"I'm deeply moved," I said.

"I can see that. But you plan to pursue this?"

"Yep."

"I'm willing to go to great lengths to protect William Trasker," he said, looking at the rack of bats.

"I'm moved even more deeply," I said.

Hoffmann scratched his cheek.

"You are being threatened, Mr. Fonesca," Hoffmann said. "I'll be blunt. If I asked him to, Stanley could make you disappear. Is that right, Stanley?"

"That's right," Stanley said.

I think I smiled, a small smile.

"Are you suicidal, Mr. Fonesca?" Hoffmann said, puzzled.

"Someone asked me that yesterday. I'm not sure about the answer. It's one of my problems," I said. "But I'm working on it and I'm not going to take my own life. I've got a good shrink."

Hoffmann looked genuinely interested.

"You mean what you're saying, don't you?" he said.

"I mean it."

"Ah, a good Italian Catholic," Hoffmann said. "You won't take your own life but if someone else kills you..."

"I'm not a Catholic," I said. "None of my family is."

"What are they?"

"Episcopalians."

"Then we are at an impa.s.se," Hoffmann said. "I think our visit is over. You can follow Stanley to the gate."

He stood up.

"I've got a present for you," I said, holding out the gift-wrapped box of chocolates I'd picked up at Walgreen's.

He took it.

"I think you are more than a little bit crazy," Hoffmann said.

I had shaken him, but not enough. So far I was just a determined little man who couldn't be intimidated.

"Why are you giving me a present?"

"Yesterday would have been your birthday," I said. "If you had lived."

7.

KEVIN HOFFMANN SAID nothing. He tapped his fingers on the wrapped box of chocolates, and I said, "Don't you want to know what's in it?"

"I'm not dead," Hoffmann said.

"Then you must not be Kevin Hoffmann," I said. "That confuses me. You're using Kevin Hoffmann's name and Social Security number. But the Kevin Hoffmann born with that number died in Modesto, California, twenty years ago yesterday at the age of fifteen, according to a county death certificate which I can have faxed or mailed to me. If you are Kevin Hoffmann, you're thirty-five years old and much too young for senior softball. You're breaking somebody's rules."

He considered me with eyes holding no fondness for humankind. But I'll give him this: he didn't try to lie.

"I've committed a minor misdemeanor," he said evenly. "I've paid my taxes every year and legally took the name of Kevin Hoffmann two decades ago."

"I don't want to know who you were before that," I said. "I don't want to know what you were running from. I want to get Roberta Trasker, come back here with her and a doctor, and see her husband."

"Now you're threatening me," he said as if he were enjoying our talk, which might in fact have been the case.

Hoffmann reached over and pushed the phone on the desk toward me.

"You know her number?" he asked.

I started to reach for my notebook but he lifted the receiver and hit seven b.u.t.tons. He handed the phone to me.

"Yes," Roberta Trasker said.

"Lew Fonesca. Your husband is at Kevin Hoffmann's house. Hoffmann says your husband wants to stay here. According to a Dr. Obermeyer he shouldn't be moved. I think it would be a good idea for you to get over here with a doctor or two of your own."

"Bill is at Kevin's house?" she repeated.

"Can you come with a doctor?"

"His, our internist is Gerald Kauffman," she said. "I'm sure he'll meet me there if he's in town and I tell him it's an emergency. His oncologist is, well, he has several, all in the same practice on Proctor."

Hoffmann watched as I spoke and then reached for the phone. I handed it to him.

"Roberta," he said. "Stanley was supposed to have called you about this. I wondered why you hadn't called back or come over. I'm sorry. If you like, I'll have Stanley come right over and pick you up."

Hoffmann was smiling at me as he listened to Roberta Trasker. I heard his side of the conversation.

"You don't have to, Roberta...Yes, that's exactly what I'll do...You know I will...Yes...Of course...Yes, you know you can believe me...I'll keep you informed and let you know when Dr. Obermeyer says you can see William. Believe me, he is resting quite comfortably."

He held the phone out for me. I took it.

"I believe him," she said, her voice quivering, about to crack.

"You believe him?"

"Yes," she said, having trouble getting the single word out. "Bill should stay there. He's being well cared for."

"I think your doctor-"

She hung up. I handed Hoffmann the phone. He hung it up and started to open the box of candy. I watched him.

"Some people can be threatened," I said.

"Most. A Whitman sampler," he said, holding the box open and reaching over with it to offer me first choice. "In your position, I would have brought Ghirardelli or at the least Frango mints. When's your birthday?"

"September twenty-ninth," I said, taking what looked like a chocolate-covered cherry.

"If you're around in September, I'll have a large box of a.s.sorted Ghirardelli chocolates delivered to you."

"Aren't you going to write the date?" I asked.

"I'll remember," he said, "if you are around."

He put the top back on and handed the box to me.

"Give it to someone who likes carbohydrates and cheap chocolate," he said.

I took the box.

"Good night, Mr. Fonesca, and don't even consider returning here. You won't be welcome."

Stanley led me out through the house and down to the gate.

"Got a last name, Stanley?" I asked.

"LaPrince," he said.

He put his hand in his pocket and the gate opened.

"Any suggestions about what I should do next?" I asked.

He thought for a beat and said, "Who brought the flaming imperial anger? Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle drums? Barbarous kings. A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn."

"Shakespeare?"

"Ezra Pound," he said.

I got into the Nissan as the gate closed. Darkness had come. Darkness and wet heat. I started the engine and turned on the air conditioner. Stanley stood behind the closed gate, watching me as I drove away.

Roberta Trasker wasn't my client. My client was the Reverend Fernando Wilkens. I went back to my office and called the number Wilkens had given me. It was a little after ten. I got his deep ba.s.s voice on the answering machine: "You have reached the home of Reverend Wilkens. Please leave a message. May the Lord grant you peace."

After the tone I asked Wilkens to call me in the morning. Then I went across the street to the Crisp Dollar Bill, the box of chocolates under my arm.

There were seven people at the bar and people at two of the booths. Teresa Brewer was just finishing "Till I Waltz Again With You." By the time I got to the back booth, Chet Baker was playing "You Don't Know What Love Is" on the coronet and singing. He sounded as if he knew what he was singing about.

The bartender and owner Billy Hopsman's taste in music had no bounds. He was a lean creature with hair a little too long, nose a little too large, taste in music a lot too broad. Regulars were used to stepping into cool air, comforting darkness, and anything from Maria Callas to Pat Boone or "The Pizzicato Polka."

Billy called to me, asking what I wanted. I ordered a gla.s.s of the coldest beer he had and a steak sandwich with a side of potato salad.

"Coleslaw," he called back. "Out of potato salad."

I told him that was fine. I knew fries came with the sandwich. Maybe I'd talk to Ann about my diet again, ask her if she thought I was subtly and slowly eating myself to death on unhealthy food. If I were, so were millions of others. An epidemic. Maybe eating anything but fish and green vegetables should be declared a health hazard. Maybe I was babbling nonsense to myself.

I got the beer first. It was cold. I didn't ask what kind it was. I gave Billy the box of chocolates and told him to pa.s.s it around.

"Birthday present," I said.

"Your birthday?"

"No. I gave it to someone. He didn't want it. I think he's on some kind of diet and didn't want to be tempted."

"He should have taken it," Billy said. "Just to be polite."

"I think you're right."

"Well," said Billy, picking out what looked like a peanut cl.u.s.ter. "His loss is your gain."

"That's the way I look at it. What do you know about Midnight Pa.s.s?" I asked Billy when he brought my steak sandwich with a pile of fries and a bowl of coleslaw.

"Jack s.h.i.t," he said. "You know who that is singing now?"

Chet Baker had finished. I heard a woman's deep voice with strings behind her.

"Sarah Vaughn," I said.

"Right, *Make Yourself Comfortable,'" he said, and strode back toward the bar where he offered the box of candy to a guy with a biker's body, beard, and fisherman's hat.

The biker, his mouth full of chocolate candy, said, "Hey, Billy, you settle this for us. Ace says that's Ella Fitzgerald. I say it's Peggy Lee."

I didn't hear Billy's answer.

I worked at my sandwich. It was overdone but hot. Just the way I like it. The onions were undergrilled but hot. Just the way I like them. The coleslaw was too sweet, just the way I like it. A feel-good meal as a reward for a job badly done.

"Saw your car in the lot, the one you're renting," came the voice across the table.

Digger was sitting there in a white shirt, a wide red tie, and a blue jacket at least one size too large. His face was pink and clean-shaven. He didn't look happy.

"Didn't get the job?"