was after five when the first trucker pulled in. By the time the poor man scurried from his cab and dashed through the front door, he was sopping wet.

�It�s a bitch out there!� he grumbled, dripping water on my floor.

I threw him a clean towel from a stack I�d put on the counter.

�Dry off first. Then I�ll pour you some coffee.�

He grinned. �Sorry, ma�am. Didn�t mean to come in here tracking water all over your diner, but I stopped at the motel down the road and it�s filled up. I can barely see an inch in front of me. Thought I�d hole up here till the rain slowed a bit.�

I took the pencil from behind my ear, poising it over my order pad. �Quit trying to sound so pitiful and drink some hot coffee. What�ll it be? Joe�s got a pot of stew fixed for our special, or you can order off the menu. Take your pick.�

Most of my truckers are regulars who drive Highway 80 back and forth, crosscountry, day and night. If you�ve never heard of 80, it runs past my front yard and goes west all the way to Sacramento � to L.A. if you take the 70 split � and it goes east all the way to New York. Sitting in a diner in Nebraska is kind of like sitting in the center of things. Not a bad place to be.

The trucker shrugged himself onto a stool. �Stew sounds good.�

I sloshed coffee into his cup and brought him his supper. There was bread and butter on the side with a lettuce salad to round things out.

He shoveled the food in greedily. I refilled his coffee cup until he couldn�t hold no more. Then, when he�d finished, I said, �Now that you�ve got something warm in your stomach, you might want to go upstairs to the lounge. Settle in a while.� He smiled his thanks and threw a couple of extra dollars on the counter.

The room over the diner isn�t anything fancy, just some vinyl couches and a couple of showers. There�s a TV set that doesn�t get very good reception and an old radio, but it makes the truckers happy.

By the time six thirty rolled around, we were doing a passable business. One truck after another came into the parking lot to call it quits for the night. I usually have a grace period for the lounge, not wanting it to be home and hearth for any cheapskates, but tonight I bent the rules. It wasn�t safe to drive, and every motel for miles flashed No Vacancy signs.

Between the two of us, Joe and I fed everyone and offered them all the comfort we could. Most of the booths were doubling as beds. By nine, I was ready to turn the sign in the window to CLOSED and douse the lights when another trucker pulled in.

�You�re my last,� I said, holding the door open against the rain. I flipped the sign and shut out the lights before turning to seat him. I should have guessed something by then. The chatty talk in the booths had died down. Heads were straining to get a gander at the newcomer.

When I finally turned to look, I could understand the curiosity. Not only wasn�t he a he, this trucker was one goodlooking young gal all fidgety with nerves. Nothing excites a trucker like a female in distress, especially a pretty one.

�Have you heard?� Her voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard, high and shrill. �I passed a truck that was tipped about twenty miles outside of town. Must have gone off the shoulder and rolled over.�

�What kind of truck?� a voice asked from a booth.

�New. A black cab, lots of chrome. Red mud flaps.�

�That�s Sam Barnes�s rig,� someone said.

Joe walked to the CB radio and cranked up the volume. Between crackling static, I recognized Sheriff Martin�s voice. Since his wife died a while ago, Pete�s been coming to the diner for lunch every day. People are beginning to gossip that we�re sweet on each other. For all I know, we might be.

�Gladys,� he called in. �Did you get ahold of Corey yet?�

Corey is our local state trooper. That didn�t sound good. If Pete was calling in reinforcements, Sam Barnes was in serious shape.

�We�re gonna be here awhile,� he said. �Doc made it a few minutes ago. The EMS is here, and Tom�s working traffic. I�ll get back to you later.�

Joe and I looked at each other. Tom Lynx is the deputy sheriff. Whatever happened out there was major.

�This damn weather,� one of the men said.

The lady trucker walked to the counter and sank down. Her hands were shaking. �They didn�t let me see too much, but I think there was a stretcher with a sheet over it.�

I reached for the coffeepot, but she covered her cup. �If I drink it now, I�ll never be able to sleep tonight.�

I wondered if she was worried about the caffeine or her nerves. �Something hot will warm you a little. Cocoa?�

She nodded and began to shrug herself out of her poncho. A smart idea. Umbrellas aren�t worth much in weather like this.

I thought about Pete and the others working in the sleet and. cold rain. I thought about a body on a stretcher lying outside with a sheet over it.

Ma and Pa had never told me that life would be easy, but some things hit you harder than others. It was a downright shame, dying on a lonely stretch of road in the middle of a freak storm.

�You don�t come this way often, do you?� I asked as I poured hot water over instant hot chocolate. I�d seen her a few times before. There are several women truckers who drive 80, but hardly any this young.

�Only once in a while.� She held the hot mug with both hands, trying to warm them.

�Let me see what we�ve got in the kitchen.�

I came back with the end of Joe�s stew. Not bad for a dismal night. No leftovers. Almost guaranteed a good breakfast trade, too.

She ate all the vegetables, none of the meat, and sopped up the gravy with her bread and butter. I rinsed the plate and put it in the sink to do in the morning. She was dawdling over the last of her cocoa, so I refilled her cup and poured me some coffee from the bottom of the pot.

No one said much. We all had our ears tuned to the scanner. Joe came around the counter and sat beside me. The truckers propped themselves up in booth corners to wait for more news. It was a long, quiet vigil until Pete Martin�s cruiser pulled into the lot. He was creeping slower than a snail, but he still slid to a stop. The roads must have been slicker than a greased pig, and when he opened the door to step in, a gust of wind and water came with him.

I went to the kitchen and made more coffee. From the look on his face, it was going to be a long night.

�Levicy,� he said, tipping his hat, �mind if I ask your customers a few questions, since you�ve got quite a few truckers stashed here for the night?�

�Be my guest.�

�Is anyone upstairs, or are they all here?�

I went to herd everyone into the dining room and wondered what the heck was going on. When we were all together, Pete got started.

�You�ve probably all heard by now that Sam Barnes�s rig rolled over a few miles out of town. He didn�t have his seatbelt on, and he went through the front windshield. He doesn�t look like much any more. The thing is, though...� Pete stalled for effect �...Sam was already dead before the accident.�

There was a long silence. Then one of the truckers asked, �Did he have a heart attack, Pete? What are you saying exactly?�

�There was a deep gash in Sam�s forehead. Someone hit him real hard before they put his truck in gear and sent it off the road.�

Men shuffled their feet and slid their eyes off of each other. None of us missed the fact that it was a miserable night outside. The CB said that most of the roads were closed. A man couldn�t go far if he wanted to. That meant Sam�s killer could very well be in this room.

�Got any time frame in mind?� someone asked.

�When we got there, not much ice had built up on his truck. That was around eight thirty. He couldn�t have been there long. The road was closed west of him, and it�s not open too far east. That doesn�t leave a lot of leeway.�

We looked around at each other. The motel and hotel had been full at four thirty. Everyone else had come here.

�If you don�t mind my asking,� Pete said, �I�d like to know which of you pulled in here after seven.� That slimmed the lead contenders down something considerable. �Levicy?� he asked. I squinted, remembering. I pointed to a tall, lean trucker in a red plaid flannel shirt. �Steve got in about then. So did George Roberts.�

Everyone in Derbyville knew George. He operated the grain elevator in town. I scanned the rest of the faces. �The last person who came was the girl. She told us about the accident.�

�Do you remember when you pulled in?� Pete asked, turning to the lady trucker.

She nodded, and short blonde curls bobbed around her face. It was a sweet face, heart-shaped with freckles. Twisting her fingers nervously, she said, �I looked at the clock on the back wall when I got my cocoa. It was eight forty-five.�

Another set of headlights flashed through the front glass, and soon Tom Lynx ambled in. Tom is built like a young Viking with golden hair and sky blue eyes. If you look at him wrong, he blushes beet red.

�Tom, why don�t you stay out here with these folks,� Pete said, �while Levicy and me and the three latecomers have a little chat in her office?�

With a puppy dog shrug, Tom sat himself down next to Joe.

�I made some fresh coffee,� I told him as the five of us left the room.

Pete settled himself behind my small desk. Years of doughnuts for breakfast and pies for dessert made my office chair creak in protest.

�It�s like this,� Pete said, digging through my things for a pencil and paper. �I might as well take your statements, since you�re all here. Why don�t you tell me what you were doing out in the storm today?�

The trucker in the red plaid shrugged. �I had to make a delivery at Odessa before noon. Then I thought I�d beat it for home. Wanted to make Carson City by the weekend. Then the storm hit.�

Pete�s eyes slid to George.

George Roberts jammed his hands deep into his pockets and swallowed hard. Never was much of a talker. �I heard the report about the storm. It was supposed to come late this afternoon. Thought I could get a little work done at the granary before it hit. Guess I didn�t time it too good because the next thing I knew the wind was howlin� across the fields and the roads were freezin� over fast. I still thought I could get home if I drove the big truck and was real careful, but I spun twice going five miles an hour. Saw that Levicy was open, so I decided to stop here.�

The girl realized she was next and cleared her throat nervously. �I just picked up a delivery in Chicago and was trying to make time to L.A., even slept in the bed behind the front seat of my cab for a few hours instead of losing a whole night.�

�Is that safe?� Pete asked.

She chewed her bottom lip. �Sure is. I lock the doors, and I have a big gun I know how to shoot stored right under the seat. I keep it loaded.�

Pete�s voice went gentle. �Sam Barnes didn�t try anything with you, did he? If what happened today was accidental, in self-defense, you don�t have to be afraid to tell me.�

She winced. �God, no! I mean, I would, but it didn�t.�

�You weren�t sleeping in your cab, riding out the storm, when Sam maybe stopped by?�

�No!�

Pete shrugged. �It was just an idea. Thought I might as well ask.�

She folded her slim arms over her chest. �All I did was see the accident and get so scared I figured I�d better find someplace to ride out the storm. It�s the first real bad weather I�ve worked in.�

Pete nodded, then said, �Until I learn otherwise, you three are the best suspects I�ve got. I�m going to have to do a background check on you, and I don�t want you to leave Derbyville until you clear it with me.�

�Will that take long?� the red plaid asked. �I�ve already lost time to the storm.�

�I�ll do my best,� Pete promised. �Probably burn the midnight oil.� He opened the office door and motioned them out. �You stay put,� he told me. Then he fetched two cups of coffee and closed the door again. �Any woman�s intuition?� he asked, seating himself on the corner of my desk so I could have the chair. Truth is, I was mighty glad to sit. Being a waitress is hard on the legs and feet. Late at night, they bark pretty loud.

I took a few sips of coffee while I wrestled with my questions. �There is something that�s worrying me,� I told him. �Being a man, you probably think it�s nothing, but still...� I hesitated. �George Roberts has come in here ever since I bought the diner. A good man who works hard. And every time he�s running late or stuck in town, without fail, he calls his wife. I�ve always thought that was pretty decent of him, so she doesn�t sit at home worrying herself sick. Tonight, though, when the streets are pure ice and a wife could go crazy fretting, he never once used the phone.�

Pete frowned. �He probably called from the granary.�

�Could be, but he said he thought he was going to make it home, remember, until he slid all over 80? So wouldn�t he call to tell her he was holing up here?�

�What are you getting at?�

�Sam Barnes goes through Derbyville a lot,� I said. �He�s a handsome man, and single. George Roberts works long hours. He has a wife that�s some years younger than he is.�

Pete�s eyes narrowed. �Are you saying what I think you�re saying?�

�Suppose George found out Sam stopped at his house sometimes? He wouldn�t hurt his wife. He�s devoted to her. But Sam�s another story. Jealousy�s pretty hard to swallow.�

Pete reached for the phone. �Maybe I�d better call Meg and see what she has to say.� While he dialed, I left the office. I walked to the counter and filled my cup again. If the caffeine didn�t keep me awake all night, my bladder probably would.

A short time later, Pete opened the office door, and I could tell by the strain lines around his mouth and eyes that Meg had told him what he didn�t want to hear. He walked to where George was and said, �Can we talk?�

George�s shoulders hunched forward, and all the starch went out of him. I looked away. It was sorry to see.

For what it�s worth, Fred thinks one prospect might buy something small next week. He is supposed to �get back� to her. Any modest optimism this thread of hope might have induced has been shattered by his last call of the day, however. It was pointless and frustrating and might just cost him his job. Words were exchanged. He lost his temper.

That isn�t his style at all. He meant to hang up and take the rejection in noble silence like all the others; live to fight another day. At the last second, he made a stupid remark about the guy�s future in the business world; something about a chimpanzee being able to rent videotapes. That�s when it started. He can�t remember the exact words, but he�s sure he will hear them soon enough when they are thrown back in his face upstairs.

They clashed before, Fred and the video guy. Fred�s company backed the client last time. If the guy decides to call and complain now, it will definitely be a major problem. The magazine is not known for crossing advertisers, no matter how arrogant and insulting. And Fred hasn�t exactly been establishing sales records lately.

He was shut out again today; three straight without a bite. Only a couple of possibles in the two weeks before that. Selling advertising space in a recession is a lose-lose situation. You can exaggerate benefits and downplay charges, even plead and wheedle, but in the end only three things can happen, and only one is good. They can say no to everything. They can say yes, then stiff you after publication. Or they can say yes, pay on time, and consider running again in the next issue, maybe even signing a long term contract. That is the Holy Grail of advertising sales, but Fred has almost forgotten what selling a long term contract feels like.

He is also supposed to call an advertiser in last month�s issue and ask when payment can be expected. He hasn�t done that yet. He hates collection work, and is not supposed to be doing it. Mr. Jensen asked him on this particular one as a personal favor because �you get along so well with the client.�

It isn�t true, but Fred did not argue the point. He did, however, stare at the phone all day between infrequent sales calls, knowing he should contact the delinquent account, feeling guilty about not doing so, but physically unable to pick up the receiver. Whenever he thought about making the call, his arms were too weak to move and the telephone seemed to grow larger and more threatening. Sometime after lunch he decided to stall by telling Mr. Jensen, if he asked, that the person he has to speak with is out until Monday. That will give Fred the weekend to prepare himself for the dirty work.

Collection is the crummiest job in the place. That is why nobody ever stays on it for long, and why everyone from salesmen to secretaries to the office manager is pressured to go after stubborn accounts. Advertising is a product that has already been used by the time people are supposed to pay for it. If they decide not to advertise again, it can take forever to squeeze the money out of them.

Once they have paid up, however, you are supposed to go after them again for advertising as if nothing had happened, as if you hadn�t spent all that time calling them thieves. Ideally, collection and ad sales remain separate entities to keep the clients from associating salesmen with any more negativity than they already do. Ideals are seldom achieved.

Shut out... Fred thinks about that as he reaches for the newspaper on the floor beside his chair. He dropped it there this morning because Mr. Jensen stormed into his office as soon as he got in. The boss put the hammer down about banging the phones all day. After that, Fred thought reading the paper to get in the mood did not seem like such a good idea.

Shut out... The lady with the Styrofoam begging cup and shopping cart full of black trash bags, who stationed herself in front of his building every day, made more money today than Fred did. She didn�t work her sales pitch half as hard either, just a moan here and a pitiful look there. He would try it himself if he thought it would work on advertisers. Maybe she�d consider taking on a partner.

Reading the newspaper does not help his mood. In the first three pages alone, he finds enough bad news to confirm every prejudice he already has about this damn city. Two men argued over loud music while their cars were stopped at a traffic light. One picked up a shotgun from his seat and blew away the other. The idiot then sped off as if the dozens of cars behind him wouldn�t take down his license number. A bum was torched for kicks by some teens. A little kid disappeared from a playground in a nice neighborhood. The other kids said a man dressed in a �doctor suit� told the girl that her parents had been in an accident, and she left with him. The son of a bitch.

For the second time in a week, while women were sitting in parked cars, men opened the passenger side doors, got in, and forced the women to drive out of town. They were robbed and they were raped. It is random violence; the waning vital signs of a terminal patient. Fred thinks that if the city was in a hospital, there would be no debate about whether to continue life support systems.

Pull the plug.

�Who found the body?� Adcock said.

�Charlie Scofield. He was fixing a hole in the fence over there.� Deputy Foley pointed at the fence on the other side of the ditch. �If he hadn�t spotted it, it might�ve been here forever. You can barely see it from the road.� Scofield was standing a short distance away with a group of onlookers, describing in detail his discovery of the body.

�Does he know anything about it?�

�Not really.� Foley was tall and slim. He had curly brown hair and a boyish face.

�Then I guess I�ll go down for a closer look.� Adcock stepped off the shoulder of the blacktop road and started down the side of the ditch.

�You won�t want to stay close very long, sheriff.�

�I don�t want to stay close at all.� Adcock made his way down cautiously. The ditch was deep, and he knew that broken bones did not heal quickly when you were sixty years old. He didn�t look that old, with his black hair and clear blue eyes, but he was. Halfway down he took out his handkerchief and held it over his nose.

The body lay at the bottom of the ditch, hidden from the road by the weeds and tall grass. The county could no longer afford to mow along the roads. It could barely afford to patch the potholes.

The corpse had already started to decompose, but the essentials were still clear enough. The body belonged to a white male with blond hair and green eyes. He was about forty-five. There was a small hole in the back of his head, though not a great deal of blood. He might have been goodlooking at one time. The heat and the flies had changed that.

The man had on a dirty undershirt, baggy dress pants with frayed cuffs, and leather shoes with worn heels. The uniform of the homeless male. Adcock had seen it a thousand times before. A few hairs, some brown and some gray, clung to his dirty pants. One other thing caught Adcock�s attention. Red dust.

He looked back up the slope toward the road. The grass and weeds showed where the body had rolled down. Not a final descent that showed much respect for the dead.

Adcock had seen enough. He climbed back up to the road, pausing halfway to catch his breath. He was in good shape for a man his age, but it was ninety-eight degrees and the slope was steep. When he reached the top, he took another breather, then spoke to his deputy. �Everyone else on the way?�

�Yes. Dr. Finney will be here soon, and the DCI agents are coming down from Des Moines. Kevin�s writing up a car accident south of Clearfield. Then he�s coming over.� Kevin Hunter was Adcock�s other deputy. Together, the three men enforced the law in Fox County. Only the county seat of Clearfield had a police force � four men altogether. If you needed a cop anywhere else, you called Adcock.

�I hope you told Doc Finney not to wear his best suit. You know how mad he got on Jake Lambert�s place.�

�I told him.�

�What do you make of this?� Adcock said.

�Looks like a tramp to me. Probably got his clothes at a Salvation Army place. Looks real lean. Probably an alcoholic. Might have been staying in an abandoned farmhouse. There�s plenty of them around here.�

�What about the wound?�

�Small hole in the back of the head. Looks like a .22 caliber fired from slightly above.�

�And what does that tell you?� Adcock could never resist an opportunity to instruct his young deputies.

�They told us at the academy that mob executions usually look like that.�

�And you could�ve learned that by reading a newspaper.� When Adcock had been a deputy many decades before, there hadn�t been an academy, and he still questioned its value.

�But what I wonder,� Foley said, �is why gangsters would kill anyone out here in the first place.�

�Maybe they didn�t.�

�Didn�t what?�

�Kill anyone out here.� He waited for Foley to get it, but to no avail.

�But there�s a body in the ditch,� Foley finally said.

�Exactly. That�s all we have. A body. Someone dumped it here, but we don�t know where he was killed, do we? It could�ve happened a hundred miles from here.�

�Ahhh.�

�Did you see anything else?�

�I saw some brown and gray hairs on his pants. Obviously not his own.�

�Anything else?�

Foley pondered a few moments. �Don�t think so.�

�Did you notice the red dust on his shoes?�

�No, I guess I missed that, sheriff.�

�If you look around here, you won�t see any red dust anywhere. The dust along the road and in the fields on either side is black or brown or gray, but not red. Even if you dug down to the clay, you�d find that it was yellow. But the last time that man walked on this earth, he walked in red dust. If we could figure out where, we�d know where to start looking for the killer.�

Dr. Finney, the county medical examiner, arrived dressed in khaki pants and a short-sleeved shirt. He exchanged greetings with Adcock, asked why this had to happen on Monday, and began his preliminary examination. Deputy Hunter pulled up ten minutes later. Detectives from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation got there last, armed with cameras, tweezers, plastic bags, and bad attitudes. Iowa law required them to assist in the investigation of every murder in the state. The stress of the long farm depression of the seventies, eighties, and nineties had brought them more business than they could handle.

Adcock watched the detectives go about their work while his deputies tried to keep traffic moving. If the killer or killers had left anything behind, the DCI agents would find it. Adcock was sure of that. But what would they do with it? That was the problem. You can�t match a suspect�s hair with a hair left on the victim�s body until you have a suspect. At this point the DCI detectives didn�t have one.

Adcock didn�t have one either, but he knew where to start looking. And he planned to keep it to himself for the present. He was just as jealous of his own turf as anyone else. When someone dumped a dead body in Fox County, he wanted to be the one who found the killer.

A trooper from the Iowa State Patrol showed up to help direct traffic. After exchanging pleasantries, Adcock motioned to Foley to come with him, then checked in with a DCI detective with thick glasses and very little hair. �Find anything?� he said.

�Found a lot of things. Just don�t know what to do with them yet.� Adcock nodded sympathetically. �Did you happen to notice the red dust on his shoes?� the detective asked.

�I did see that.�

�Any idea where he might have picked it up?�

�I�ve been trying to figure that out.�

�And?� The detective stared at him.

�Still trying.�

The detective stared at him some more, as if he wasn�t sure what to think, but he finally turned away and went back to work. Adcock told Hunter to stay behind to help direct traffic. Then he and Foley walked over to their patrol cars. �I hope you�ve been thinking about red dust,� Adcock said. �Have you?�

�Yes, I have.� Foley was beaming like a kid, which, at age twenty-two, he still was.

�And?�

�Pitston.�

I have felt for some time that I should set down the truth concerning the night of the Historic Homes tour and what happened, if only because Deirdre Dorsette-Byers, my neighbor, has been telling her version all over Charleston and there is often a mile-wide gap between truth and fiction where Deirdre is concerned. Harmony Dupree, who has been with me for thirty years, gives one of those shrugs of hers when I mention telling the truth, saying darkly that truth is a hard bird to catch. But Harmony was raised on one of the offshore islands and thinks she knows a great deal about things the eye can�t see. There is even some of the old Gullah in her speech at times, and I will admit she has a formidable sense of things impending. Still, she has a superior way about reminding me of it as I have pointed out to her. We are both widows, Harmony and I, and making the best of it.

�Why not?� I replied when the Historic Homes committee first asked to include my house in the candlelight tour. �My house is rich in history.�

�We�re aware of that, Felicia. And very few of the historic homes are still in the same family after so long. I do hope it won�t cause your guests any inconvenience.�

�My guests,� I said firmly, �will adapt.�

Due to the pressing need for income, I have converted my home into a bed-and-breakfast. And that is a story in itself � which I will not go into here. The licenses, the permits, the requirements � sprinkler system, fire escapes � and with a Historic Oversight committee peering over my shoulder to make sure it was all done discreetly. Here in Charleston discretion is highly prized. Architectural discretion, that is. Other kinds I imagine run about the same as anywhere.

Deirdre Dorsette-Byers disapproved strongly.

�Strangers tramping through the house. I would find it very demeaning,� she said.

I said coldly, �I have strangers in my house all the time, Deirdre. And as far as the tour is concerned, I shall make the rules � no smoking, no sharp heels � I�m sure everyone will be quite happy to comply.�

�But so many out-of-towners,� Deirdre said.

�Well now, we can�t all be natives,� I said, still keeping a note of sweet reason in my voice, and Deirdre did blush slightly. She herself came to Charleston fifteen years ago from Greenville, but to hear her talk you would think she had lived south of Broad Street her whole life. Furthermore, Deirdre�s house, which is in the same block as mine, has never been included in a tour. I could have told her the reason: heavy use of wall-to-wall carpeting and plastic laminates when she redecorated the place.

Harmony�s disapproval was another matter! She had a premonition from the first that something was wrong about the tour. The fact that Harmony had an irritating way of being right in such things did not keep me from arguing the point with her.

�Perfectly ridiculous,� I said.

Harmony spooned sugar into the thick dark coffee in front of her. She had made it fresh, and we were sitting at the kitchen table with one of her rum-flavored cheesecakes on a plate between us.

�What I�m tellin� you is what I seen,� she insisted. �If you set on goin� through with it, what you better do is, you better put out everything you got that�s blue. Best color there is for warding off evil. We could use the blue and white china for the refreshments, and you could wear that blue dress of yours.�

�It needs to go to the cleaner�s,� I said, but it disturbed me just a little to hear her talk that way.

�Well then, take it,� she persisted.

�And nobody�s said anything about refreshments,� I pointed out, trying to deflect her.

�Guests in the house gets offered,� Harmony said severely, chiding me over amenities forgotten.

�Anyway, I don�t see how you can say there�s anything evil about this tour when it hasn�t happened yet. You don�t even know who�s going to be coming.� I dug into the cheesecake with my fork, some of my anxieties disappearing with the first bite. Harmony and I are neither one of us inclined to worry about our weight. I am a woman of comfortable, large measurements, while Harmony, small, dark-skinned, and wiry, eats just as much but never gains an ounce. However, as I say, I don�t worry about it.

�I see somebody with a aura,� Harmony said, closing her eyes and pointing heavenward with her fork.

�Oh, fiddle,� I said.

Harmony began a slight back-and-forth rocking motion that she does every once in a while when spirits are moving her.

�Danger comin�,� she said.

I went on eating, annoyed but also faintly uneasy, and got ready for Harmony�s recital, which was bound to come since I had questioned her credentials, so to speak.

�They passed me over my granddaddy�s grave when I was born,� Harmony said. �So�s Granddaddy�s spirit wouldn�t come back to plague me. And I always had my window frames painted blue so�s the evil hags couldn�t get in.�

I pointed out to her that none of our window frames were blue. �Nobody�s gotten in yet,� I said rather testily.

�Roots and spells, ghosts and hexes, I�ve handled �em all,� Harmony went on, ignoring me. �You get that blue dress to the cleaner, all I got to say.�

�It needs to be let out just the teeniest bit at the sides,� I admitted.

And two weeks later, on that windy November night when the tour group arrived, I was wearing the blue dress as I greeted them at the front door.

I�d never seen Adam Quinelle in person. He was the first to enter � a small, delicate-looking man with little hands and feet � I could look over the top of his head as we shook hands. His wife was taller, a serious, thin-faced woman with dark hair skinned back tightly. Her name was Zoe. Another man was with them. He said his name was Rudy Barlow, and put out a hand to me when we met but didn�t smile. He said he was Mr. Quinelle�s assistant. Pale, dark, with eyes that darted around restlessly. Assistant my foot, I thought, noticing the curt way Quinelle addressed him. He was a gofer if I ever saw one.

Adam Quinelle was a bona fide celebrity, someone everybody knew about. He was a writer and critic � actually a sort of literary jack-of-all-trades. I�d read articles by him and seen him on television, where he waved his small hands and said acerbic things about other writers. There was a convention of authors and publishers that week at the Mill House, which accounted for his presence as well as that of some of the others, I gathered.

The rest of the tour group crowded in, along with Dulcey Peveridge, the lady from the Historic Homes committee. �This is Mr. Matthias Haverhill,� Mrs. Peveridge was saying. �One of our foremost Shakespearean scholars.�

I shook hands with a lanky middle-aged man with hair falling in front of his eyes. We had candles lighted all over the house, and some of them flickered now as a draft came in the open doorway. It was a cool, cloudy night, and the wind was strong enough to set the live oak in front of the house moving and rustling. The Spanish moss that hung from its branches swayed, gray and shroudlike. The group filling up the entrance hall stopped to sign a guest book I had placed there.

A couple wearing matching Hush Puppies were identified as Mr. and Mrs. Wilford Gunther of Grand Rapids, Michigan. They seemed to be unconnected with the literary convention. I greeted them, and Mrs. Gunther whispered excitedly in my ear, �I saw that man on Johnny Carson!�

I managed to smile and nod at her, but I was faintly disturbed at this celebrity atmosphere that was building. I would have preferred the focus of attention to be on the house, which was, after all, the object of the occasion.

�And this is Mr. Wyman Holcroft,� Mrs. Peveridge murmured. �He�s a reporter.�

�A local reporter?� I asked, eyebrows going up. Mr. Holcroft was young, with a shock of dark hair that looked uncombed. He wore a corduroy jacket, jeans, and Reeboks, and there was a camera around his neck.

�I�m from Currents magazine,� he said. �I like your house.�

�Thank you,� I said coolly. I had heard of Currents, a big national weekly, but I was of two minds about just how much I relished this sort of notoriety. Obviously his interest stemmed from the guest roster for tonight�s tour, not from the architectural significance of my house. It would, of course, kill Deirdre Dorsette-Byers when she heard about it. That at least was a comforting thought.

A gray-haired man named Hugh Merrifield was the last to enter. He identified himself as a writer working on a book about the South�s historic houses. (Another one? I thought, but didn�t say.)

It was right about then, with everyone assembled in my front hall, that I began to worry less about the publicity, which I detested, and began instead to be aware of another element that seemed to have entered with the group. There was a certain � how to put it without sounding like Harmony � a certain uneasiness among all of them. No one joked or smiled or looked cheerful � with the possible exception of little Mrs. Gunther from Grand Rapids, who, I suspected, would have bubbled happily at a tax audit.

It was Adam Quinelle, however, who remained the focal point of the group as the tour started, and I was obliged to admit he seemed knowledgeable.

�You see here, my dear,� he said to his wife, but his voice was clear enough that it carried to the whole group, �heart pine floors. The stair rail is mahogany, of course.�

I raised my own voice slightly to cut him off. �This house was built in 1769 by an ancestor of mine, Captain Emmanuel Leighton, a prominent merchant. He had a thriving store in Augusta, where goods from Britain were sold, and there he received skins coming in from the West and sent them on to England. At this time the Cherokee country was opening up, due in large part to the vigor of such early traders as Captain Leighton��

�Those old pirates really cleaned up in the fur trade,� Adam Quinelle said, his voice at an easy conversational level, not even lowered for discretion. I glared at him and continued.

�On this floor, behind the entrance hall, two small rooms were made into one, which serves as a dining room. The rooms to right and left here are smaller and now function as guest bedrooms.�

�No living room?� Mrs. Gunther asked in some bewilderment.

�The drawing room is on the next floor,� I said. �We�ll get to that in a moment. First, if you all will step back this way, please. The dining room paneling extends to chair-rail height, as you see. Incidentally, the house was one of the first in Charleston to be piped for gaslights. These handsome crystal chandeliers are from that era.�

�May I take a picture?� Wyman Holcroft whispered as the group made its way around the room.

I frowned. �Well, I suppose�� I said, and watched as he snapped from various angles. I noted that he managed to include Adam Quinelle in most of the shots. I suppose Quinelle was what would be called newsworthy.

�May not use any of them,� Holcroft said cheerfully, �but it never hurts to have more material than you need. My magazine�s into distinguished homes this year.�

�I see.� Again I had the uneasy feeling that the evening was not entirely in my control, and seeing Harmony standing in the kitchen doorway, starched and rigid, glowering at the proceedings, was in no way reassuring.

�The house is built on a crib of palmetto logs sunk in sand and pluff mud,� I went on, �thus enabling it to sway slightly in high winds. It escaped serious injury in the great earthquake of 1886 and again in the recent hurricane. You may recall this principle�s being employed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Tokyo hotel that withstood the disastrous earthquake of 1923...�

As I went on talking, I was observing the group, singly and collectively. Mr. Merrifield, the author who was doing the book on southern houses, had sidled up to Holcroft, and I heard him murmur, �I wonder if I could possibly see some of your pictures when they�re developed? I�d give credit, of course � I came along at the last minute, actually � didn�t know cameras would be permitted.� I didn�t hear Holcroft�s reply.

The Gunthers were tiptoeing along in their Hush Puppies, taking in everything, sticking close together, but as awed by the Quinelles as by the house, I thought. Anyone seen on television was by definition famous, I supposed. I myself seldom watch television.

Quinelle strolled around the room followed by his wife and Rudy Barlow. He had a great tendency, I noticed, to touch everything, to pick up objects and examine them, to run his small hands over furniture and along the top of the chair-high paneling.

�The cornice�� I began, and Quinelle chimed in, �Ah, yes. Look there, Zoe. Notice the rosettes and the egg-and-dart carvings. Excellent examples of the form.�

My mouth clamped shut with annoyance, and I was about to herd them all out of the room summarily when I noticed the two who followed in Quinelle�s wake � Zoe and Rudy. They were standing very close together and the backs of their hands were touching. As I watched, I saw her hand move slightly, not to pull away, but in an unmistakable stroking motion. A second later the group shifted, and they stepped apart.

I turned and caught Harmony�s glance, knowing in an instant that she had seen it, too. Very little escapes Harmony.

�Now, if you�ll all step this way,� I said, leading them back into the big front hall. �The house may be said to be a mixture of periods, but the Adam style is perhaps predominant. You will notice the carved woodwork and cornices, and the graceful curve of the stair rail, which is indeed mahogany.� I shot a look at Quinelle, who, standing on the bottom step, was still shorter than the other men in the group.

�If you�ll follow me to the second floor,� I said, brushing past him to go ahead.

I noticed Matthias Haverhill, the Shakespeare scholar, edging his way to Quinelle, and as we went up the steps I heard him say in a low voice, �Look here, Quinelle, do you actually plan to deliver that paper?�

�Certainly.� Quinelle�s voice, as always, was not lowered but at normal volume. �The verse is doggerel, pure and simple. If you�re going to claim discovery of a lost Shakespeare fragment, you�d better be prepared to back it up.�

�But I am! At the Bodleian, where I found it��

�Piffle!� Quinelle snorted. �Rubbish! You never should have announced it to the newspapers anyway. Too quick off the mark, Haverhill. Too damned eager.�

I turned slightly as we reached the top of the stairs, just enough to catch a glimpse of Haverhill�s thin, ascetic features. They were twisted into a dark look of pure venom as he glared at Quinelle.

Hurriedly I said, �The drawing room opens here, off the hall, and runs the entire width of the house, behind the piazza. Please note the wide beveled cypress panels. The original wood mantel over the fireplace was replaced sometime in the early 1800�s by a marble one with carvings of grapes and grape leaves.�

I could hear little Mrs. Gunther�s voice. �Oh, Wilford, look. Did you ever see anything so beautiful?� But it was Adam Quinelle I kept my eye on. Once again he was touching, lifting, examining, running those little monkey-clever hands over everything. I think he really was interested, which was more than could be said for his wife Zoe and the gofer, Rudy, both of whom looked supremely bored, but even so I disliked watching him do it. Furthermore, here on the second floor the group seemed to be drifting apart, some going here, some there, some lingering in the hall looking at the portraits, some poking into the morning room across the hall. Mrs. Peveridge from the Historic Homes committee should have been alert to this, keeping them together, but she was in deep conversation with Hugh Merrifield, no doubt hoping to find herself quoted in his book. I have known Dulcey Peveridge since first grade and have never found her to be more than minimally intelligent.

�The house has seen a great deal of history,� I pushed on. �There has been speculation that �old Bory�, as General Beauregard was affectionately known, may have stayed here briefly before moving on to other quarters on Meeting Street. Later, of course, he was obliged to move farther uptown, beyond the range of the federal guns.�

�General Who?� Mrs. Gunther asked in a timid voice.

�General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard,� I said severely. �The defender of Charleston, he is often called.�

�Oh.� Mrs. Gunther looked suitably cowed.

I forged ahead. �Curiously, it is the house�s earlier history that is better authenticated. Hessian mercenaries were quartered here during the Revolution. When the British were ordered to leave Charleston Harbor, many of the Hessians fled inland. But some, including a few quartered here, hid in the chimneys and other niches and bolt-holes in the house to escape the general roundup.�

I glanced around the group, feeling I had their attention now. Even Adam Quinelle was silent for once, giving me his peculiar half-whimsical look.

�We know much of this from the letters of Sarah Boltman Bennett,� I went on. �A daughter of the house. Old Captain Leighton�s granddaughter. In them she speaks of an �attachment� one of the Hessians had formed for her. She implies that the interest was returned.�

�Did he make it?� Hugh Merrifield, the house historian, asked. �Did he escape the roundup?�

�Apparently. But the story did not have a happy ending, even so. Sarah�s marriage to a local merchant � some years older, by the way � had been arranged, and she was obligated by her family to go through with it.�

Little Mrs. Gunther�s lower lip was trembling. �What a dreadful, beautiful story,� she murmured. And then, more practically, �Where on earth did he hide?�

�Perhaps in this chimney,� I said. �We can only surmise.� I knew, of course, but I wasn�t going to tell them. Certain matters should be kept within the family, I thought.

There was a collective sigh as the group started to move again, and I said briskly, �Suppose we step across to the morning room. It was there that old Captain Leighton used to sit to cast up his accounts. Later it was used as a ladies� writing room, where invitations were written and correspondence answered.�

Adam Quinelle�s voice returned. �Just see the texture of this paneling. See that beveling? And done with hand tools, of course � but there were master craftsmen at work then.� Once again he was running his hands over things, touching, examining, handling.

�This way,� I said smartly and headed across the hall.

The smaller morning room was a tactile feast for him. The desk, covered with paperweights, inkstand, lamp, books, water jug, attracted him at once. Everything was lifted, stroked, turned upside down. Then the leatherbound books in cases against one wall were scrutinized, his hands running over their spines with what looked like sensuous pleasure. When he discovered Captain Leighton�s huge sea chest standing in a corner, he let out a little cry that was almost girlish and clapped his hands together.

�Oh, but this is marvelous!� he crowed, and proceeded at once to lift the cover for a closer look. The chest was empty, but Quinelle ran his hands over every surface, exclaiming over the workmanship, touching the leather hinges and straps. With everyone watching him, I thought much of his pleasure derived from being the focus of attention. I was torn between annoyance with him and a certain satisfaction at having the house so thoroughly appreciated.

I let them all soak in the atmosphere of the little room, then explained that the other rooms on this floor were bedrooms, and private, but that if they would follow me, we would go up into the attic for a look at the huge pine beams, iron nails, wooden pegs, and dowels that held the house together. Mr. Merrifield showed a great interest in this, and was at my side asking questions the whole way.

�Magnificent!� he exclaimed. �And the mahogany stair rail goes all the way up � God, how they built things in those days!�

Wyman Holcroft was busy with his notebook and camera, and the others wandered about peering into every corner. The attic seemed to fascinate them, and I might have had a hard time getting them to leave but for the fragrance of Harmony�s coffee, which had begun seeping upstairs. Then there was a general breaking up of the group. The Gunthers were halfway down the stairs before anyone else, and even dour Mr. Haverhill moved more briskly. I began to feel some gratification that the thing had gone off well and that the house had been a memorable experience for all of them.

Harmony, who wasn�t above a little showing off, had done herself proud, using the good silver coffeepot and laying out an assortment of her specialties � an apricot mousse, a lemon cheesecake, and a hazelnut torte. She was using the blue and white china. There was a clatter of conversation around the dining room, everyone becoming more at ease with each other, the earlier glumness dissipating, and then all of a sudden I heard Zoe�s voice, high and querulous.

�Where�s Quinelle?�

The room grew quiet as people looked around.

Lean and scholarly Matthias Haverhill paused in mid-bite, then began to chew slowly on his lemon cheesecake, eyes darting. Wyman Holcroft�s head shot up as he searched the room with a reporter�s probing look. Hugh Merrifield glanced up casually, not overly concerned. Mr. and Mrs. Wilford Gunther grew wide-eyed, and Dulcey Peveridge cleared her throat nervously. It was Zoe and Rudy Barlow I looked at. Their hands shot out and clasped each other for an instant, then let go. �Damn!� Zoe said, sounding exasperated. �Has he done it again?�

�Done what?� I inquired. I glanced at Harmony, just coming in from the kitchen with a tray of benne cakes. She paused in the doorway and shot me a stiletto look.

Zoe rolled her eyes up, then took a deep breath. �He�s done a bolt. He�s always doing that. Ducking out and leaving everybody behind. Mrs. Delavan, I do apologize.�

�It�s quite all right,� I said calmly. �Please, everyone, have some more coffee. Mr. Merrifield, won�t you try one of Harmony�s benne cakes? They�re a Charleston specialty.�

Movement resumed, conversation picked up, but in a muted undertone. And Zoe Quinelle, angry and white-faced, more disturbed, I thought, than the situation warranted, set her cup and saucer down with a clank.

�Hey, take it easy, honey,� Rudy Barlow said in a low voice that I was near enough to hear.

But Zoe was still angry, and over Dulcey Peveridge�s anxious protests announced that she was leaving. The others were to stay, please. Rudy had his car. No need to rush because of her. She shook her hand in a distracted way, and the two of them left.

The rest stayed only long enough for second helpings of the refreshments and then at last they were gone and Harmony and I cleared up, filled the dishwasher, and changed the tablecloth to be ready for serving breakfast. Our guests returned from their evening out � two couples from New Jersey who had stayed with me before in the first floor bedrooms � and we exchanged a few words before all of us turned in.

I was sitting up in bed reading and just starting to feel sleepy after a rather curious keyed-up mood when the telephone beside my bed rang.

�Mrs. Delavan? Wyman Holcroft.�

�Oh. Yes, Mr. Holcroft?�

�I�m at the Mills House. I�ve been covering the conference here, and Norman Mailer was supposed to be coming in tonight but he seems to be a no-show. Mrs. Delavan, have you seen anything of Adam Quinelle? I mean � he didn�t come back there, I suppose?�

�No � isn�t he at the hotel?�

�Doesn�t seem to be. His wife says he often walks back from parties and things, all by himself. Which really steams her, but now she�s running around looking for him and she�s even called the police.�

�Well, he certainly didn�t come back here.� I hesitated. �Are the others there? The ones attending the conference? Mr. Haverhill, Mr. Merrifield?�

�I don�t know. Haven�t thought to ask.�

�You might check on them,� I said slowly, and we hung up. I felt a curious churning inside � such a busy, jumbled evening it had been, so outside the normal quiet that Harmony and I shared day after day. But in spite of it, I was tired, and I knew Harmony was, too, although her back had been straight as a poker as she headed for her own bedroom downstairs off the kitchen. I had often suggested that she take the bedroom next to mine on the upper floor, but she always insisted she disliked the idea of sleeping that high off the ground.

I rather wished tonight that she were there next door to me. I tossed around uneasily for a few minutes, but then at last I dropped off to sleep, much like falling off a cliff. Complete darkness, total oblivion.

When I awoke, it was a sudden thing, and at first unexplainable. There had been no noise, and I didn�t have to go to the bathroom, so those two causes could be ruled out. But as I lay staring in darkness at the ceiling, my thoughts began to eddy around in a dark, pooling spiral, disturbing me.

Presently I got out of bed, feeling the November chill of the room and pulling on my warm dressing gown, locating my slippers. I tiptoed out of my room and down the hall to the morning room. I stepped inside, feeling my heart beating insanely against the walls of my chest. I tried my best to breathe deeply and control it, but it seemed to be spinning off with a life of its own, quite apart from me.

I switched on a small lamp and looked around. The desk with its pens and inkstand and paperweights seemed in order. Captain Leighton�s sea chest stood in its corner. Books were lined up, row on row, against the wall. I took a deep breath and went over to the shelves, removing two books at eye level and finding the small wooden handle concealed there. I pulled it, and a door built into the bookshelves swung open.

The space behind the shelves was small � scarcely closet-sized. Captain Leighton, who had apparently delighted in tricks and whims, had had it built for no better reason than to store some of his choice wines, and it hadn�t been used for that in years. It was quite adequate, however, for holding the doubled-up body of Adam Quinelle.

Soft footsteps sounded behind me, and I whirled around.

�What�s goin� on?�

Harmony stood there, dressed much as I was in nightgown and wrapper, only her slippers were large yellow fluffy ones with cat faces on the toes.

�Harmony�� I, so seldom at a loss for words, was speechless.

She moved closer to look, in the low lamplight, at the body in the tiny space.

�Is he dead?� she asked practically.

�I�m sure he is,� I said. I reached out and touched the cold, lifeless body, avoiding the blood that had dripped from an obvious wound. I drew my hand back quickly.

�One of them did it,� Harmony said. �One of them that was here tonight.�

�It had to be.�

�Told you I saw somebody with a aura,� she said, shaking her head. �And the way they went after that apricot mousse of mine, too.� She pondered over this non sequitur for a moment. I felt my hands and feet turning to ice.

�Somebody hit him on the back of the head,� I said.

�But when? When they have time to do that?�

I shook my head helplessly. Then it came to me.

�When we all went to the attic.�

�But if you was all in the attic��

�Well, but maybe we weren�t. I mean, not all at once. People were coming and going � I didn�t pay attention to who was there at any particular time. And we must have stayed up there ten minutes � maybe fifteen. I didn�t see Quinelle, though, I�m sure of that.�

I pulled myself up and tried to still the trembling that had overtaken me. I disliked this feeling of being so out of control.

�I�ll have to phone the police. And then we must try to remember things. I mean, things that might mean something.� I thought of Zoe Quinelle and Rudy Barlow, their hands touching down in the dining room � and of the way those hands had flown out to clasp each other later. I recalled the look of venomous hatred on Matthias Haverhill�s gaunt face. Look here, Quinelle, do you actually plan to deliver that paper? If a man�s professional reputation were at stake, if he knew Quinelle was about to pinion him with that sharp, ruthless wit�

�You don�t suppose,� Harmony said thoughtfully, and then paused.

�Suppose what?�

�Well, it happened in this room, didn�t it?� she said. �Do you reckon somebody might�ve found...� She let the thought trail off.

�Yes. I did think about that.� I stopped suddenly as a board creaked in the hall outside.

Both of us whirled around, and I heard an odd, gasping sound which I realized was coming from me. Framed in the doorway were Mr. and Mrs. Wilford Gunther of Grand Rapids. Only the Hush Puppies and polyester were gone, along with the ingenuous, wide-eyed wonder. Both were dressed in black. Close-fitting pants and sweaters, knitted caps, and smooth black leather gloves.

Mr. Gunther was holding a gun. It too was black.

�All right now, ladies, just move aside quietly,� he said. �We don�t plan to hurt anyone.�

�You�ve already hurt someone,� I said.

�Yes. Well. That little fellow was too sharp for his own good. He saw it at the same time we did. Even so, we�d have had it in a minute if he hadn�t started to raise the roof. Loud voice, for a little guy. Wouldn�t have had to hit him if he�d just kept his mouth shut. Wouldn�t have had to come back tonight. He brought it all on himself. Get it, Tessa.�

The woman slipped past me to Captain Leighton�s sea chest, opened it, and examined the inside of the lid quickly.

�It�s gone!� she cried out.

Annoyance and then anger flashed across his face.

�What the hell�� He turned on the two of us � Harmony in the shadows against the wall, me backed up to the desk, and glared at each of us in turn.

�Where is it?� he demanded.

�I have no idea what you�re talking about,� I said, and I was pleased to note that my voice had returned to normal and my heart had stopped its pounding: I was feeling quite calm.

�Where is it?� he rasped again.

I closed my lips firmly and looked at Harmony, who returned the look and nodded very faintly. Two people do not share a home for thirty years without learning to read one another�s thoughts. Wiry and quick, she bent over and in a flash gave a yank to the narrow rug he was standing on � Captain Leighton�s India drugget. It slid on the polished floor. Off balance, the man toppled toward the desk and flung a hand out to catch himself. I gave a sharp chop to the hand at the same time that I seized a heavy glass paperweight and flung it at the woman. It struck her temple and she went down. Harmony was already busy flinging the rug over the man, winding him up as neatly as a fly being saved for lunch by a spider.

�Well done, Harmony,� I gasped. �I�ll call the police.�

Harmony was out of breath herself. �He�s the one with the aura,� she announced, looking at the man on the floor.

As it turned out, no call was necessary, for the police were at the door along with young Mr. Holcroft.

�Hurry, hurry,� I urged as I admitted them, and they were up the stairs in seconds. Wyman Holcroft lingered behind for a moment.

�Are you all right?� he asked anxiously. �I just had a hunch something was doing here. That�s what I told the cops.�

�I am so grateful for your hunch, Mr. Holcroft,� I breathed, adjusting my robe and patting my hair back into place. �And I�m perfectly fine.� I hesitated. �I�m afraid Mr. Quinelle � is not.�

�What were they after?� the detective asked me a half hour later. By now my house was buzzing with police, both uniformed and plainclothes. My guests from New Jersey were wandering around, bewildered but also bright-eyed with excitement. We were standing in the dining room, and Mr. Holcroft�s pencil was scribbling rapidly; he had already asked to use my telephone.

I took a deep breath. �They were after a book that is often referred to as the Hessian Diary. Its reputation is well known among collectors.�

The detective, a tall black man with a look of experience about him, asked, �It�s valuable, I take it?�

�It is,� I said. �I�m sure it would bring a great deal of money.�

�And where is it now?�

�Upstairs, in my bedside table. I didn�t like the way Mr. Quinelle was touching everything, so after everyone had left, I checked on the diary to be sure it was all right and then I took it into my room just because I wanted to look at it, have it near me. I do that often. I never dreamed those Gunthers � or whoever they are � had discovered it.�

�Professionals,� he said crisply. �We know them. And murder isn�t their usual way. But Quinelle was clever enough to catch them out as they tried to lift it.�

�What brought them here?� I asked. �How did they know about the diary?�

�There�s a lively underground in such matters,� Holcroft said, rejoining us. �My magazine did a piece on it recently. Some wealthy collector probably put the word out that he�d give a hefty price for the diary. And those two must be among the best in the business. That hick act they were putting on would have fooled anyone.�

�Surely no reputable dealer��

�Oh no. Nothing like that,� the detective interrupted. �But some collectors deal directly with art and antiquity thieves. They do just that � collect. Stash the stuff in air-conditioned vaults and never show it to anybody.�

�But they have it,� Holcroft said. �That�s all they care about.�

�How did those two get back in here tonight?� I asked suddenly.

�Probably slipped the lock off one of these dining room windows when we were all having refreshments,� he said. �No one would have noticed.�

I could feel Harmony�s gimlet stare and purposely ignored it. But I knew well enough that the question of blue window frames would be raised again.

�That Hessian soldier who stayed here � the one who fell for, what was her name, Sarah Boltman Bennett. It was his diary, wasn�t it?� Wyman Holcroft asked.

�It was, yes,� I said.

He tilted his head to one side. �How come you never sold it yourself? To a reputable collector, I mean � or a museum.�

�It was a family treasure,� I said, and to me that explained it. But I saw his faint frown as if he were puzzled.

�I mean � it belongs in the house,� I went on. �And right where he hid it � in the false lid of Captain Leighton�s sea chest. I can picture him sticking it in there before he hid himself in the little wine closet. I�m sure that�s what he did.�

�But you said he escaped. Yet he didn�t take the diary with him.�

�Oh no. I think he left it there on purpose. Hoping, perhaps, that she�d find it. Sarah, you know. I like to think perhaps she did, although I don�t know if she could have read it. It�s all in German, of course.�

�I was just thinking � that money might�ve come in handy, though,� he said.

I gave him a severe look. �Mr. Holcroft, this is Charleston. We don�t just toss away our treasures.�

He stared at me for a moment and then grinned. �No, ma�am, you sure don�t. I just didn�t think.�

But mentioning Charleston suddenly made me think. I glanced across at Harmony, and she nodded and started for the kitchen. In no time at all I could smell the coffee, and she was bringing out the leftovers from earlier in the evening � along with some pistachio-cream eclairs she�d been holding back � setting out cups and saucers and plates. Everyone was milling around, the detective, the uniformed officers, the medical examiner, the four bewildered guests from New Jersey, Harmony and I in our robes and slippers. Poor Adam Quinelle had already been carried out and spirited away somewhere, and so had the Gunthers.

�My goodness,� I said. �I don�t know where my manners are. I just want you all to come in here and have a little refreshment before you go. Detective, what was your name, Hammond? Detective Hammond, now please have yourself a nice fresh cup of coffee. And you other folks, just come right over to the table. Mr. Holcroft, you�ve been up and working all night. I�m sure you�ve got room for a little something...�

That�s the way we do things in Charleston.

Gloria was more flabby than really fat, and it took unkindness to call her ugly, exactly. She had rather lifeless grey eyes, stringy red hair, and that complexion that manages to look very white without looking quite clean. She had managed to look presentable, anyhow, in her high school graduation picture.

But she was not the catch of the year, and she knew it. Gloria never went along to those roller skating parties at the Cue; there were no steamy encounters after hours in the high school parking lot, that gravel bit that could be seen from the street. She used to stop for a while, walking home from her job at the hotel, and peer through the window at Hughes. Shimmering wedding dresses hung there on mannequins who, headless, were doing better than she was.

It wasn�t that Gloria was in a hurry to marry and settle down. But she did want to have something to settle down from.

A guy who�d take her out for a hamburger would do: she was willing to go dutch. But when she allowed herself to fantasize, there was Sam. Sam was a big, square Lutheran who worked out at the lumberyard, with his shirt unbuttoned down to here to show the curls on his chest. He did a lot of heavy lifting. Gloria had no real business at the lumberyard, but there was no law against browsing. She might decide to put a new room on the house, after all, if she ever had a house.

Sam was no blockhead, for all he worked with lumber. He knew who she was, and he knew what she kept coming around to see. And Gloria knew he knew this, just as she also knew he had lots better things to do. She�d see him at night all the time, driving off to some secluded spot with some other woman in his Mustang. And she couldn�t blame him; blue eyes that gorgeous couldn�t be blind, you know.

So she went on taking long walks and cold showers, and dropping up to the lumberyard once or twice a week to run her hands over sashes and doors.

Gloria�s long walks generally took her past the Cue, or Hughes, or the high school, or any of a dozen places she and Sam could have gone together. So her mental state at the end of a walk was very little better than when she started. One night she stood on the bridge, watching the sun set in the river. Really romantic for two, holding hands on the bridge, but dividing the number of people in half broke the pleasure into useless fractions. The sun vanished, her eyes narrowed, her face grew hard.

Finally a freckled fist hammered on the concrete rail. �God,� she moaned, �couldn�t you give him to me for just an hour?�

�Tell you what,� said a voice behind her. �If He doesn�t answer, maybe we can talk terms.�

Gloria�d thought she was alone. She looked up into a face that made her take three steps back.

The woman was gorgeous, with lustrous black hair and great black eyes just a little slanted. Her gown was like something Gloria�d seen only on TV, and fit her like water running down a mermaid. Her long nails were red, as were her eyebrows, the hoops that hung from her ears, and the tail that stuck out the back of the dress.

Gloria took another step back. �You�re... you�re not...�

�I am, though.� The woman�s voice was like butter on corn. �I just go around in male form when I�m slumming.�

Gloria had an idea she should be running right now, but Satan stood between her and home and, anyhow, she was curious. �What did you mean about... terms?�

�I thought if you wanted your Sam for more than an hour, I�d let you have him,� the woman replied, her tail waving lazily back and forth. �But if an hour�s all you need, I really have better things to be doing.�

Gloria�s eyes, which had gone wide, now became slits. �What would I have to do in return?�

Satan lowered her eyelids. �Nothing.�

�Nothing? Why?�

Satan turned around as if to walk away. Gloria hated her firm back and high buttocks. �I just need to do a few favors, that�s all.� Satan looked back over one perfect shoulder. �Business has been bad for me in Iowa, and this would be a way for me to get back on schedule in Delaware County.�

�You mean,� Gloria began, �you can...�

Satan put her hands on her hips and jerked her head back. Gloria blinked. And Sam stood between them, his eyes pointed straight ahead, across the bridge. He wore that lumberyard shirt and those old jeans that looked as if they might come apart any second if a lady was lucky.

Gloria took a deep breath. �Just like that?�

�Just like that. What do you say?�

What Gloria might have said was cut off by the sound of an approaching automobile. A yellow Mustang convertible pulled up the hill to the bridge, carrying Sam and his latest blonde, Josephine.

Gloria looked from the car to the Sam before her. �I...�

�This has to be His doing,� growled Satan. �I never said it would be the real Sam. But if that�s going to be a problem...�

She nodded, and the Mustang jerked to a stop. Sam floated out of the driver�s seat. Josephine screamed and jumped out of the car, the first time she had ever had to walk home.

Gloria looked back at Satan and found two Sams standing before her, in the same shorts and jeans. �It was a trick!� she exclaimed. �That phony Sam would�ve taken my soul to Hell!�

�Well, yeah,� said Satan. �That�s business. But I�ll give you a sporting chance.� One elegant hand stretched toward the Sams. �Now, my Sam will give you a few good nights, and then lead you such a dreadful life you�ll go mad and kill yourself. But if you choose the real Sam, of course, he won�t be under any obligation to have anything to do with you at all.�

She turned to face Gloria, a warm smile spreading up perfect cheeks. �So take your pick: a few nights with Sam, then hell on Earth and Hell after, or maybe nothing at all. You take one and I�ll take the other.�

Gloria looked from Satan to the Sams. �You mean if I choose yours...�

�I�ll take yours.� Satan licked her lips.

That was no choice at all. The wrong Sam would mean damnation for two, then. But which Sam was the real Sam? Gloria looked them up and down, but detected no flaws. Both those sturdy forms made her shoulders hang limp and her knees tremble.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, gathering strength for �eeny meeny.�

Her eyes popped open. Then she closed them again. She took the next breath all with her nose, her nostrils flaring. Sam on the left smelled of sweat. Sam on the right smelled of nothing at all.

Gloria put out her hand. �Th-that one,� she said, indicating Sam on the left.

Satan�s perfect nose wrinkled. �Oh, very well. Let�s go.� And she was gone, taking with her Sam on the right.

The remaining Sam jerked a little, and then turned his head left and right. His head pulled back between his shoulders. �Did I just see what I thought I saw?�

�I guess.� Gloria looked into the big blue eyes and turned away. She had a shower to take.

A hand caught at hers. �There�s a lot more to you than ever I guessed,� said Sam. His free hand gestured to the Mustang still sitting on the bridge. �You, er, need a ride someplace?�

Gloria took another deep breath. �I�ll take a ride.�

Sam led her forward. �I know the place.�

It happened, some years later, that Satan passed through town again, on the way to pick up some souls in nearby Ryan. As she sauntered past the Manchester Pharmacy, she felt a tug on her tail.

Gloria had lost a few pounds, but on her this looked bad. She had rings around her eyes that hadn�t been there before. Behind her, in a fourth-hand station wagon parked at the curb, four children were shrieking at her, �Mommy! I didn�t do it!�

�That Sam,� she rasped, �is just about to drive me crazy. You could�ve had the decency to tell me I picked the fake one.�

Satan smiled. There was the slightest hint of sympathy on her lips. �And so I would have,� she said, �if you�d chosen that one.�

Rory Horn hugged the trunk of the birch tree and wished he could make himself invisible. The top branches were still swaying from his rapid climb; if either of the two men looking for him glanced up, he would be seen.

And probably shot. Rory was certain he had just seen a load of illegal firearms being smuggled into Canada. He was also sure any Witnesses would be extremely unwelcome.

The men on the ground below were both white, both armed with Israeli-made Uzi weapons, both dressed in brown uniforms. They followed the faint trail to the river�s edge, searching the low underbrush, watching for a boat on the water.

They retraced their steps and paused under the clump of birch and pine.

�Where�d the bastard go?�

�Damn Indians. Always snoopin� around.�

�You think he saw anything?�

�Nah. I spotted him as soon as he showed up. He split when I yelled out.�

�We can�t take chances. You go that way and meet me back at the truck. And put the gun away; remember we�re on an Indian reservation.�

With a sigh of relief Rory watched the two men disappear through the brush. He remembered the meeting that afternoon in Chief Harry Blackwell�s office.

�Firearms are funneling through the New York side of the reservation into Canada, and we don�t know how the shipments are being made.� The speaker was grim-faced as he looked around the table.

�How do you know the arms are going through our territory?� asked Chief Blackwell.

�Our intelligence gives us that much, but that�s all we�ve got.�

�This contraband, what exactly is it?�

�Big ticket items. Assault rifles. Grenades. Anti-tank missiles, probably surplus from the Gulf.� The speaker was Art Bowers, field agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

This meeting was supposed to be about fishing violations in the St. Lawrence. Rory was there to give a status report on the pollution cleanup operation by the EPA and the New York DEC. Non-natives were encroaching on Mohawk fishing areas. The Akwesasne Mohawk Police didn�t have the manpower to enforce the laws; the tribal council had to appeal for cooperation from the Canadian authorities.

At the table was a uniformed sergeant of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, another from the Ontario Provincial Police, a man in plainclothes from the Sûret� du Quebec. Bowers of the ATF and Farley of the FBI had turned up at the last minute, and Chief Blackwell had permitted them to sit in.

Art Bowers had asked to speak. He was in his late thirties with glasses and thinning hair and the beginning of a paunch. To Rory he looked more like an accountant than a field agent.

�The word we get is that the Warriors are stockpiling a lot of armament,� Bowers said, �as if they didn�t have enough firepower already.�

Chief Blackwell interrupted. �We don�t need that kind of gossip,� he said sharply. �If you get any proof of that, Mr. Bowers, you bring it to me.�

Art Bowers shrugged and sat down. Rory saw the look he gave Farley, a look that said �dumb Indians.� It was the superior attitude of some white men, and Rory resented it.

John Farley said, �We�ve been stopping every truck and trailer and camper that comes on the reservation. But so far no luck.�

�It�s been bad for business,� Chief Blackwell said, �but we haven�t objected.�

�Sorry, chief,� Farley said. �I hope none of your people are involved in this, Chief Blackwell. You�ve had enough on your plate these past few months.�

Rory knew what he meant. There had been internal clashes in the tribe between pro- and anti-gambling factions. There had been gunfire, deaths. The papers called it the �gambling wars� and labeled the Warriors militant hotheads. The tribe didn�t need any more negative publicity. The meeting went on; the Canadian representatives promised cooperation.

When the men were out of sight, Rory slid to the ground. He had the classic Mohawk profile, the strong nose, the heavy chin. He wore his black hair long, caught at the back of his neck with a short blue ribbon. While it was common to see Indian men with blue eyes, Rory�s eyes were a somber brown.

He did not follow the path but worked his way along the river bank. It was late spring, and a horde of black flies followed him. This was Cornwall Island, the largest island in the St. Lawrence, the river that marked the boundary between the U.S. and Canada. The river flowed through the center of the Mohawk reservation near Massena, New York. The Akwesasne Indians were on the state side, the St. Regis on the Canadian side.

A community of Indian families lived on the island with their schools and churches, but there were stretches of undeveloped land that were isolated and empty.

Rory had left his truck parked near a trailer that served as a field headquarters for the DEC and EPA engineers engaged in taking soil and water samples. Rory had majored in environmental science; now he represented the tribe in the pollution cleanup studies.

�Every truck, every trailer, every camper,� John Farley had said. Rory had followed a hunch that afternoon after the meeting, and blind luck had paid off. Now he knew how the contraband firearms were being handled. But before he could tell anyone, he had to get off the island.

Up ahead he heard a car engine start. Lying prone on a slight rise, he parted strands of high grass and peered through them. The two vehicles he had seen earlier were moving out. The men had given up their search for him. Rory rose and began trotting toward the area where his Ranger was parked.

He wondered whom he should tell about what he had seen. There were many law enforcement agencies involved. There was nothing new about smuggling along the U.S./Canadian border. It could be cigarettes, narcotics, firearms, even illegal aliens from Europe. Most of it was concentrated farther east in the Swanton sector at the Champlain border crossing. There the agents had to contend with a heavily traveled interstate that ran from Albany to Montreal. And there was the Amtrak railroad, and even the boat traffic on Lake Champlain. All saw their share of smuggling activity.

Rory decided to tell Uncle Mark what he had seen. Mark Benjamin had been a friend of his father�s. He was a senior agent with the New York State Bureau of Criminal Investigation. His office was in Syracuse.

He would tell Mark, and Mark could tell whomever he chose. Mark knew that any publicity linking Mohawks with anything illegal would be especially bad now. Legislation favorable to the Mohawks was pending in the statehouse down in Albany. Bad publicity could kill it.

It was late when Rory headed his little pickup over the bridge from the island and started for Hogansburg. In the western sky he could see the lofty St. Lawrence International Bridge. Lights were beginning to twinkle along the length of the span that linked the two countries.

It was full dark when he drove up Memorial Street to St. Regis Road and headed for Main Street. He passed a shop with a big sign that read WELCOME TO AKWESASNE � LAND WHERE THE PARTRIDGE DRUMS.

There was little traffic. Here and there at intersections he saw the dark blue state police cars parked with their lights off. The troopers and the Canadian provincial police had maintained a presence on the reservation since the armed conflicts months ago. The Warriors resented it deeply as an insult and an intrusion.

Light spilled from Billy�s Bingo Hall, but most of Main Street was deserted, the big casinos standing dark and silent, their employees out of work and restless.

Rory stopped at the Bear�s Den, a complex of stores, a restaurant, and a service station. A few late tourists were there, filling up with tax-free gasoline and buying tax-free cigarettes.

�I�m looking for Jake Hightower,� Rory told one of the attendants. He mentioned his name and turned away. Jake would get the message. The Warriors had an excellent communication network, and Jake was one of the leaders. And a friend of Rory�s despite the fact that Rory did not believe in violence and had never joined the Warriors.

But there were hundreds of men like Jake, determined to preserve the sovereignty of the Indian nation against all intruders. They were militant and well armed.

Each Warrior was to possess a 12-gauge shotgun with forty rounds or a .223 rifle with one hundred rounds. Handguns were optional. �The Warriors will at all times be a defensive force,� read the guidelines. �We will never initiate any action unless so directed by the War Chief. Our responsibility is to protect the people of our nation and our Mother Earth and the things that dwell upon her.�

�What do you call yourselves?� Rory had asked Jake once. �Militia? Minutemen?�

�We�re the peacekeepers,� Jake growled.

Outside of Hogansburg, Highway 37 was dark. Rory had the radio tuned to CKON, the reservation station. He was listening to a rock number when a car materialized on his left. He waited for it to pass, but it slowed to match his own speed. Rory was vaguely aware of a dim shape in an open window, and then a blast of flame and noise. Lightning seared into his shoulder and across his head. The afterimage of the flash lingered for an instant and then faded. The world went black, and the little truck nosed across the shoulder of the road and came to a gentle stop in the ditch.

The erratic behavior of the headlights caught the attention of a NYS trooper car coming up 37 from the opposite direction. The cruiser saw the little pickup canted over in the ditch, turned sharply, and braked behind it.

From a great distance Rory heard voices.

�Looks like another drunken Indian.�

�Can it, George. He�s not drunk. He�s been shot. Hold that flashlight steady... hey! I know this guy!�

Someone was shaking him gently and calling his name. Rory opened his eyes and thought he saw the face of an old friend.

�Nash?� he asked weakly. �Is that you, Nash?�

�It�s me,� said Nash Seymour. �Don�t talk, old buddy. We�ll get you out of here.�

Rory came back to consciousness in a bed in the hospital in Massena. He saw a pleased grin spread across the face of the trooper standing by his bedside.

�You�ll be all right, Rory,� said Nash. �Just take it easy.� He and Rory had gone to high school together in Salmon River. It was pure chance that Nash and his partner had been patroling on Highway 37 when someone fired a buckshot charge at Rory. And pure chance that Rory had not been killed. Some instinct had prompted him to throw up his left arm defensively. A slug had creased his scalp, another had torn through the muscle of his upper arm. He would wear bandages and a sling for some time.

Another person by the bed grasped his hand. Rory blinked and saw Uncle Mark smiling down at him.

�You�re all right, son,� Mark said. �The doctor says no concussion.� Mark Benjamin looked like a successful insurance salesman. He always wore an old fashioned three-piece suit with a chain across the vest. With iron gray hair, he could have been forty-five or sixty.

�Donna?� Rory asked in a faint voice.

�She�s fine. I told her there had been an accident. She wanted to come, but I told her I would bring you home as soon as the doctors got through with you.�

�Thanks. How did you...�

�I heard it on the radio, on the police band.� Mark glanced behind him. �Captain Barnes is here. Feel up to some questions, son?�

Rory nodded. �Something to tell you, Uncle Mark,� he whispered.

�Later, son.�

Captain Barnes was a bluff, hearty mountain of a man in the full uniform of a captain of Troop B. He wasn�t disappointed that Rory could tell him nothing factual. Rory hadn�t seen the gunman, didn�t know the make of the car, knew no reason for the attack. �We�ll talk again tomorrow, son,� Barnes told him.

From the hall Rory heard Barnes�s voice, stern and authoritative, addressing the troopers and the hospital staff. �I want this kept absolutely quiet, you understand? I don�t want things stirred up on the reservation, you hear me? We don�t want last summer all over again. If it gets out that an Indian was shot, the Warriors will have barricades up by morning. I won�t have it, you hear?�

He stuck his head in the door. �Mark, if the boy comes up with anything, you let me know chop-chop.�

�You got it, captain.�

Barnes disappeared. Nash and his partner were gone. The doctor took a last look at the big white bandage on Rory�s head, felt his pulse, and told him to go home and to bed.

Mark said, �I know you�ve got one hell of a headache, son, but you were lucky. A dozen stitches, no broken bones.� He held out his hands to help Rory stand up. �Let�s go home. There�s someone outside waiting to see you.�

Rory leaned on Mark for support. His dizziness and nausea cleared somewhat by the time they reached the parking lot.

Waiting beside Mark�s car was Rory�s friend, Jake Hightower. He was a bit taller, more heavily muscled than Rory, a fierce man with a permanent scowl on his face. Without a word he grasped Rory�s hand. �Someone will pay for this, Rorhare Horn,� he said, almost formally.

Then Jake straightened and looked at Mark. �As I told you, I�ve got a team watching Rory�s house.� He indicated the tiny radio at his belt. �The boys tell me a man has arrived there. He�s white, armed, hiding by the garage.� He paused. �I read it as somebody planning a surprise.�

Mark nodded. He didn�t seem alarmed. If Jake Hightower had his Warriors on the scene, the scene was secured. �Jake, suppose we plan a little surprise of our own?�

�What say?� Rory asked drowsily.

�Never mind, son.�

Rory lived off the reservation near the small town of Helena. Home was a modified trailer, surrounded by flowerbeds and shrubs and a wading pool in the rear. Behind the garage was an old barn that housed Rory Junior�s pony, Major.

The house was dark except for a light in the kitchen where Donna sat waiting for her husband.

A car turned into the drive from the highway and stopped. Out stepped a tall man with his arm in a sling and his head swathed in white bandages. A shorter, older man crawled out from behind the wheel, and together they walked up the path toward the back door. It was late, there was no moon, but faint starshine glimmered on the tall man�s white headdress.

A man emerged from the side of the garage. He stooped and brought a rifle up to his shoulder. He took careful aim at the man with the bandage on his head. The night was quiet, a soft breeze touched the leaves of an oak tree by the path. The man tracked his target carefully.

Then a strong hand reached out and seized the barrel of the rifle, twisted it upward, wrenched it out of the man�s grasp. Other hands seized the man. �What the hell...� he gasped before a gag was placed in his mouth. He struggled, but many hands silently bore him away.

The two men paused by the back door. �All right, Jake,� a tiny voice spoke through a radio. �We got him.�

Jake Hightower began unwinding the bandage from around his head. �Anybody we know?�

�Nope. Outside talent.�

�Okay. Take him into the barn and tell Sam to do his thing.�

The smaller man walked back to the car and helped Rory extricate himself from the back seat; it was difficult with one arm in a sling. �Damn it, Uncle Mark! I don�t like hiding behind someone else.�

�Save it, young fellow. I�m calling the play here. Jake was glad to be the decoy. You could have got yourself shot all over again.�

�Or Jake could have.�

Mark shook his head. �No way. Jake�s boys had the intruder spotted as soon as he came on the place. He never would have gotten off a round.�

�Then, damn it, why did you want Jake to be the decoy?�

Mark grinned.

�Why take chances? Come on and let�s see if Donna has any coffee made.�

The gunman, who had never been north of the racetrack at Saratoga, nor out of sight of neon or concrete, was terrified. What was to be a simple two hundred dollar hit on a lousy shirttail Indian had gone terribly wrong. His guns were gone, he had been picked up and handled like a baby, he didn�t know where he was, he didn�t know who the silent, purposeful men surrounding him were, or what was going to happen to him. Whatever it was must be bad.

Very bad.

He felt a post at his back: he was standing, his arms pulled back and bound. He faced ahead in darkness blacker than any he had ever known. From somewhere came the sound of a drum, faint, then stronger, insistent, rough, primitive.

And then there was a light, a circle of bright light, shining on a rough wooden door. The drum became louder. The door opened.

A horrible figure appeared. A swarthy face with garish streaks of yellow and orange slashed across the cheeks, lips parted in a terrible grin. An Indian, a goblin of childhood, a nightmare returned.

The figure wore a leather vestlike garment, his dark arms and shoulders bare and gleaming with oil or sweat. In beaded headdress with a circle of upright feathers, leather chaps on his legs worked with red and black symbols, his feet stamping in time with the drum, the figure advanced slowly toward him.

From his belt he drew a long wicked-looking knife and tested its edge on his thumb, his eyes never leaving those of the trembling white man. He reached out to touch the white man�s cheek, and the man screamed and shrank against his bonds.

The ghostly Indian danced, keeping his eyes on the white man�s face. He made slicing motions against his fingers with the knife, nodding and smiling, twisting the knife-blade in the beam of light.

A quiet voice spoke in the white man�s ear. �Who sent you here tonight?�

�I�ll tell you! Just keep him away from me!�

Mark and Jake sat on one side of the kitchen table, Rory and Donna on the other. Donna was a non-native, a white girl Rory had met in college and married after graduation. Donna couldn�t keep her hands away from her husband. She held his arm, constantly touched the bandage on his head, asked him over and over how he felt.

Rory tried to reassure her: �It looks worse than it is,� he told her. �The orderly had to take off a lot of hair.� He still felt lightheaded. He looked for Rory Junior, then remembered that Donna had sent him to sleep over at his grandmother�s house.

Jake was listening to his little radio. �Your visitor is on his way to town, Rory,� he said quietly with a nod to Mark. �He�ll be our guest for awhile.�

Donna looked at the window. �I thought I heard a drum out there,� she said in a puzzled tone. �Did anyone else?�

�It was just a tape,� Jake said. �Martha uses it in her exercise classes.�

Mark handed Rory a small capsule. �Take this, son. I asked the doc for it. It will clear your head for a few minutes while we do some talking. Then Donna can tuck you into bed.�

�All right,� Donna said sternly, �but just for a few minutes.� She put her arm around Rory protectively. �This Indian needs his rest.�

The medicine helped; Rory�s headache abated, and he felt almost normal. He squeezed Donna�s hand and leaned forward. �Here�s what I know, Uncle Mark.�

Jake started to rise from the table. �No, stay here, Jake,� Rory said quickly. �This concerns the Warriors as much as anybody.�

He looked at Uncle Mark. �Art Bowers says firearms are getting through the reservation into Canada. He implied that the Warriors might be involved. I want to show him how wrong he is.�

�So do I,� said Jake in a low tone.

�The FBI and the ATF are checking every truck and trailer that come on the reservation, and they come up empty. But there�s one vehicle they, don�t bother with. One vehicle that�s on the reservation almost every day; in and out of Canada every day.�

Mark and Jake were listening intently. Rory was tempted to prolong the suspense, but a twinge of pain banished the thought. He looked from Mark to Jake.

�UPS,� he said. �A United Parcel Service delivery van. Either a real one that�s been stolen, or a damn good duplicate. UPS delivers everything from baby clothes to generators, and nobody gives it a second thought. It�s as innocent as an ice cream truck in August.�

Mark slapped the top of the table. �Damn!� he said softly. �Damn!�

Jake nodded his head slowly, his eyes shining.

Quickly Rory related how he had seen two UPS trucks parked side by side in a deserted field on the island. One truck wore Canadian plates, the other New York tags. The drivers were transferring heavy wooden crates from one to the other.

�There must have been a third man there,� Rory mused. �Someone who got a good look at me, someone who tried to have me ambushed on the way home.�

�Right,� said Uncle Mark. �And someone who very soon will think you are dead, that the hit man finished the job tonight.�

Rory stared at him in astonishment.

�Look,� Mark said. �These people found out you were in the hospital the same way I did � by monitoring the police frequency. That�s when they decided to send someone else out here, the man Jake�s team collared.

�I�m going to have Nash Seymour phony up a report on his radio about you cashing in out here tonight.� He looked at Donna. �Sorry to be so blunt, girl. It has to be done.�

Donna�s face was white, but she nodded. �I�m all right. I just wish it were over.�

Mark turned to Rory and Jake. �Once that�s done, I�ll set up something with Barnes and Farley. I�ll use a phone I know is secure.�

�Wait a minute,� Rory mumbled. �There�s something else.� He was fighting to keep his eyes open. A soft lassitude was spreading over him. But he couldn�t close his eyes, not until he�d said something that was important.

�Bowers suggested that the Warriors had something to do with this smuggling. We know that�s not true, but it�s not enough that we know.� Rory closed his eyes, shook his head, and opened them again. �Other people have to know it, too.�

He raised one finger and tried to point it at Mark. �Right now...� his voice was a whisper; he tried again. �Right now the Mohawks might get a seat in the assembly down in Albany. That could be important to us.�

�Maybe,� growled Jake. �Maybe not.�

Rory stared at him. �Better�n nothing,� he mumbled. �Le�s don� argue about it now.� He concentrated on pointing his wavering finger at Jake.

�All right, old buddy. You�re the peacekeepers. So keep some peace around here.�

Then Rory was fast asleep, snoring gently.

Jake looked at Mark. �What did he mean by that?�

�I think I know. Here�s what we�ll do...�

The little radio clicked softly. �He�s coming down Hilltop Drive,� a voice said, �passing First Street.�

�I copy,� Mark Benjamin replied. �Heads up, everybody. We�ll take him at Third.�

He looked across the seat at Rory and grinned. �Here we go, kid.� Rory felt better after a day�s rest. He grinned back and held up both thumbs.

In the back seat of the car Chief Blackwell leaned forward, a wide smile on his face. �Go for it!�

Beside him Art Bowers, agent of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau, frowned. �I still think we need more people.�

No one answered him.

Rory had protested strenuously. �We don�t need Bowers. He�s got an attitude problem.�

�Yes, we do,� Mark ruled. �The game is called intra-agency politics. Trust me.�

Rory had wanted this to be an all-Indian affair. But he couldn�t shut out Uncle Mark. And that opened the door to other white men. What the hell, he thought, I can live with it as long as the Mohawks get some of the credit.

It was a bright spring morning on Akwesasne. Children were in school. Housewives coped with laundry or shopping. A man astride a Wheel-horse riding mower appeared and began cutting grass near the corner. Mark�s car was parked on Cherry just off Third; they had a clear view of the intersection. Down the street a tow truck backed out of the Equipment Garage and turned left on Third; it moved past the corner and stopped.

The chocolate brown UPS van coming down the street was a familiar sight in this or any other residential neighborhood. The driver, neat in his brown uniform, sat perched on his stool behind the windshield. He always stopped at stop signs, obeyed all speed regulations.

The driver halted at the intersection, waited, and then blew his horn impatiently at the tow truck blocking his way. Shaking his head in frustration, the truck driver got out and raised the hood.

The man on the riding mower rode over to the curb to watch, enjoying the driver�s predicament. Unnoticed, a station wagon ghosted to a stop close behind the UPS van. Two men got out and quietly approached on foot.

The van driver decided to try to drive around the stalled truck, but found his way blocked. A station wagon was behind him, the riding mower was now out in the street to his left, and on his right two men stood at the open door of the van. They were pointing guns at him.

�What the hell...� He looked ahead and saw a man pointing a rifle at him across the hood of the truck. The yardman was kneeling behind his mower and pointing a gun at him. The men all had very grim expressions.

The van driver had the good sense not to reach down for the ignition key. He left the engine running and raised his hands above his head.

All four men converged on the van. They were Indians, each with a tiny radio at his belt and a red and yellow band on his left arm. Other cars arrived, and the group grew into a small crowd.

Art Bowers ran up and began issuing orders. �Put the prisoner in that car... read him his rights... don�t touch those crates... keep this traffic moving...� A reporter who had received an anonymous invitation to be in this vicinity this morning appeared. He plied Bowers with questions.

�Is it true the Warriors made a citizens� arrest?�

�Well, yes...�

�Can I get a picture of you and the Mohawks together?�

�Well, yes...�

To the delight of the bystanders and the reporter, one of the wooden crates from the cargo section of the van was opened. Labeled �Hydraulic Pump Repair Parts,� the crate contained M-60 machine guns liberally coated with grease.

A state trooper sought out Rory and Mark, who were standing at the rear of the crowd. �They made a clean sweep down in Westchester this morning, Mr. Benjamin,� he said. �Nailed the whole outfit.�

�Glad to hear it,� said Mark. �The Ontario police did a good job, too.�

The trooper hesitated, looking from the older white man to the younger Indian man. �How come the Warriors got to make the bust, Mr. Benjamin?� he asked. �We could have done it.�

�Sure you could, son. You�re the professionals. But this is Mohawk territory. Rory, you explain it.�

Rory didn�t make the usual comments about sovereignty and self-rule and jurisdiction. He just said, �It�s your law, but it�s our land.�

The trooper nodded slowly. �Right.�

Jake Hightower, who had been the man on the riding mower, walked up. �Everything go to suit you, Mr. Benjamin?� he asked.

Mark punched him on the arm and grinned. �Couldn�t have done better myself.�

Jake looked at Rory. He pointed at the red and yellow band on his arm. �We�ve got one of these for you any time you want it, Rory.�

�Thanks, Jake. I�ll think about it.� Rory had to go to his office, but he was reluctant to leave. The street was filling with people, and the atmosphere was almost that of a block party.

A television crew from Plattsburgh had arrived and was filming everyone and everything in sight. Jake and his Warriors had discreetly put their weapons out of sight and were mingling with the crowd. The other tribal chiefs were on hand with Harry Blackwell, smiling and shaking hands.

Mark Benjamin was ready to leave. �This won�t hurt a bit down in Albany,� he said to Rory. �Your nation may get that assembly seat some day.� Rory nodded. �My best to Donna.�

Rory watched Uncle Mark drive away. He turned to go but stopped when someone called his name. It was Art Bowers.

The agent walked up, his face flushed with excitement. �Ah, Horn,� he said, �you Indians did a fine job this morning. A mighty fine job.�

The patronizing tone set Rory�s teeth on edge, but he realized Bowers was being sincere. What the hell, Rory thought, some white men can�t help being clay-headed.

�Thanks, Bowers,� Rory said. �Be our guest any time.�

Managing Editor Charlie Lovett wore a little smirk. �You got any idea what fugu is, Forrest?�

�Puffer fish,� Dan told him. All of Charlie�s two hundred forty pounds sagged in disappointment.

�Damn! Thought I had you. How about a Kaiseki ryori?�

�Got me there, Charlie.�

He grinned smugly. �It�s a Japanese formal dinner. And you�re invited.�

�What do you mean, I�m invited?� Japanese cuisine wasn�t Dan�s favorite. �I�m News-Leak�s crime reporter, not the roving food critic. Give it to Blauvelt.�

�He�s on another assignment. You�re the winner of this one.�

Charlie ran sausage fingers through his thatch of meringue hair. A signal, Dan had learned, that he wasn�t about to back down.

Having boozed his way to this bottom of the journalistic food chain, Dan was in no position to argue. Dry as he had been for the past several years, he knew he was on perpetual probation. Hell of a position to be in for a Columbia grad who had cut his professional teeth on the New York Times. Now in his mid-forties, he was a tabloid bottom-feeder.

�Charlie, what�s a Japanese dinner got to do with crime reporting � wait a minute. You said something about fugu.�

Charlie�s eyes rolled ceilingward. �Thank you, God. There�s hope, after all.� His watery blues skewered Dan. �You know that puffer fish is a Japanese delicacy? You know that if it�s not prepared by a chef who knows exactly what he�s doing, fugu can kill you? Well, they�re serving fugu at this Kaiseki rigatoni��

�Ryori, I thought you said.�

�Whatever, Forrest. You get yourself over to the Golden Tory��

�I think that�s Tor-ee-ee, Charlie, as in T-o-r-i-i.�

�That�s what I said; Up on 57th. It�s Hiroki Tanaka�s eightieth birthday, and you�re the lucky guy to represent me.�

�Who�s Hiroki Tanaka?�

�Guy I worked with in Japan back in �45. The Occupation. I was a sergeant, he was civilian clerk.�

�You were friends?�

�Could say that. I nearly married his sister.�

�Nearly?�

�Yeah,� Charlie grunted. A distant look crept into his gaze. �He wasn�t exactly for it. Neither was their old man. Fact is, I had to get myself shipped out of Tokyo.�

He stood up ponderously, walked around his battered swivel, and leaned on its back. �When Tanaka moved here in the 1960�s, I talked to him on the phone a few times, then we sort of let things fade. Never could quite read how he felt about me.�

�And now he�s asked you to his birthday fugufest. To embrace you or erase you?�

�Forrest, he was a close buddy, except for the sister thing.� Charlie shrugged meaty shoulders. �I�d go myself if I didn�t��

��have so much to do here. Yeah, Charlie.�

�Besides, Daniel, you could get a story out of it. �Birthday Stuffer Is Deadly Puffer.� �

�You�re a born wordsmith, Charlie. Maybe I�d better put in a call to Cousin Roy to stand by.� Sometimes he suspected that his cousinship with Detective Lieutenant Roy Forrest at Manhattan Homicide was the reason Charlie kept Dan around when he occasionally hobbled a story. Couldn�t hurt NewsLeak to have a pipeline to the NYPD.

�Up to 57th tomorrow at noon, Forrest. And tell old Tanaka I wish him happy birthday. I told him you�d be there in my place.�

�I hope he doesn�t believe in killing the messenger.�

�Now look here, Kanine,� reproached Grippe in a voice meant to chill the heart of even the gentlest of well-meaning, honest, hardworking souls. His tone was designed to inflict damage, the inflection was meant to twist the blade of deadly content, so to speak, while the moderation was that of funereal softness and lasting horror. �You know how much I have bent over backwards to assist you and your family, what�s left of it, and that rundown piece of worthless property you so offhandedly refer to as your farm.�

Farmer Kanine slumped in the plain wooden chair, one of two that faced the scarred counting desk of banker Grippe in the painfully sterile office of the one and only bank in Downcast, South Dakota. The farmer�s skinny arms rested on his knees as he leaned forward. His palms alternately pressed upward in supplication, then desperately constricted into clenched fists.

�But you don�t understand, Mr. Grippe. Since Emma...�

�I well know what has happened since your Emma died. However, Mr. Kanine, you must admit that I, through Christian generosity, advanced you the wherewithal, headstone included, for her proper funeral and interment on the farm. In view of the previous year�s drought along with your unfortunate animals� getting the blind staggers, I have been, shall we say, generous to a fault with you and your misfortunes.�

The rawboned, hardscrabble dirt farmer raised his head, the banker�s face blurred through tear-filled eyes. �I... I know you have, Mr. Grippe, but now, with my girl Jenny gettin� so sick and havin� to go to thet sanitorium, it�s...�

�Look here, Kanine, it is certainly no fault of mine that your daughter came down with consumption, though I wholeheartedly maintain that anyone with that sort of disease ought to be put away. Not as punishment, mind you, but merely as a precaution to the health and welfare of our more worthy citizens. However, that is not my problem.

�My problem, at the moment, is to collect the money, a substantial sum, I might add, that you borrowed against your... what you call a farm. Though it was against my better judgment, Kanine, I extended myself purely out of Christian charity.�

The black-suited banker leaned back, tented his fingertips, and, while obviously enjoying the pitiful spectacle squirming before him, waited for a reply. One, he knew, that again would be beggarly and which, he also knew, he would reject.

�If only I can get my wheat in, Mr. Grippe. I know I could pay you then. It�s a good crop. Prices are up right now and...�

�And just how do you expect to get this wheat crop in, Mr. Kanine?� It pleasured Grippe to tack on the mister in front of the farmer�s name, a longstanding habit, a joke, a cat tormenting a helpless mouse. �Because of your inept management of the farm... understand I say your inept management, I was forced to claim your draft animals, skinny as they were. Bad business, Mr. Kanine. Then, on top of that, I was forced, mind you, forced, to auction off your reaper, too. May I remind you all at a considerable loss to myself?� With his middle finger, he pressed upward on the bridge of his wire-rimmed spectacles.

�But you didn�t lose, Mr. Grippe. You know as well as I do that you bought the animals yourself, the reaper, too. It was almost new. The two horses, why they was in fine condition, Belgian draft they was and in fine condition.�

He stared at the bare wooden floor, clasping and unclasping his hands.

�And I was a good... I am a good farmer and a hard worker, too, and so was Emma, never complained. Jenny was a good girl, never really got a chance to get out and meet some of the nicer young fellers and go to barn dances and picnics and such.

�Mr. Grippe, don�t you worry none, I�ll get that wheat in. Yessir, I�ll get it in, yessir, I will, Mr. Grippe. You�ll see, yessir...� Slowly the beaten man got to his feet and turned toward the peeling varnished door.

�Mr. Kanine, I have not finished with you yet,� Grippe snarled while shuffling through the mound of papers in front of him. He knew exactly where the mortgage papers were and the stipulations set forth therein. It was simply his old habit of breaking an already broken man, a ploy he enjoyed immensely.

�I want to make sure you are aware of the deadline date on which, unless you pay off the mortgage in its entirety, you shall be required to vacate the premises immediately. I assure you, Mr. Kanine, that you have stretched my patience and my good intentions to the limit, the absolute limit.�

�Mr. Grippe, I will see that you get exactly what you deserve, you will be paid in full. That is a good farm, you know it, and right now it has a good crop and you know that, too, Mr. Grippe, and you know I�ll see that you get what you got comin�, Mr. Grippe. You know I will.�

�You will have to hurry, then. After all, you will have to do it by hand...�

The farmer quietly closed the door behind him.

�...by hand. Do you hear me? You damn well better have the cash ready when I come with the papers. Cash! Do you hear me? Cash!�

Grippe slammed his ledger shut, resentful that the farmer dared to leave his office without permission, denying him the customary pleasure of dismissing a client with a slam of the account book, a withering glare over the top of his spectacles, and an admonishment to the unfortunate individual pinned by debt to the wooden chair immediately in front of his desk... I expect full payment on demand. You may now leave. I have more important work to do than review your case again.

Though denied this dubious pleasure, Grippe looked forward to the impending foreclosure, another notch in his belt, another section of fertile acreage added to his holdings in Downcast County, South Dakota. Ha, close the door on me before I dismiss him, will he! Well, I shall be out there come next Wednesday noon. Oh yes, indeedy, I shall be out there.

Banker Grippe, mortgage papers in hand, stepped from his buggy, dropped the horse�s anchor weight, adjusted his string tie, then, looking for all the world like a shiny black cricket, skittled, almost hopped, across the field of ripe golden wheat toward the distant figure wielding a scythe through the lush stalks. Well, he thought with glee, gradually closing the distance between him and his prey, the old fool can cut all he wants for all the good it�ll do him. He can�t get it to market, no wagons, no horses. It would take him a month of Sundays to cut it by hand, anyway.

Best I put a stop to it before he tramples down any more of my crop. I�ll evict him now and bring in a crew first thing tomorrow. The fool was right, though, it is a good crop.

Grippe, underestimating just how large Kanine�s field was and how far his victim was from the road, found himself quite out of breath as he approached the engrossed farmer�s toiling back.

Kanine, intent on the task at hand, was oblivious to Grippe�s presence. His rhythmic cadence, timed to a two-step chant, moved him like an automaton mowing row upon row of the hardy red wheat: �No time to play, got to pay.�

A wide swing directed the two handled scythe in a clean horizontal sweep four inches above the base of the ripe stalks. With each swing, Zsssssst sang the razor sharp steel blade, step, step plodded the farmer�s feet. The hewn straws lay in perfect rows like dead soldiers.

�Row by row, got to mow.� Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

�Work my fingers to the bone, now�s the time to stop and hone.� Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

The sweating man paused, pulled a whetstone from the back pocket of his ragged overalls, and ran it expertly along the four foot curved blade.

�Here, you! Kanine! It�s time, do you have the money? Answer me!� shouted Grippe.

The grim reaper continued his chanted cadence, unaware of the intruder. �One two, button my shoe.� Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

�Got to keep my farm from harm.� Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

The farmer advanced, each two steps a different chant, every four steps a pause to hone the blade, body and soul dedicated to saving the farm and his daughter. The golden harvest would do both, he had to bring it in, nothing else mattered.

�I�m talking to you, damnit, Kanine. How dare you ignore me like this!� the mortgage holder shouted at the farmer�s sweaty back. �Did you hear me? I will not tolerate this rudeness, turn around this minute!�

Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

�Three, four, cut some more,� Kanine chanted. Swing, Zsssssst, step, step.

�God damn you, Kanine, I shall not be treated in this manner,� shaking a fist full of papers at the man�s back. �I�ve got to catch the train for Chicago, here�s your eviction notice. I expect you to be off my property by next week when I return, understand?� He paused for breath. �All right, damnit, if you don�t have the guts to face me, then I�ll face you!�

Four long, determined strides brought Grippe directly in front of the toiling farmer.

�Here.� He thrust the papers under Kanine�s nose. �By God, you don�t igno...�

�Forced to borrow, brought me sorrow.�

Swing, ZsssZsZssst, step, step.

Horror stampeded across Grippe�s face, he stood as though frozen, then sensed a thawing sensation in his feet. He felt no pain when the blade swished through sinew and bone, only the sensation of standing on air, of slipping, sliding. His mouth flew open. His eyes bulged. He began falling faster, faster. Now screaming, his black cricket body toppled onto the harvested row; two skinny threshing legs sprayed the bearded stalks red.

The high-buttoned shoes, brimmed with their dismembered contents, quivered momentarily, then stood grimly aloof.

�Well, Mr. Kanine,� greeted the friendly wheat buyer at the grange, �...here, let me give you a hand with those sacks. I�m certainly glad all the fellas got together and lent you a reaper and wagon and such, you�da never got your crop in otherwise. Now, by gum, you can pay off that mortgage.

�Ya know, the old woman and me drove by your place t�uther day. She durn near died laughin� at you way over in thet field tryin� to hang up thet scarecrow. When you was tryin� ta tie down thet one arm to the crosspiece, what with the wind blowin� an� such an� thet scarecrow�s other arm swingin�, it shor looked for all the world like it was athumpin� you on the back and head.

�An� them legs, I have to chuckle jest thinkin� about �em. They was afloppin� in the breeze as if they was tryin� to run away. She said from a distance it looked just like old man Grippe.

�Ya know, you had ought to git rid of thet thing before he gets back from Chicago. Sure as shootin�, he�d get mad about it, and you�d end up in one big heap o� trouble.�

I like ruts. I enjoy the routine of writing at the same desk, at the same time every day, about the same sleazy character. It comforts me to go to the same barber, the same dry cleaners, the same grocery store.

Which is why I was so upset when I walked down to my local bar and some strange guy stepped up to serve me.

�Where�s Eddie?� I asked, somewhat peevishly perhaps.

�Dunno,� the kid mumbled. �You want something to drink or not?�

This did not improve my attitude. If anything, it increased my frustration. �Where�s Homer?� I demanded. Homer is the owner of Homer�s Place. Right away that tells you this is a man of great imagination.

�In the back,� the jerk said, turning away.

I got up off my stool and headed for the office. All I�d wanted when I came in was a beer and a jaw, but the situation had gotten out of hand somehow. That I had forced it was not something I cared to think on, so I settled for action.

�Hey, Max.� Homer leaned back in his swivel chair and carefully readjusted his three strands of hair over his bald spot. �How�s our local celebrity?�

He liked to brag a bit that Max Wilhelm, creator of Jake Sledge, P.I., drank there. Since he also came through with a drink on the house from time to time, as well as having given me credit during my writer�s block days, I didn�t mind.

�Homer,� I greeted back. I sat down on the ugly tan sofa and came directly to the point. �Where�s Eddie?�

�Dunno. He didn�t show up for shift two days ago. Didn�t call, nothin�. After two years. I tell you, good help these days is hard to get. Why? He owe you money?�

�No.�

�You know how it is, kid. Bartenders come and go. Like women.� He grinned at his little joke. �So what�s your problem?�

�I was used to Eddie, that�s all.�

�This new guy�s not a bad sort. Name�s Blaine. I think he�s gonna work out. You�ll like him, Max, when you get used to him.�

�Blaine? You�re putting me on. Besides, he�s just a kid. Eddie was older, like us.� I was being kind here. I was in my early forties, and Homer had a good twenty years on me. �He understood things. What do you talk about with a kid named Blaine, for gosh sakes? You haven�t heard anything from Eddie? Maybe he�s sick or something.�

�Sick, dying, don�t make no never mind. You don�t show up for shift in this business, you�re out of a job. And no, I haven�t heard from the guy. How�s that for gratitude?�

We sat and contemplated Eddie�s defection.

�Hey.� Homer sat up in his chair abruptly, causing his three hairs to flutter. He reached automatically to smooth them down again. �I got an idea. You�re a mystery writer. You want Eddie back. You go find out what happened to him.�

�Homer, I�m not Jessica Fletcher.�

�Ha, ha, that�s good. You wanna beer? I�m serious, Max. This is somethin� you can do.� He hauled his bulk up and waddled to the door. �Hey, Blaine! Bring us a coupla drafts.�

Somewhere during the second beer I began to think I could do anything a woman could do. By the fourth beer I was certain something terrible had happened to my good buddy Eddie and no one was doing anything about it. By the end of the fifth beer and a trip to the men�s room, I knew it was up to me to rescue the man from whatever calamity had befallen him.

Homer searched through his mess of files and gave me Eddie�s address. �All I got on him is his address.�

�What do you know about him?� I asked. �Is he into the ponies? Drugs? Anything?�

�I just told you, nothin�. The guy came to work, put the money in the till, locked up, and went home. We didn�t have long soul-searching conversations about life, okay? What do you know about him?�

Now that I thought about it, nothing. We�d talked about the weather, politics, sports, women. The usual stuff. But I couldn�t recall a single personal thing Eddie had ever told me about himself. Of course, I was also working on my sixth beer. Maybe tomorrow, when my head cleared...

My head wasn�t that much clearer the next morning. Still, a commitment was a commitment. After I finished my morning stint of writing, I drove over to the address Homer had given me.

The building was old and rundown, the sort of place hundreds of Eddies would live in. People earning enough money to keep them out of the cold and driving an old clunker that broke down regularly. I walked up the stairs to Apartment 3B and knocked.

No response. I rapped again, harder. Nothing.

I went back downstairs and tapped on the door of the manager�s apartment. A young woman with a baby on one hip and another kid clinging to one leg opened the door. They all looked alike except her nose wasn�t running. She frowned at me and said, �Yes?�

�Hello. My name�s Max Wilhelm and I�m a friend of Eddie Dunne�s. He hasn�t shown up for work for three days, and we�re getting concerned.� I�m not good at playing the nicey-nice game. I tried flashing a big friendly smile. It made my lips want to go hide.

�He paid his rent last week like always. Maybe he had to go out of town.� The baby grabbed at her hair. The woman pulled its hand away without looking. �Stop that,� she said and started to close the door.

I assumed she was talking to her hairdresser and not me, so I carried on. �Ma�am, would you mind going upstairs and checking Eddie�s apartment with me? I mean, what if he�s sick of something and couldn�t get to the phone?�

She hesitated. �We aren�t supposed to...�

I was getting ready to plead when she squinted up at me with a somewhat interested look. �Are you somebody important, like on TV or something?�

Publicity does have its rewards. I�d just been on a local talk show promoting my latest book. I informed the woman, with a degree of modesty, that I was indeed a writer of some renown.

She didn�t seem overly impressed. �Oh, yeah, I remember now. I always watch that show. Sometimes they have movie stars on it, you know.�

I followed her lead. �I�ve met Tom Selleck.�

�You�re kidding! What�s he like, really? Is he as nice as he seems?�

�Why don�t I tell you while we�re walking upstairs?�

She debated my offer. �Well, all right. But you can�t touch anything, okay? Watch Lance and Zack while I get the key.� She thrust the small child into my arms.

Lance? Zack? Blaine? Where were people coming up with these silly names? Whatever happened to Homer and Eddie? And Max?

Zack smelled of sweet milk and sour diapers. He immediately grabbed my nose. Children are like cats; they can instantly spot people who don�t much like them. Eddie was going to owe me a drink or two when I found him.

I regaled my audience with Tom Selleck stories all the way to 3B. Luckily, I�m a fiction writer; the closest I�d ever been to the guy was to see him across the room.

The woman fumbled with the key, then shoved the door open. The apartment smelled stale, as if the air needed vacuuming.

Inside it looked a lot like mine: untidy. A ratty lounge chair and an old brown couch with ancient foodstains. A television set. My TV was bigger.

A large cardboard box stood open on the dinette table. The UPS label on it was addressed to Eddie Dunne. There was no return.

�Mommie, look,� Lance said before snuffling loudly.

Mommie and I ignored him. She relieved me of Zack so I could peer around the small kitchen. A dirty bowl and mug stood beside the sink; a Mr. Coffee machine nearby held a pot with a half-inch of brown liquid in it.

�Look, Mommie,� the kid said again.

�Might as well check the bedroom,� I suggested.

She shrugged. I turned to go toward the hall on the other side of the living room.

�Mommie!� Lance removed his finger from his nose and pointed. This time for some reason we both looked. Hanging half off the arm of the sofa, head down, was a snake large enough to swallow King Kong.

�Well, it may not have been quite that big,� I admitted later to Homer. �But it sure looked like it at the time.�

We were sitting in the back booth at his place. He was sucking another glass of suds, I was on my third cup of coffee. Walking three blocks home while under the influence can be too much two nights in a row; all Homer had to do was climb a few stairs.

He cackled appreciatively at my story. �What kind of snake was it?� he asked.

�A boa constrictor.�

Homer�s eyes widened, then narrowed in disbelief.

�Hey, would I kid you? That�s what the guy from the zoo said. The cops called him to come and get the damn thing.�

Something caught Homer�s eye and drew his attention away from further explanations, which was just as well. The story got tamer after that. Still, I looked around to see what had distracted him.

A woman in a bright red dress approached the bar and perched on a stool. The entire action was one of extreme sensuality. Adding to the liquid movement were long ink-black hair and Marilyn Monroe curves. If the front view was only half as good as the back, I couldn�t blame Homer a bit; I�ve always preferred well-rounded women myself. Not to mention the fact that Homer�s Place was not usually adorned with such pulchritude.

�Not bad,� I said, turning back to my coffee cup in as casual a manner as possible. �Who is she?�

�I don�t know. Last night was the first time she�s been in.�

�Maybe she�s new in the neighborhood?�

�Yeah. Maybe.�

Neither of us really believed that. This wasn�t her sort of neighborhood, nor her sort of bar. Even from the back you could tell.

�She drinks stingers,� Homer murmured, whether to himself or to me I wasn�t sure. �She was here not quite an hour last night, drank two, and rejected three advances.� He swallowed the last of his beer. �Sure you don�t want a drink?�

Funny how things often come together in the middle of the night when you�re in a dead sleep. My eyelids banged open somewhere around quarter to four with the clear memory of a remark Eddie had once made to me.

Who knows what we had started out talking about. One way or another the conversation had worked around to hunting and wild animals. �There�s only one thing I�m truly scared of,� Eddie said, �and that�s snakes. Just the sight of one on TV makes my skin crawl.�

I was still trying to make two and two add up the next morning when the phone rang.

�Max? It�s me, Homer.� His voice vibrated with excitement. �You know our mystery lady? Well, right after you left, I went to tell Blaine I was going upstairs to bed when I heard her ask him a question.�

�Yeah?� I prompted when he didn�t continue.

�She said, �What shift does Eddie work?� �

Well, well, well. Add an Eve to our little garden of Eden. �I suppose Blaine, bright boy that he is, told her Eddie didn�t work here any more?� I said, not wanting Homer to get overly impressed with his detecting skills.

�I spoke up before he got the chance. Told her Eddie was off for a few days and could I help her.�

I knew he was waiting for a little praise, so I gave it to him. �Good move. What�d she say?�

�She said, �When do you expect him back?� You should hear her voice, Max. It sorta tickles all the way down your backbone, you know what I mean?�

�Spare me the salacious details, Homer, and just recite the conversation, okay?�

He probably had no idea what salacious meant, but he got the idea.

�I told her he was supposed to call me today or tomorrow and could I give him a message. �Tell him Miranda said hello,� she says and gives me a big smile. Then she lays a dollar on the bar and walks out. What do you think it means, Max?�

�I don�t know what it means, Homer.�

�Oh.� He sounded disappointed.

�But I intend to find out.�

�Oh.� He sounded happy again, momentarily. �Will I see you tonight? What should I tell her? I don�t know what...�

�I don�t know either, yet. I�ll get back to you.�

What did Eddie have that would make a broad like that interested in him? He was just your average guy, like me. I don�t have women like that asking about me.

Maybe he sold drugs? He didn�t look like a drug dealer, but then a smart one wouldn�t. Which brought me to my next question: was Eddie smart?

I don�t mean to belittle bartenders, but Blaine had impressed me as having the mentality of a tulip. Of course, when you come right down to it, you don�t need brains to be a writer.

I�d never wondered about Eddie�s prowess in the intellect department. He had served my beer cold, he could converse on a variety of topics, and he had the rare quality of knowing when not to talk. In short, the perfect bartender.

I veered back to my original question. No, I decided. I didn�t think he was a drug dealer. Frustrated, I went into the kitchen for another cup of liquid energy. As I stared down at my Mr. Coffee machine the realization hit me.

I never had looked closely at Eddie�s apartment. The police had come, decided they didn�t want anything more to do with the snake than we did, and called the zoo. Then, to maintain their image, they asked a few questions (mostly what the heck was I doing nosing around in somebody else�s apartment). When I suggested something serious might have happened to him, they suggested I file a missing persons report.

Throughout all this, the zoo guy oohed and ahhed over the snake, Lance kept asking if he could hold it �just for a little while,� Zack cried, and Mommie glared at me as if I was the cause of the whole thing! When it was all over the cops carefully escorted us downstairs.

There ought to have been something in Eddie�s apartment that would give me a clue to his personality. More than a snake and a beautiful woman had, that is. They might be clues, but I hadn�t the foggiest idea what they meant.

Zack waved his arms and cooed. Lance asked if we could go find another snake. Mommie was the only one who didn�t look all that pleased to see me. �What do you want now? Didn�t you cause enough trouble yesterday?�

�We still don�t know what�s happened to Eddie,� I explained. �He could be sick or dying somewhere,� I pointed out. �It�s up to us. The police aren�t going to do anything,� I intimated. In between all of these she argued back. I won out in the end, and the four of us set off once more for 3B.

Without the snake there wasn�t a lot to see. With the exception of his wallet and car keys we found nothing of a personal nature. I wasn�t sure which bothered me more. Not many people go for two years without leaving their mark on their surroundings somehow, and very few men go out without their wallets.

It was old, the leather falling apart. Inside there were no pictures, no business cards, no credit cards, fifty-seven dollars in bills, and a driver�s license. That was it. This guy traveled light.

�He always paid his rent on time,� the manager said, beginning to share my concern.

�Can you remember what bank the checks were on?�

�He didn�t use checks. He always paid cash.�

We stared around at the empty living room. The cardboard box still sat on the table.

�Did you see the UPS man when he delivered this?�

She thought about it. �I don�t remember seeing him,� she finally admitted.

Before I left we checked the parking area. Eddie�s car, a battered old Ford sedan, sat in its stall, patiently waiting for someone to drive it or junk it.

I drove downtown to the main UPS office. Using a cover story that I had sent a package to Mr. Dunne and wanted to make sure it was delivered, I was shuffled along to four different individuals, who each took the time to explain that I should have asked for verification at the time I sent the package before sending me to someone else.

The last woman sensed my desperation � or else was that rare thing, a truly helpful person � and told me I could speak to Jim when he came in, since that was his route.

�West 135th? Eddie Dunne. A heavy box? Yeah, I delivered it,� Jim assured me when he arrived an hour later.

�You handed it to the guy?�

�Yeah, sure. He didn�t have to sign or nothin�. If you�d wanted him to sign for it, you shoulda...�

�Yes, I know. What did the guy look like?�

�Just an average guy.�

�I mean, did he look surprised? Happy? Nervous?�

�Wet. He looked wet, like he just got outa the shower. His hair was still dripping, and all he had on was a pair of jeans.�

Leaving his wallet on the dresser, I thought. And his car keys. Then he would take the box in to the table and open it. If he was as terrified of snakes as he�d told me, he could have rushed outside, discovered he couldn�t drive anywhere... and then what?

I thanked Jim for his information and left.

Homer�s Place had a smattering of people murmuring to themselves and each other over their drinks when I arrived at eight thirty and joined Homer in the back booth.

�She ain�t come in yet,� he announced. �I been watching.�

�You or Blaine don�t remember anything more about her?�

�She�s a stunner. What else you gonna remember besides that?�

I gave him a withering glance.

�What did you come up with?� he said in an effort to pitch the ball into my court.

I was ready. �Eddie suffered from ophidiophobia...�

�Huh?�

�Fear of snakes.� I wasn�t about to tell Homer I�d looked the information up this afternoon. Who knows? I might be able to use it in a book sometime. �Where�s my beer?�

Homer hollered at Blaine. Blaine delivered my brew and departed. I took a big sip and related the rest of what I�d learned during the day.

�So you�re saying Eddie was so scared of snakes he took one look and split? No shoes, no wallet, no nothing? I mean, hell, everybody�s afraid of snakes.�

�Not everybody, Homer. And even those who aren�t crazy about them � like you and me � aren�t necessarily traumatized by them. But I think Eddie is. Like people who are terrified of flying.�

Homer mulled it over. �So where do you think he is?�

�He didn�t mention any friends, any family?�

Homer shook his head. �Nothin�. I been thinking and thinking, but I tell you I don�t know nothin� about this guy. Except he was a good bartender.�

We drank to that, silently.

�I figure tomorrow I�ll start checking around at local hospitals, missing persons, that sort of thing.� I didn�t say the morgue. I didn�t have to. Homer wasn�t that stupid.

�What�re you gonna do when she comes in?� he asked. He said �she� as it was written in the H. Rider Haggard novel.

�I don�t know,� I admitted.

�She� came in at ten thirty-seven. This time she wore a vivid print dress with a severe case of static cling until it dropped below her hips, where it fell in perfect drapes that eddied like river currents as she walked. Her heels made tapping sounds that echoed through the silent room. She would have stood out anytime, anywhere. In a neighborhood where baggy pants and earth shoes were the common female garb she could cause dead men to rise again.

When she settled onto her stool, a collective sigh shuddered through the building as every male in the place started to breathe again. Blaine placed a stinger on a fresh coaster in front of her.

Homer shivered. �What�re you gonna do?�

I still didn�t know. But I wasn�t about to admit it. Without answering, I got up and walked over to the bar. She smelled like wild jungle orchids. I�d never smelled wild jungle orchids. Maybe they didn�t smell at all. But that�s what I thought of. I could even feel the heat, the press of lush tropical plants, hear the sound of strange animals padding through the underbrush...

�I understand you�re looking for Eddie.� I handed Blaine a five to pay for her drink.

He glanced from me to her. She lowered long dark lashes and smiled. He took the five and left.

�I�m a friend of his,� I said, straddling the stool beside her. She turned and gazed at my too-long crewcut, down my twice-broken nose, past my blue shirt with some unidentified and unremovable stain outline to my wrinkled Dockers and scuffed deck shoes.

�Really?�

�Maybe not that close a friend. He never told me about you.�

She laughed, a breathy, husky sound. Up close you could tell she wasn�t young � mid-thirties, maybe?�� but it didn�t matter. She was in her prime, and she knew it.

�My name�s Max. Max Wilhelm.�

�Miranda,� she said. �So he never told you about me.�

I ordered another beer. Blaine served it, left my change, and returned to the other end of the bar.

�You were going to tell me where I could find Eddie.�

I made circles on the varnished wood with the condensation from my glass. �No. I said I heard you were looking for him.�

�Ah,� she said. �So you did. And so I am.�

I took a shot in the dark. �I assume you�ve gone by his place?�

She gazed back at me and smiled that little smile.

�He wasn�t home?�

She didn�t answer. �Perhaps I could give him a message?�

�You haven�t already told him I was looking for him?�

I wasn�t sure who was winning this little game. I�d thought I was ahead on points, but maybe not.

�Would you like another drink?� I asked.

�No, thank you. I really must be going. Do tell Eddie, when you see him, of course, that I was here, won�t you?�

�You were great, Max,� Homer said when I returned to the back booth. �Great.�

�Great? You mean because I didn�t drool on her? I didn�t find out a thing.�

�You will, Max. You had her eating out of your hand.�

Right.

I started calling the hospitals at eight thirty the next morning. The third one responded positively. After my story of a friend who had disappeared, etcetera, the pleasant female voice said, �Just a moment, sir. I�ll let you speak to Mrs. Sawyer.�

Mrs. Sawyer had a nice, efficient-sounding voice. After I�d given my pitch, she replied, very carefully, �It is possible your friend is here, Mr. Wilhelm. Could you describe him for me?�

�Six foot, dark brown hair, slightly graying, hundred and eighty to two hundred pounds, late thirties, a small scar near his left eye...�

�A man of that description was brought here three days ago. Apparently he ran in front of an oncoming car. The driver said he did his best to swerve, but had no warning. Would you be able to come down and identify your friend for us?�

When I arrived at Mrs. Sawyer�s office, a man in a rumpled corduroy sport coat and khaki pants waited with her.

�This is Detective Johnson,� she said. �Mr. Wilhelm.�

The three of us shook hands. I told them the basic story, that Eddie had not shown up for work, that Homer and I had become concerned, that we had no idea what could have caused him to run directly into traffic. I didn�t mention the woman, or the snake. I figured I�d get around to that later.

After twenty minutes of this, Detective Johnson nodded and Mrs. Sawyer said, �Your friend has two broken ribs, a broken arm, contusions, and a severe concussion. Dr. Troy expects him to return to consciousness within the next twenty-four hours. There is no sign of brain damage.�

They even took me in for a quick look. It�s always tough to recognize people when they�re lying in a hospital bed with bandages and machines and everything, but it was Eddie all right. I said so. Detective Johnson and Mrs. Sawyer nodded as if I had passed some kind of test.

�I�ll let you know when he�s conscious and can receive visitors,� Mrs. Sawyer told me, and that was it. I was dismissed.

I called Homer. He was glad to hear that I�d located his missing bartender (�Dumb thing to do,� he said. �Get yourself hit by a car. He deserved to be fired.�) and wanted to know if I was coming down. I told him no, which panicked him.

�What if she comes in?�

�So? She�s a customer. Serve her.�

�What if she asks about Eddie?�

�You don�t know anything more than you did before.�

�Okay, right. Right.�

He wasn�t convinced, but he didn�t press. I had no idea where she fit into the puzzle and hoped Eddie would supply some answers when he came to.

Which he did about nine thirty that night, according to the nurse on the floor when I�d called for the fifth time. I finally got to see him at ten thirty the next morning. He still looked awful, but at least he was moving.

�Max,� he croaked in greeting. �What�ll you have?�

We had a good laugh over that. At least I grinned a bit and he sort of half chuckled, half coughed, half gasped.

I never know what to say to sick people, so I shoved my vase of flowers onto a bedside table and said, �You look like hell.� With the social amenities out of the way, I went straight to business. �What�s the deal with the snake?�

His eyes got a little shifty.

�Listen, pal. Homer and I�ve been worried sick. I�ve gone to a bit of trouble to find you. Now, we don�t have a lot of time before they throw me out of here, and I need some answers. Who�s Miranda?�

He closed his eyes, then opened them again. �You�ve seen her?�

I nodded.

�How does she look?�

�Terrific.�

He nodded. �I knew she would. Does she know I�m here?�

�Not yet. You want to tell me about her?�

He didn�t answer right away. It seemed to take forever, but gradually the story came out. Eddie had been a systems engineer for a large manufacturing company, working on an electronic chip that would translate written material into audio. Miranda had been a secretary for the same company. He was dazzled when she showed interest in him; they began a torrid affair that had him alternately high and low. (I said, �Any woman can do that to you if you let her,� and he said, �Not like Miranda.�) It didn�t seem strange to him when she asked about his work, even though it was secret.

When a competitor came out with the same product two months before his company, suspicions were raised. �It wasn�t as good as ours was,� he said, �but they had it first. And their design was enough like ours to be a twin.�

Eddie was called on the carpet and forced to admit he had discussed the project. He and Miranda were both fired and his reputation was ruined. �I couldn�t get a job anywhere in the industry.�

Still he couldn�t break off his affair with the woman. �I hung around her like a sick pup. Spent all the money I had in reserve � she does love money � and borrowed more. It was like a disease.� Finally, in a frenzy of shame and disgust, he left the city and fled to the West Coast. He changed his name, did a bit of creative lying, and managed to get work as a bartender in a small local bar.

�It took her nearly three years to find me and another six months for me to leave her. She had ideas how we could �work together. Make some big bucks.� � He turned his head away. �Now she�s found me again.�

�And the snake?�

�She sent it. She knows how terrified I am of them. It�s her idea of fun, keeping me on the roller coaster. It�s always like that with her. Excitement, life on the edge. She thinks �routine� and �calm� are bad words. What�s scary is that when you�re with her you begin thinking that way, too.�

The nurse came along just then, gave us both a lecture for wearing him out, and escorted me from the room. Eddie�s story depressed me. I dropped in at Homer�s Place and took my beer back into Homer�s office.

He listened to the whole thing and tsk-tsked in the right places. �What�re you going to do now?� he asked when I finished.

�How do I know? What do you do with a guy like that? He knew she�s bad news. It doesn�t seem to make any difference.�

�Getting hit by a car didn�t knock it outa him, for gosh sakes?�

I shrugged. Eddie didn�t seem too confident about it. Why should I be? We sat and stared at each other until Homer�s phone buzzed.

�Yeah?� he growled. He listened for a few minutes, then covered the mouthpiece with his hand and stage-whispered, �She�s here. She�s out front asking to see you.�

Before I could think of what to say, the door opened and Miranda the Marvelous came in with a grand entrance that outdid anything Loretta Young might�ve thought of all those years ago. Today she wore purple. Rich, regal, elegant purple.

�Gentlemen,� she said in that husky voice.

We sat and stared.

�You can hang up the phone, Mr. Quigley,� she said to Homer. All these years and I�d had no idea what his last name was. He hung up like a good little boy.

She turned to me. �I understand you�ve located Jim.� She waited until I figured out she was talking about Eddie before continuing. �I�d really like to see him. Would you take me there?�

�You obviously know where he is. You don�t need me.� I decided I sounded pretty good. Tough yet nonchalant. �What did you do, follow me?�

She smiled. Her lips were perfectly shaped. I imagined what it must be like to kiss them...

�Hospital regulations can be so silly.� She smiled, waiting for my decision.

Homer leaned back in his chair as if he�d been hit by an ice storm and was frozen in that position forever.

What�s a guy to do? You can�t protect people from themselves. If Eddie was going to fall into her grasp again, the only thing I could achieve would be to delay the inevitable.

The hell with it. �Okay by me,� I said.

Homer still hadn�t thawed. Miranda smiled and waited for me to open the door for her.

I did at least try to have her wait in the hall while I went in and spoke to Eddie first.

�Darling, I�ve known him far longer than you have. I don�t need you to announce my arrival.�

No. Only to get her past the nurse�s station. Which I�d done. She smiled that glorious smile � triumph now adding to its glow � and breezed through the door as I opened it.

�Jimmie, sweetheart, you poor thing. You look terrible.� She flowed across the room and leaned over to kiss him.

Wild jungle orchids mingled with hospital smells and made my teeth clench. Eddie looked � sick? Stunned? Transfixed? I couldn�t decide. Miranda continued to coo over him.

�Don�t worry, darling. I�m here now, and I�ll take care of everything. It�ll be all right. Your Miranda�s here.�

Eddie�s eyes shifted to me. I shrugged helplessly. Miranda continued to chatter.

That�s when I got the idea. From her. The minute she paused, I opened my mouth and let the words fall out of it.

�Hey, man, when do you think you�re gonna get out of here? We miss you down at Homer�s. He�s got a kid there, name of Blaine, can you believe it? Anyway, this kid is pulling your shift while you�re gone, and he�s awful. Homer needs you back, man. I need you back. Say, did you hear about the game the other night? L.A. was ahead by one point, there was only twenty-eight seconds left...�

I have no idea what dribbled off my lips after that. Miranda turned and glared, and I just kept on talking. She began stroking his face and arms and murmuring softly, and I just kept on talking.

When the nurse came in, she startled all three of us.

�What do you think you�re doing? Young woman, get off that bed. You,� she snapped at me, �stop yelling. I have to give this man a shot. You can both wait outside. I�ll let you know when, and if, you can return.�

I shut up and headed for the door. To my amazement, even Miranda obeyed without demur. We walked down the hall to the waiting area silently. Miranda took a chair on the far side and refused to look at me. I slouched against the opposite wall and tried not to pout.

Ten minutes went by before the nurse appeared. �Mr. Dunne would like for you to come in,� she said.

I straightened up. Miranda rose elegantly.

The nurse turned to her. �He wants to see the gentleman alone.�

I was careful to keep the grin off my face until I was headed down the hall the other way.

�Yeah, Eddie?� I said as I approached his bed.

�Do you really think Homer�d have me back?� he croaked.

�Are you kidding? In a hot flash.�

He closed his eyes.

�I kinda miss ole Homer,� he whispered. �It�s not a bad place to work, you know?� He paused. �Routine. Calm. It�s calm.�

�Ruts are nice,� I said.