'Yes. He'd been a Republican committeeman from his county and he continued his interest after he retired.'

'Any discussions recently?'

'Yes indeed. He came to me about a week ago to protest President Clinton's farm policies, and he had four proposals that would ease the burden on the big spreads west of the Mississippi River.'

'Were they sensible?'

'In my judgment they were better than what the Democrats were coming up with.'

'From such conversations ... and there were others, I suppose?'

'Many.'

'Did you find Chris Mallory to be competent? Mentally?'

'Extremely sharp. But of course, farming had been one of his interests. I'd expect him to know a lot.'

Under cross-examination the senator frustrated the lawyer for the younger Mallorys by citing a few other complex fields in which the grandfather had exhibited mental acuity: 'But those discussions were in the past?'

'If you call two weeks ago the past.'

Andy saw, with relief, that some of the jury members had been impressed by the senator's deportment and testimony, but the surprising highlight of the morning came when President Armitage took the stand. After stating his credentials, which were impressive, with the long list of books published and services rendered to the federal government, he told of conversations with Mallory that were not much different from what the senator had testified to. He must have been aware of the repetition, for out of the blue he volunteered: 'And Mr. Mallory was of considerable help to me personally, so I had a good opportunity to evaluate his mental sharpness.'

'In what specifics?'

'My wife and I had built up some savings, from my books and speaking fees, and we felt it would represent a conflict of interest if I asked the finance manager of my former college to advise me on how to invest these funds. So I went to Mr. Mallory, remembering that he'd been president of a bank, and he was glad to counsel me.'

'And the results?'

'Our college finance team earned us seven percent on the college funds they invested. Chris earned my wife and me ten and a half percent, year after year.'

'But did he charge you a fee for his services?'

'Of course. He's a canny businessman. And we were glad to pay it.'

Editor Jimenez from Colombia, ramrod straight, with a slight accent, weighed each word carefully: 'Mr. Mallory frequently stopped me in the hall to ask about developments in my home country. He was very knowledgeable.'

'In what way?'

'About drugs. The Cali gang. The Medelln connection. He always wanted to know what they were up to.'

'Why would he have such an interest?'

'Because he had served as chairman for his state's antidrug committee. He had even gone down to the hill country of Colombia, at some risk to himself, I must say, because those drug gangs are killers.'

'On such a trip what did he learn?'

'Only that Colombian drugs keep seeping into this country, corrupting our legal system and killing our children.'

Now, when the jury looked at Old Man Mallory they saw an entirely different kind of man, but the decisive testimony came from Ambassador St. Pres, whose credentials were so impeccable and manner so dignified that whatever he said was bound to carry weight. He spoke of his frequent contacts with Mallory, and of the man's interest in matters besides dancing and dining out: 'When the President appointed him to the national committee looking into the drug problem, Mr. Mallory had occasion to visit the centers in the Orient from which drugs were being sent out to carriers who slipped them into the United States. Burma, Thailand, a very rough gang in Malaysia, he knew of them all. When I met him at the Palms, where we are both in retirement, he liked to use me to keep au courant with what was happening in the lands he had visited.'

'Did you find him acute? I mean, did he know what he was talking about?'

'I was surprised by his mastery. For instance, he never said "northern Thailand." With him it was always "Chiang Mai" or "Lampang." '

Sitting very erect, as if he were being interrogated by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Senate, he was allowed by the court to offer a final peroration: 'It is trustworthy citizens like Chris Mallory and his wife, Esther, who form the backbone of our nation. They not only attend to their own affairs, brilliantly sometimes, so that they earn considerable sums of money, but they also serve on investigating committees, special bodies and the boards governing universities and hospitals. To attack them in their later years ...' He paused dramatically and concluded: 'No, to attack men like the four of us as we grow older-we'll throw our lot in with the Mallorys-' Suddenly overcome by emotion, he ended lamely: 'is insane.' The audience, which included members from various retirement centers in the MiamiSt. Petersburg area, applauded. The judge rapped his gavel, not ferociously, and it was obvious that the jury was deeply moved.

The ambassador's performance was perfect, an effective capstone to the solid contributions of the other tertulia members. The lawyer for the younger Mallorys tried, of course, to impugn the testimony of the four, but the distinguished witnesses were so skilled in defending their positions that attempts to denigrate them were easily rebuffed, and when the jury filed out it was clear that before long they were going to file right back in. When they did, after less than an hour of deliberation, their verdict was in favor of the old people, and it was fortified by harsh words from the bench, showing that the judge had been disgusted with the performance of the children of this amiable pair of old people, of whom Florida had so many.

'Dancing is neither sinful nor wasteful. Jesus himself attended dinners in town. And parents who have educated their children and been unusually generous to their grandchildren, as the Mallory financial records proved, have performed their obligations to society. I judge from what we've heard about the Mallory finances that dinners and dancing are not going to deplete all their funds before they die. There'll be a great deal left even for you grandchildren, and my counsel is to leave this courtroom and not bother to visit the Palms. Looking at you close up might goad these folks to drop you from their wills.'

Chance dictated that Andy would leave the courtroom just as the group of younger Mallorys did and he could not restrain himself from stopping them and saying: 'When you reach home I hope you'll read that admirable story by the Grimm Brothers. A selfish married couple find it unpleasant to have to take care of the aging grandfather. He slobbers at his meals and spills bits of meat and potato on the table, so his son carves him a wooden swill bowl like the ones pigs eat from, and that's the way the grandfather is fed.

'A few days later the father sees his own son, a lad of ten or so, carving a swill bowl and when the father asks: "What's that for?" the boy replies: "So I'll have it handy when you're old." '

Speaking directly to the two Mallory offspring and their spouses who had brought the suit against their father, Andy said: 'I hope your children carve their bowls for you when you get home.' Then he turned away from them and left the courthouse.

That evening everyone in the dining room looked toward the door where Chris Mallory and his wife, Esther, were entering, all smiles and laughter as if returning from a party. When they waved to friends the room broke into applause, for they were recognized as surrogates who had defended the group.

Late in July Andy received an imperative fax from John Taggart asking him to be in the Chicago headquarters at ten the following day and to bring with him complete survey and architectural drawings of the entire establishment, including the road system in the vicinity out to the eastern edge of the savanna. These plans were voluminous, but with the aid of Krenek and Nora, Andy bundled them up and was on the very early flight to Chicago.

He went to Taggart's office, where a secretary spread the land surveys on a large clean desk. Prior to Taggart's arrival, two men whom Zorn had never met, businessmen apparently, in their late forties or early fifties, began to pore over the surveys, eager to verify the dimensions of the unoccupied land south of the Palms. On the government survey this land was not specified as the savanna, for that was the name it had been given locally. The survey did show the Emerald Pool and the Heronry, names that must have existed for many years.

When Taggart arrived, he apologized for being late, and introduced the two strangers as a distinguished architect and an equally well-known builder: 'Satisfied with what you see, gentlemen?'

When they nodded emphatically, he turned to Zorn and said: 'Exciting news, Doctor. These men, with the enthusiastic support of two of our leading banks who will lend us the money, are prepared to move immediately into this big spread of open land, which we already own, clean it, dig a series of four interlocking lakes, lay down a complete road system, and build for the Palms a collection of-how many at last count?-forty-eight spacious duplex apartments-that is, two side by side on the same concrete slab-for the occupancy of those older people who are ready for a kind of retirement, but who do not want to surrender their right to an individual home.

'In this way we get nearly a hundred well-to-do people, members of the Palms family, who will later move into Gateways, then into Assisted Living and ultimately into Extended Care. It's the wave of the future. We see it wherever we look, and we're planning six other such extensions in our better operations. You, Zorn, are to be the groundbreaker, and if this partnership can plan and build what amounts to a new community, from the ground up, they can assure themselves of many similar commissions.'

Zorn was astounded. If the land contiguous to the present buildings was to be cleared to make way for the duplexes, it would mean the loss of that part of the savanna used by the residents of Gateways and probably the loss of the Emerald Pool, too. He felt that he must protest in defense of his clients who had bought into the Palms with every right to believe that the ground to the south would remain open. How many residents were there like Ambassador St. Pres and Reverend Quade, Laura Oliphant and Judge Noble, who loved the African mix of trees, shrubs, pampas grass and hidden pools?

'Mr. Taggart, do you think that the present residents of Gateways will feel that they joined us with the expectation that the savanna at their doorstep would remain open land? Was there any promise in the contract, or one that was implied?'

'None. They bought into the Palms with our assurance that the river would remain on the north, the channel on the west, and there they are. What happens to the east has already been decided by the community, a big mall, and we decide what happens on our land to the south. Private duplexes for the new wave of patrons.'

Now the builder spoke for the first time: 'We won't slash and burn, or ignore sensible spacing standards, or fail to keep enough open spaces. We're bound by very meticulous zoning codes. Everything we do is subject to inspection to see that we live up to those codes.'

'Andy,' Taggart broke in, 'do you think we'd build something on your doorstep that would in any way depreciate the value of the Palms-a value you've reestablished? This addition is going to be far more state-of-the-art than what you have already. Look'-the two strangers spread their own blueprints and sample drawings of a duplex. Taggart pointed to the amenities in their plan: 'A recreation building up here. And along the channel, an esplanade.' Zorn, inspecting, saw that Judge Noble's steel-reinforced chair was gone, and it looked as if the Emerald Pool and the Heronry would also be obliterated, but when he asked about them the men said: 'We'd be insane to lose them when we have to build two other lakes from scratch. Those two big areas are your present pools, enlarged.'

'Explain how you move a long-armed backhoe up to the edge of an existing pool,' Taggart said, 'and scoop it out like you were serving ice cream.' Zorn saw that the four pools included in the plans were so spaced that the duplexes scattered about the edges could be sold for additional charges.

'We expect one half of a duplex to sell from $210,000 to $380,000 along the waterfront. And with these prototypes we'll start selling right away,' Taggart said. 'We'll move Henderson down next week-very forceful salesman, he'll have half the condos sold before they're finished.'

'And when do you estimate that to be?'

Taggart looked at the two men and the architect answered: 'Land cleared in one month. Infrastructure in second month, and by that we mean roads, sewers, lights. Grade and pour the twenty-four double slabs, third month, and finished houses five months after that,' and the developer said: 'Remember, in Florida you can work outdoors twelve months a year. By this time next year, we'll be off working on some other site.'

They now explained in detail the features of the duplexes and how no two, which would be twins on their slab, would be identical with any other pair in appearance or orientation. 'We're building for beauty, for permanence,' the architect said and the builder confirmed this: 'Highest quality in details,' and he rattled off the famous brand names of kitchen cabinets, bathrooms, floor coverings and electric lighting. 'When we're finished, you'll want to buy the first duplex, Dr. Zorn.'

Zorn felt suffocated by the detail these skilled men threw at him, but when they were finished he had to ask, almost plaintively: 'Why wasn't I told about this sooner? You've made so many decisions,' and Taggart had an excellent answer: 'Because we were not planning for only one site, wonderful as yours is. This double-sized slab is going to be used in our holdings in the other hot states like California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. And we have just as fine plans for the states where we have to build with cellars.' He tapped the blueprints: 'It was touch and go, Andy, whether we'd build this trial run in your Florida showcase or the big development Harry Cain operates for us near San Diego. You won because you're farther along in whipping the Palms into shape.'

He interrupted himself to tell the men: 'Dr. Zorn has worked miracles down in Tampa. He's two years ahead of the schedule I posted for the place. When you build in his backyard, you're associating with the best.'

At lunch the four men continued their discussions, with the other three assuring Zorn that the Palms West, which was the name Taggart had settled upon, would enhance both the look and the reputation of the retirement area: 'It's the wave of the future, Andy. Four-step offering instead of three. You watch. Retirement areas that cling to the old style, with no single dwellings for the early retirees, will fall by the wayside.'

When Zorn pointed out that whereas the Palms West sounded rather attractive the proposed development would actually lie to the south, Taggart said with great conviction: 'South does not sell in real estate. It carries a connotation of moving away from the main action, a sense of retreat. West is always good. Moving toward the noble traditions of the nation. West sells.'

After lunch Andy hurried to O'Hare, where he caught a plane back to Tampa, bringing with him a hefty packet of new blueprints, plans and drawings depicting the future of the Palms. He went to bed exhausted, but was wakened early the next morning by Ken Krenek and Ambassador St. Pres, who wanted to know what was happening out in the savanna, and when he joined them to inspect what had taken place while he was in Chicago, he was astonished. The low woodland was covered by a blizzard of three-foot stakes with one of three different colors at their tips indicating future use: red for the proposed roadways, blue for the waterways and bright yellow outlining the twenty-four concrete slabs, each of which would contain two duplexes. And off to the west, where the channel ran peacefully, there stood a row of black stakes indicating the paved promenade that would rim the waterfront.

'What in the world are they proposing?' St. Pres demanded, and Andy explained the concept of the Palms West, which would bring ninety-six new residents into the complex. At this point a crew appeared to install along the highway a huge billboard that proclaimed: THE PALMS WEST. DUPLEXES FROM $210,000. Well inside the area a semi hauled a long prefabricated building already decorated as a compact sales office; and four monstrous bulldozers moved in to sculpt the land in conformance with the dictates of the colored flags. One of the bulldozers had a huge claw projecting from the rear, and it started digging out what would become the first of the ponds around which the more expensive houses would be built.

Rattler was infuriated. And when that happened he was big enough and deadly enough to do something about it.

His problem was twofold: he hadn't eaten for two weeks and was starving; and the lush savanna stretching to the north of his den in which for so many years he had hunted rewardingly for rabbits, mice, birds' eggs and a multitude of little creatures was being scraped clean by the big bulldozers that were clearing the land for the condominiums soon to be erected there. Social progress had caught up with the great rattlesnake, and he did not approve.

On a very hot afternoon in August he remained close to the Emerald Pool protecting himself from the destructive sun by hiding in his den amid the roots of a few small trees and bushes that had been left standing by the planners of the new buildings. But if he was relatively comfortable in his retreat, he was not content, for he was suffering acute pangs of hunger.

For the present he refrained from going out to seek food; he realized that if he was exposed to the burning rays of the sun for any considerable period, he would perish. Had he had a voice he would have howled in frustration; instead he coiled himself into his combative position and prepared to take action, but what specifically he might do he did not know. What was certain was that any object, man, animal or a force unknown, that came into contact with him in the next hours was in mortal danger. He would be on the prowl, a deadly opponent.

So he waited in his refuge until the sun had departed, leaving cool shadows in which it would be safe for him to go hunting. Thrusting his delta-shaped snout out into the fresh air, he sensed a most enticing opportunity: there was activity in the Heronry some distance to the northeast. His supposition was based on various bits of data. Big adult herons were flying so close to him overhead that he could see them carrying fish in their beaks. Normally the birds would have eaten the fish right after catching them; if they were bringing them inland it must be to feed their newly hatched young. He smelled new odors drifting in from the Heronry, in which traditionally the big birds reared their young, and on previous night excursions he had heard coming from the birds' breeding place unusual sounds, perhaps of young begging for food. There was also in the air a smell of the feeding process. For all these reasons, a daring trip to the Heronry seemed a good risk with a promise of something to eat.

But if he slithered away from his den he faced an entirely new risk, one that had recently arrived to endanger him. When the noisy bulldozer had moved across the savanna, reaching with its destructive jaw only a few yards north of the Emerald Pool, it had scraped the earth flat, knocking down trees and uprooting and killing all grasses and shrubs. And it had continued the process of annihilation all the way north to the highway and east to the line of buildings. Within a few days it had converted the savanna with its many nooks and crannies into a barren dusty waste that provided no refuge to any living creature, from tiny mouse to gargantuan rattlesnake. During the first moments of this evening's foraging, Rattler would have to leave the reassuring grassland surrounding the Pool and risk his life in crossing the arid dryland.

Furthermore, when he reached the Heronry he would face not a nestful of baby birds, whom he could gobble up one by one, but a pair of adult blue herons capable of destroying any animal threatening their nest. Through the years he had often seen the big birds, sometimes grave and stately, at other times awkward and clumsy, prove to be deadly if a snake exposed himself to the powerful stomping of their heavy, hornlike feet or the piercing jabs of their long, sharp beaks. Three jabs, properly placed, could kill even a large snake, so this venture to the Heronry was no casual expedition. It was a choice between certain starvation or possible death.

When assured that the sun had gone down, he cautiously left his den, twisted his head left and right to see if perchance some stray rabbit or large mouse had happened by to provide a meal, which would make the trip to the Heronry unnecessary, and somewhat reluctantly brought the full length of his massive body from its hiding place and started for his goal.

He was a monstrous snake, almost nine feet long, fourteen inches in circumference at his fattest part, and with a huge assembly of rattlers on his tail. If he wanted to sound a warning by activating them, he could be heard for many yards.

His mode of travel, perfected over many million years, was unique in the animal kingdom: he had no wings so he could not fly; he had no feet so he could not run; he had no fins so he could not swim; and he had no legs so he could not leap. But what he could do, almost magically, was send nerve messages to the various segments of his extended body so that they responded in ways that allowed each part to edge forward, inch by inch. If so inspired, he could slither forward almost as fast as a man could run. He was a relic from some ancient past, and the fact that he carried in his fangs a deadly toxin converted him from a harmless snake, of which there were a hundred varieties, into a lethal torpedo, an animal constructed to kill efficiently. When he was in motion, he was as potentially destructive as an army on the march, but he was so deadly that nature had slowed him down by imposing a most curious rule: he could not strike his enemy when he was fully extended and moving forward; he must stop and wind his fearsome length into a coil so that the full weight of his body could be used to spring forward three or four feet, allowing the deadly fangs to fasten into the body of the victim.

And, strangest of all, he had been constructed by the forces that devised him with a serious impediment: he could not strike without first sending a loud, clear warning from the rattles in his tail. The sequence was invariable: Stop, coil, signal noisily, then strike.

It was this snake, veteran of a thousand attacks on others, survivor of a hundred assaults upon itself, that approached the Heronry.

Great blue herons had lived for untold generations in what had become known to human beings, late on the scene, as the Heronry, but that was in the days before bulldozers had been invented or condominiums conceived. The grassy savanna had extended unopposed north to the river, east to undefiled lands and south three miles to another body of sluggish water called the Bayou. It was an ideal place for herons to breed and many did, but within the last month-the herons had a year of contiguous periods when nature gave unmistakable signals that 'now is the month to breed' and 'now is the month to make the babies leave the nest' and 'now is the month to visit these other fishing grounds'-the birds had been assaulted by a series of unparalleled confusions: noisy men had come painting signals on the trees, great machines had appeared to scrape the earth clean of grasses and shrubs, and for a few dangerous weeks it looked as if the huge machines were going to erase the Heronry, but other humans in green uniforms had come to drive stakes some distance from the area and call to one another: 'We'll save this and hope the birds will stay.' There had been jubilation among the ones in green when the herons built their nest.

But now, as night fell, the mother heron experienced a wave of unease. Always attentive, she thought she detected a slight movement amid the patch of grasses that had been spared by the machines, but when she moved a short distance from the nest to investigate, she could see nothing and concluded that at worst it might have been a mouse, from which she had nothing to fear. He might come by when the nest was no longer in use, to clean it up and maybe take a few small sticks for his own use, but he could not damage the nestlings.

But it might also have been a rat with long, fierce teeth, and that could be dangerous, for rats were determined predators with the power to create havoc in a nest. They too, however, could be defeated by two determined adult herons with their powerful feet and sharp beaks. The mysterious creature in the grasses could not be one of the most dangerous enemies of all, a water turtle who caught baby herons, and adults too, by coming at them from the bottom of some stream, catching their long legs underwater and pulling them down until they drowned and became food for the other turtles. The mother heron need not take precautions against the voracious turtles till she led her fledglings to the channel.

But just as she was about to dismiss her fears about a lurking danger, she saw in the gray twilight a sudden flash of iridescence and the appearance of a hideous, triangular head with gaping mouth attacking her nest and catching one of her babies-the chick's head deep within the jaw, with the rest of the small body dangling out.

When the mother heron uttered a loud cry, her mate came rushing through the savanna grass, aware that disaster of some kind had struck. Without hesitation the male heron leaped right at the rattler's head, striking it with his long, incredibly sharp beak, while the mother heron took her stance near the nestlings and launched her attack on the extended body of the snake. Neither heron accomplished much, for the rattler was able to slither his body so adroitly that the long spikes of the birds' beaks missed their marks. Freed for a moment, the snake started his reluctant retreat, with his mouth immobilized by the long legs of the half-eaten bird dangling from it, but the herons continued their attack until the battleground had moved a safe distance from the nest. The mother bird, satisfied that she had repulsed the invader with the loss of only one chick, returned to the nest to protect the other four from any other assailant who might attack in the confusion. She had finished with the rattler, gratified that she had at least once sunk her powerful beak into some portion of his cold body.

But the male heron, the inheritor since birth of a fear of the dreadful snake that could destroy an entire nestful of young birds, maintained his attack on the retreating foe, stabbing at wherever the grass was moving and trying to anticipate where the reptile would next be visible in the fading light.

Rattler now had a new set of problems. His raid had started as a success, but now, as he tried to retreat, other herons flew in to assist the original pair and he found himself assaulted from all sides. Some of the flashing beaks were beginning to do damage along the entire length of his body. Frightened, he managed to dispatch signals to all segments, and when they responded, he was able to slither in a dozen different directions at once, confusing the birds and allowing him to make his momentary escape into the deep grass near the Heronry.

He had, however, not counted on the fury of the male herons, who showed no signs of halting their attacks. Pursuing him as he tried to hide in the grass, they stabbed at him incessantly until he realized with horror that he ran a real risk of being killed. His problem was that a heron was built in such a way that there was no vulnerable spot for a snake to attack. The bird's plump torso, normally an inviting target, was covered with slithery feathers which his fangs could not penetrate, so attack in that direction was futile. Even more discouraging were the thin legs of herons, not the fleshy targets customary on other animals but tall spindly sticks composed mostly of gristle and bone, impervious to attack. In no sense was Rattler dominating this fight.

As the menacing beaks continued to torment him, he sensed a rabbit nearby and, searching instinctively for this tasty morsel, found its warren, a deep hole in the ground. Trusting that the cavern would be big enough to hide his full length, he darted into the hole and terrified two rabbits who were living there. Fortunately for them, the warren had another exit through which they fled, aware that they had looked directly into the eyes of death not six inches from them.

The herons, frustrated but aware of where the snake was hiding, maintained a watch over the warren, and in this manner the long night ended, with the birds having protected their nest with only a minor loss. Through the heat of the following day Rattler remained in the warren, slowly digesting the baby heron and dozing off at intervals. The warren was cramped and his huddled position uncomfortable, but he had no alternative except to stay until the fierce noonday sun began to leave the sky and the protection of a cooler evening approached.

Finally, when darkness provided at least a minimum of cover, the great snake edged his head out of the warren, found the air properly cool and the light minimal, and was encouraged to drag his entire nine and a half feet out into the late twilight. Remaining in the grassy area for as long as possible, he came at last to the spot from which he must make a dash across the barren ground, but at this moment a seagull, that rowdy scavenger of the sky, spotted him and raised a commotion, which brought back the herons. For fifteen desperate minutes a deadly fight exploded on the edge of the grass, with needle-like beaks slashing at the exposed snake and his poison fangs striving to find a target. But as darkness deepened, the herons were satisfied that they had repulsed their enemy and were content to let him escape.

A full twenty-four hours after leaving his den on his perilous expedition. Rattler waited till the herons flew off, then ventured gingerly out onto the barren land. Drawing upon all parts of his enormous body, he slithered as fast as he had ever done across the sandy soil, still heated from the daytime exposure to the sun, and with a final burst of speed left the dangerous open ground, sought the grassy area around the Emerald Pool and almost dived with relief into his rocky den.

The food he had obtained at the Heronry would last him for about two weeks, in which time he might catch a rabbit or some small ground animal whose body would provide nourishment for some additional days, but inexorably the time would come when he would once more have to go foraging. And as the bulldozers continued to lay waste the savanna, the area in which he was free to operate grew smaller and smaller. Every day the space required for the new condominiums attached to the Palms constricted the domain he had terrorized for so many decades, but, like any astute elder statesman, he would face that problem when he had to. In the meantime he needed sleep.

Because John Taggart had decided, early in his business career, never to tolerate social discrimination in any form, the Palms had an interesting mix of the American population, encompassing all the groups sometimes excluded by similar retirement centers: Jews, blacks and, especially in his western establishments, Orientals. Thus the Palms housed three black couples, one mixed marriage and everyone's friend and confidant, Judge Lincoln Noble, a widower. The selection of staff was also color-blind: the cooks were evenly divided between black and white, male and female; the nurses in Health tended to be female and black but there were also many whites; and the dining room waiters were again about evenly mixed between the races and the sexes.

There had never been, in the history of the Palms, any discord between the groups, partly because top management would not allow it to develop, not even in whispers, and partly because any black worker or resident could see that one of the powers in the organization was Nurse Nora Varney, who could spot and then neutralize any incipient trouble. If some black waitress felt that she was unjustly getting the more difficult tables to serve, she had to take her complaint to Nora Varney, who listened patiently and tried to clear the difficulty. If, however, the complaint was unwarranted and had nothing to do with race, the big black woman would amiably tell the girl: 'I can point to three white girls who have table assignments just like yours. Next session you'll get one of the better ones.'

In the kitchen there was a demon pastry chef, worth his weight in platinum, a black fellow twenty-six years old whose father and uncle had been pastry chefs in Tampa restaurants. Luther Black was a tall young man, attractively slim and blessed with a disposition that kept him smiling most of the time. He had a fund of rural Southern sayings with which he salted his animated conversation: 'as nervous as a long-tailed cat on a porch filled with rocking chairs' and 'my doughnuts started out all right but I must have deep-fried them in rancid bear fat instead of Crisco.' He was such a treasure in the kitchen that Ken Krenek had quietly given him a series of raises in pay and increased authority.

Among the personnel who appreciated his unusual qualities was one of the high school waitresses, who saw in him a charming, stable young man who was bound to go far in whatever branch of the food business he elected to work in. She was especially impressed by his steadiness, because she was the daughter of a broken family commonly classified as 'po' white trash.' Her father was a feckless South Carolina cracker who had abandoned his wife and children and contributed nothing to their upbringing. As early as possible, she had fled what she called 'our ratty dump,' had emigrated to Florida by herself and found both employment and a good high school. Lurline White was a survivor, a tough-skinned Southern girl, eighteen years old and determined never to slip backward into the kind of life represented by her pitiful father and her miserable mother.

As she moved among the tables, ingratiating herself with everyone and doing twice as much of the heavy labor of toting and distributing dishes loaded with food as the others, she became recognized as 'the best of the lot,' and Krenek secretly slipped her bonuses. One afternoon he promised that if she continued to work at the Palms after graduation, he would see that she was promoted to one of the major jobs: 'Lurline, you could be the mistress of the entire dining room. And if you handle that properly, as I know you would, one of the big hotels on the beach would want you. Think it over.'

On the evening he told her this, she returned to the miserable room she shared with two other white girls, who were then at their jobs as waitresses in bars, and sat alone, contemplating the bright future Krenek had painted. When she saw that she truly had a chance to escape the wretched life she had known up to now, she started to cry. She thought: Thank God for Mr. Krenek. Thank God that he saw how hard I was working.

Then, as she sat on the edge of her bed, for the room had no table and the two chairs were piled with clothes because it had no closets either, she dried her eyes and coolly surveyed her life. She was confident she would do well as a worker because she had always been industrious and competent. But what about her personal life? She thought: I want a family-a real family! With the help of God, I want a husband who's loving and strong and who will help support the kids. Not like Daddy. Daddy ... why did I have such a rotten father!

Eleven o'clock came and she still had not turned on the light to do tomorrow's homework in math, for she was deep into more vital problems. As she reflected on her parents' failed marriage, to be blamed mostly on her worthless father, it seemed natural that her thoughts turned to Luther Black, the pastry chef with the winning personality, who was the exact opposite of her father. He was strong where her father had been weak. He liked people while her father had been a surly brute. In thinking romantically about Luther, she did not once consider the staggering problem that he was black and she white; she had progressed in her evaluation of life far beyond the traditions of her parents, who referred to blacks most often as 'those goddamned niggers.'

She kicked off her shoes and started to undress for bed. But then, because she knew that it was obligatory for her to maintain a high grade average so that her high school record would look good-and she might even want to go to college-she got out of bed, turned on the light, cleared one of the chairs of its pile of clothes and tackled the beautiful mystery of: 4x + 2y = 22

x + 2y = 16

Subtracting the bottom equation from the top, she saw that the y's canceled out, leaving her with the final equation 3x = 6, or 2 for the value of x, 7 for y. Triumphantly, she placed the clothes back on the chair, turned off the light and fell asleep.

In the morning she faced the ticklish problem of how to hint to her pastry chef that she would not be averse to any interest in her that he might want to express, and when she gave rather blatant signals to which he did not respond, she found the courage to tell him one afternoon: 'They say that the old Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera is very funny. Maybe we ought to give it a try?'

Luther Black had been aware for some time that the blond waitress from Central High was not only one of the best but was also interested in him, but to what extent and within what limitations he could not guess. He knew her primarily as a girl who had moved down from South Carolina, a state with Old South traditions on which he did not wish to trespass. He knew further that he had bright prospects at the Palms, and he could not anticipate how the management would look upon one of their black employees daring to date a white girl. He had therefore carefully refrained from sending Miss White any reciprocating signals, but he did have to laugh at the position in which he found himself: 'Mr. Black, very black, disturbed about Miss White, very white. Fate gotta have a hand in a mess like this.'

But now that she had broken the ice he felt differently: She's the best of the lot, by far, and I'd be proud to escort her to the movies. Then a more serious thought struck him: I'm the best cook in these parts. I can get me a job whenever I want one. So if Krenek and Zorn don't like me dating one of their white girls, let them fire me, and to hell with them. He told Lurline on her next visit to the kitchen: 'Hey, let's take a look at that movie,' and boldly they did.

The couple was astounded at the way the Palms reacted to their courtship. Krenek and Zorn barely noticed; they took it as a matter of course that their attractive waitresses would date boy waiters and kitchen staff. The dining room patrons, knowing what an exceptional young woman Lurline was, expressed their pleasure that she had found a young man. There must have been some among the many couples in Gateways whose inherited prejudices made a black-white romance a bit difficult to accept, but since they were aware that voicing any opposition would be contrary to the center's policy, they said nothing.