She was trying to remain upright. All her strength went into this-the effort of remaining upright. At the execution chamber, she'd had to stumble outside, into the fresh air, or what had struck her with the force of fresh damp air. Yet she'd fallen, to her knees. She'd lost the strength of her young body, she'd wakened to discover herself lying on the ground. Voices were uplifted, she'd violated the protocol of the tour-group by fainting.

Not vomiting. She had not been gut-sick, as she'd feared she would be.

In the wine-beer-liquor store. Somewhere on the North New River Canal headed south, to Fort Lauderdale.

Her lips were cold, numb. Her face was bloodless. The Investigator who was a gentleman in his early seventies was not one to take alarm, easily. His public manner was poise, cool, aloof, in control. His public manner was courteous. Yet now staring at the Intern, frowning.

But you are my young Intern! You are younger and healthier than I and you are to outlive me, I've hired you for that reason, to take care of me. McSwain!

She'd managed to select the whiskey the Investigator had requested: Johnnie Walker Black.

She'd managed to drop into the shopping cart a six-pack of seltzer water which the Investigator favored, and which the Intern often drank at their impromptu meals together.

The Investigator took the shopping cart from her faltering fingers. Pushed the cart to the front of the store, to the cashier now frankly staring at them-this ill-matched couple-had to be, what?-father, grandfather-young guy, or maybe girl. The cashier rang up the charges with quick-darting fingers, long painted-plastic fingernails it was a miracle to observe.

"McSwain. Go back out. I'll take these."

"No. I can help you, sir."

"I said go on."

Their accents weren't Florida. Nowhere near.

SO EXHAUSTED! The Investigator glanced over at her, in the passenger's seat.

Not ever had the Intern been so-helpless.

Worriedly the Investigator wondered: Maybe we should take you to an ER.

Maybe you need a shot of cortisone. Maybe you've had an allergic reaction to the execution chamber.

Driving south on Route 27, back to Fort Lauderdale. All the signs, gigantic billboards, drawing travelers south, to Fort Lauderdale and the Atlantic Ocean.

Female bodies horizontal on white sands, in tiny bikinis. Female bodies with luminous golden-glowing skin.

Weakly the Intern protested: No.

No ER, no medical examination. The Intern was fine, she insisted.

The Intern had a fear of being examined. The Intern had a fear of being found out.

SHE WAS HALF-CONSCIOUS. She was comforting herself, felt an almost voluptuous thrill, the prospect of-seated close beside the Investigator, at his large desktop computer, as the Investigator displayed on the screen the many mini-photos he'd taken surreptitiously at Orion. As they peered at the images, tried to identity the images, and the Investigator would play the tapes he'd recorded, or had tried to record-(for such surreptitious taping, in miniature, was not a flawless operation)-and the Intern would take notes, the Intern would number and name and eventually print out the photos, and file. And there was a comfort in this, the Intern wished badly to think.

We are collaborators. In a project of social justice.

We will work together from now on.

For he knows he can trust me.

THAT NIGHT AT 10:40 P.M. It seemed clear, the Intern would stay the night at the Investigator's rented house where there was a room for her, a narrow bed, a bureau of drawers and a private bathroom.

Where she'd stayed in the past, from time to time.

Stammering she had to-in the morning-would have to . . .

She had no choice now but . . .

. . . had to return home.

(Home! This had not been a word in her vocabulary, the Investigator had ever heard. No more than home had been a word in his vocabulary, the Intern had ever heard.) (For hadn't she assured him, hadn't she insisted, she had no parents living, no family-or the remnants of a family, from whom she was estranged? No home. And no memory of home.) Her employer was astonished. He was stunned. He was not a man-(you could see this)-accustomed to being surprised but rather-(of this, he was proud)-a man who surprised and upset others.

Saying, was she ill?

What was she saying?-home . . .

It was so, Sabbath McSwain wasn't looking good. Eyes stark in their sockets with too much seeing.

He was saying, No shame in being sick. Or weak.

We are all weak at times, McSwain.

Tenderly he spoke. Or tried to.

He did not want a personal relationship with his assistant. It was something of a joke, to call her "Intern"-she knew.

He did not want an emotional relationship nor did he want-this was clear, this had not ever been an issue-any sort of sexual relationship.

She knew. She would not have wished to upset him.

He said, "Fuck. I took you to that God-damn place, and it has made you sick."

She hoped he would not blame himself. She'd have preferred, he blame her.

He'd opened the bottle of Johnnie Walker. Rarely the Investigator drank and only at such times, as the Intern had observed, when he believed he'd completed a difficult or arduous assignment, or had failed to complete a difficult or arduous assignment; when he wanted to "celebrate"-(inviting the Intern to join him, please). Now splashing whiskey into a glass and drinking and still he could not believe any of this, what the Intern was telling him, and trying to tell him.

"Something happened to you in the 'execution chamber.' In the 'diving bell.' God damn, I shouldn't have sent you inside."

"You didn't, sir. I volunteered."

"Fuck 'sir.' Call me-"

The Investigator paused. For there was no name he could offer to his employee.

"-call me 'asshole.' For making you sick."

"But you didn't. I volunteered."

"Yes, but I signaled you to volunteer. Both times."

Silence fell between them. The Intern feared to shut her eyes, she might lapse into unconsciousness, extinction.

Hearing herself say, faltering: "Just that I-love you. I think I love you. Sir."

The Investigator laughed. A flush rose into his face as if the Intern had slapped him.

"But you are fifty years younger than I am. Christ, you are a girl."

"I am not a 'girl.' I don't think that I was ever a 'girl.' I was-I am-some sort of freak. But I have the strength to love you, because you don't want love from me."

The Investigator laughed again. He could not believe any of this.

Another several inches of precious whiskey. He drank and still-could not believe.

A speeding vehicle, headed for disaster, and no one to clutch at the wheel.

Silence between them. But an agitated silence not the companionable silence of the past eight months.

When she'd thought If this could continue. Not forever-there is no forever.

Observing the Investigator-(for whom she had no name, in fact: he was supremely he, him)-in another part of the large office at the Institute, or at his computer in the home-office, whistling through his teeth, cheery and absorbed in his work, listening to crystalline notes of early-Mozart like raindrops-thinking secretly, subversively If this could continue it is all that I could want.

All she'd hoped was to help the Investigator assemble the new SHAME! expose. The Investigator had planned eighteen months of traveling and research. The Intern had been surprised to discover that, despite his best-selling books, the Investigator didn't really seem to know what he was going to write until he began to write it: like groping in the dark, he'd said. Yet, he had faith, after the other groping-starts, that he would assemble the manuscript, and it would repay the effort.

He believed that the strongest passages would be eyewitness accounts of executions. He hoped-(was this unreasonable? The Investigator had contacts in law schools)-to be granted a pass, to actually witness an execution in one of his target states-Florida, Texas, Louisiana, etc. If he was lucky-(but this was terrible to speculate!)-he would witness one of the numerous "botched executions" that occur routinely, and are rarely reported. In this way, in SHAME! and in the media he would bear witness to the inhumanity of the death penalty; he would lobby in Congress, maybe. Certainly the strongest passages in the book would be eyewitness accounts of "botched executions"-in the ordinary vernacular speech of Americans like the tour-guide Lieutenant.

He'd become dependent upon the Intern, these past eight months.

Not on her, he'd have been quick to explain. But on her as his assistant.

Now, abruptly and unbelievably, unconscionably, their association seemed to be ending.

She was saying-oh but what was she saying?

He was saying-Betrayal.

Furious with her now. In an instant his surprise, his concern, his sympathy, his embarrassment at her faltering words-now fury.

"You'd given me your word. You would help me in this project. I told you-about eighteen months. I've trained you, and I've invested time in you, and now you're saying you need to leave-to go 'home'-which means that you'd lied to me, when I interviewed you. You lied to me and you've betrayed me."

"I-I will try to come back. I don't know when, I . . ."

" 'Come back'! If you leave now, you will not 'come back.' "

"But I-I would hope to see you again, Dr. Hinton . . ."

(Though "Hinton" wasn't his name. What his name was, the Intern had not been told.) Stiffly he said, "There is no need for you to 'see me again,' McSwain."

"But when-if- After-"

"I can't wait for you to return. From wherever you think you're going-'home.' Where is it, upstate New York?"

The Investigator spoke sneeringly, his voice hoarse. The Intern had never seen the Investigator so agitated.

"I will call you. I will try to . . ."

"You gave me your word. You betrayed me. I could never trust you again, McSwain."

The Intern tried to think of a way to reply. The Intern was weak with shame, self-disgust.

The Intern did think, she had betrayed the Investigator.

Betrayal-that was the correct word.

She had betrayed. Numerous others, she'd betrayed.

"I will interview for another assistant. I will run ads. I'm sure that I can find a replacement. I will stress 'computer skills' this time. But I will not contact Chantelle Rios again."

The Investigator spoke bitterly. It was clear, the Investigator was badly hurt.

The Intern wanted to clutch at him but dared not. The Intern knew that this man fifty years her elder would stare at her in disgust, throw off her fingers as you'd throw off a snake brushing against your arm.

The Intern felt again the sensation of breakage, from within. Her personality was falling apart. She'd cobbled together a self, out of fragments, she'd glued and pasted and tacked and taped, and this self had managed to prevail for quite a long time. But now, after the airlessness of the execution chamber, after the death sentence she understood was her own, she was falling apart.

In fact stumbling out of the Investigator's rented house. She would not be staying the night of course. She would never return. The Investigator was waiting for her to depart, the Investigator would slam the door behind her and lock it.

On the stairs the Intern lost her balance. The Intern would have struck her head against a railing except she managed to block the fall, just barely.

"Fuck. God-damn fuck."

In disgust the Investigator hauled her up the stairs. Into a chair.

The Investigator's breath smelled of whiskey.

Fury-fumes. Disgust.

The Investigator held the Intern in the chair, so that she didn't slump, sink, fall.

The Investigator held the Intern in his arms. The Intern was stupidly weeping.

The Intern was saying she had to leave. She had to return-home.

Years she'd been gone. How many years she wasn't sure.

She'd done something wrong, back there. She'd made a mistake.

Or rather, something had happened to her, that had been a mistake.

And so, she had to return. She would have to beg forgiveness.