"You came out of the bathroom," I said to Janice Severtson. "You could tell he was drunk, mumbling. Words you couldn't understand. Saw him stab himself. You called 911 and remembered that you had seen me, an old friend of your husband's, in the hotel. You called me, brought the children to my room, and came back here to wait for the ambulance and police. You understand?"

"I...," she said, looking at Stark.

"He's been talking about killing himself for running away with you, his partner and best friend's wife. He's been talking about regretting things he did in the past. He's been drinking and he got depressed when he drank. You've got that?"

"I..."

"Mrs. Severtson," I said, "if you want to keep your kids out of this, you better remember. You tell the truth about what happened and why, and you lose your kids. Television news will get it and make it all very ugly. Your picture, the children's picture all over the place, maybe network. Good-bye kids. Good-bye husband. Probably jail time. So, can you remember what to say?"

"He killed himself," she said. "But why can't I just say he attacked me and I defended myself?"

"That's what you told me, and it took me about two minutes to figure out you were lying," I said.

Stark's hand and fingerprints were on the knife handle. Even if a smart cop thought something was more than a little suspicious, he probably wouldn't pursue it. Stark had a record. Stark, Janice, and her children weren't rednecks in a cheap motel room. Cla.s.s still has its privileges.

"I'm going," I said. "They'll be here any second. You'll be all right."

It wasn't a question but she answered more strongly than I expected.

"I'll be all right."

I moved toward the door.

"Wait," she said.

I turned toward her. She went into the bedroom and came back almost immediately. She handed me the teddy bear, the stuffed elephant, and the pink blanket. I went out and moved fast without running toward the stairwell. Below, out of sight, I could hear the sound of voices in the lobby. I ran up the one flight and came out close to the wall where I couldn't be seen by anyone eight flights below. I made my way to my room, opened the door, and found Sydney asleep on the sofa next to her brother, who was nodding off as he watched the end of the d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e episode. In her sleep, Sydney took the elephant and the pink blanket and clutched them to her chest.

Kenny looked at me. I handed him the teddy bear.

"What happened?" he asked, eyes blinking heavily. "Where's my mom?"

"Mr. Stark had an accident," I said.

"I don't like him anymore," the boy said. "Sydney doesn't like him anymore either. He smiles, buys us stuff, but he's a fake. We told Mom. She wouldn't listen."

"She's listening now," I said. "What did you see tonight before your mom brought you to my room?"

Kenneth didn't hesitate.

"Andy was sleeping on the bed," the boy said. "All covered up."

"You want to get some sleep, Kenneth?"

"Yes," he said.

"Get into the bed in the other room," I said.

"Sydney might get up and be scared."

"I'll put her next to you."

That seemed acceptable to him. I picked up the girl, who clung to her blanket and elephant. She smelled clean. She smelled like a little girl. I followed Kenny into the bedroom, where he watched me put his sister down on the bed. Then he climbed into the bed, put his head on the pillow, and fell asleep almost instantly with one hand touching his sister's arm.

It was just a question of how long it would take some cop to knock at the door to my room. My story would be simple, always best to keep it simple. Friend of Janice's husband, taking a few days off to enjoy the Orlando glitz, ran into them in the elevator. Then she brought me the kids. I didn't know Stark. I didn't know what he was doing there. Janice would have to swallow the humiliation and tell them the truth on that one. The cops would probably just go through the motions. No need to do anything else.

I was halfway through a Diet Dr Pepper and an ancient rerun of a Bob Newhart Show when the knock came.

The two uniformed cops looked as if they had been awakened from a deep sleep. They were both young. The older of the two, who was about thirty, asked the questions. The other one took the notes.

They stayed long enough to get statements from Janice Severtson and me. They didn't wake the kids. Janice told them she had seen Stark stab himself but the kids hadn't even seen the body. She told them she had brought them up to me when Stark stabbed himself. She said she had quickly run back down and found him on the bed. She got the blood on herself, she told them, when she tried to help him.

She was a good liar. So am I. She agreed to stay in Orlando the next day to come in, answer a detective's questions, and sign a statement. They said the kids should stay in Orlando in case a detective wanted to talk to them. Then the cops said I could do whatever I wanted.

I asked Janice if she was going to be all right, took her to my room after the police let her gather some clothes, gave her my door card, packed in about a minute, put on my cap, and moved to the door.

"You might want to shower," I said, "and get some sleep on the sofa."

She nodded.

"Thank you," she said. "I don't think they believed me."

"They believed me," I said. "Shower, sleep."

"Yes," she answered, drained, automatic.

"You be all right?"

"Yes."

I left, stopping at the desk, where the night manager heard my story, looked serious and sympathetic, and said he would be happy to give me a room for the rest of the night.

I checked my watch. It was almost five-thirty in the morning. The sun would be up in less than an hour.

"I don't feel like seeing Mickey Mouse anymore," I said.

"I had enough the first week I was here with my niece," he said. "How much bouncy and jolly can an adult take?"

"A lot less than a kid," I said.

I drove for a while on I-4, got off at a Lakeland exit, had an Egg Mcm.u.f.fin and coffee, and headed for Sarasota.

6.

TRAFFIC WAS WEEKDAY-MORNING heavy on both I-4 and I-75. I was back in the DQ parking lot and climbing the concrete stairs to my office and home a little after nine-thirty.

I called Kenneth Severtson's number. No answer. I was relieved. I didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want questions.

"Your wife and kids will probably be back tomorrow," I told his machine. "They're fine. Be nice. Stark's dead. Killed himself. A long story. Your wife will tell you."

There was one message on my answering machine. It was one of the secretaries in the law offices of Tycinker, Oliver, and Schwartz.

"Mr. Fonesca"-her voice came through flat and dry-"Mr. Tycinker asked me to remind you that he needs those papers served on Mickey Donophin before Sat.u.r.day. If we do not hear from you, he will a.s.sume you are unable to do this and will contact the Freewell Agency."

I called Tycinker, Oliver, and Schwartz. There was no one there, but there was an answering machine.

"This is Lewis Fonesca," I told it. "Tell Mr. Tycinker I'll have the papers in Mickey Donophin's hands within twenty-four hours."

I hung up, got my soap, a towel, toothbrush and toothpaste, and my electric razor and moved toward the rest room I shared with the other tenants and Digger, an otherwise homeless old man, who was standing in front of the mirror over the sink when I went through the door.

"Ah," he said, looking at me in the mirror. "The little Italian."

The rest room was almost always clean, which came as a stunning surprise to most visitors. A smiling, r.e.t.a.r.ded man named Marvin Uliaks, for whom I had recently done a job, kept clean the rest room and most of the stores and storefront businesses on the three-block stretch of the seven short blocks of 301 between Main and the Tamiami intersection. He accepted whatever the business owners wanted to give him and smiled even when he was given only a quarter.

"How do I look?" Digger said, turning to me.

He looked like a disheveled mess of a human being who had put on a wrinkled gold tie that had nothing to do with his wrinkled blue-and-red striped shirt and sagging dark trousers.

"Dapper," I said as he gave me room to get to the sink.

"Got a job interview," he said over my shoulder, checking his tie in the mirror.

There was no hint of alcohol on his breath. There never was. Digger didn't drink. He couldn't afford to. He had told me when we first encountered each other by the urinal a few months ago that he neither drank nor took drugs.

"It's my mind," he had said. "Doesn't function right. I lose days, weeks, get headaches, fall a lot."

"Where's the job interview?"

He moved out of the way so I could brush my teeth.

"Jorge and Yolanda's," he said, checking his own teeth over my shoulder and rubbing them with his finger.

I held up my tube of Colgate, and he held out a finger for me to drop some toothpaste on it.

"Obliged," he said as I stepped out of the way after rinsing my mouth so he could work on his teeth.

Jorge and Yolanda's was a second-floor ballroom-dance studio right across the street. I could see it from my office window.

Satisfied with his teeth, Digger rinsed with a handful of tap water and stepped back. I turned on my razor.

"Want to know what I'll be doing?" he asked.

To the hum of my razor, I looked at him in the mirror and said, "Yes."

"Dancing," he said.

"Dancing?"

I stopped shaving.

"They have dances for their clients and prospective clients every Friday night," he said. "They need extra men because they have more women than men. What're you looking at me like that for? I'm a terrific dancer. Anything, you name it, waltz, tango, fox-trot, rumba, swing. You name it. I get fifteen bucks and all the appetizers I can eat every Friday night providing I don't make a hog of myself."

Digger used to be a pharmacist. He sometimes slept in a closet of one of the twenty-four-hour Walgreen's. There was a seemingly infinite number of Walgreen's and Eckerd drugstores in Sarasota, an even greater number of banks, and a supply of cardiologists, oncologists, and orthopedic surgeons that probably rivaled Manhattan's.

I knew little about Digger's past, didn't want to know more.

"Sounds great," I said, returning to my shaving. "Good luck."

He looked at himself in the mirror again.

"Haven't got a chance, have I?"

"Not a chance in the world," I said, finishing my shave and checking my face for places I might have missed.

"What the h.e.l.l. I said I was coming in, answered an ad in the paper. Said I was coming in. What the h.e.l.l? It's just across the street. What have I got to lose? You know?"

He started to loosen his tie.

"Got this tie at the Goodwill for a quarter," he said. "Real silk, just this little stain where you can't even really notice, but what the h.e.l.l."

"What time's your appointment?" I asked, washing my face.

"Just said I should drop by some time after ten, but what the h.e.l.l."

"You've got time to shave, use a comb, get a pair of pants that fit, a white shirt, and a pair of socks and shoes at the Women's Exchange."

The Women's Exchange consignment and resale shop was a few blocks down Oak Street.

"That'd cost," he said, looking at me with eyes showing a lot of red and little white.

"How much?"

I dried my face.

"Ten, fifteen bucks," he said.

I fished out a twenty and held it out. Digger took it.

"I gotta pay this back?" he asked.

"Get yourself something at the DQ if there's anything left," I said.