Whenever he appeared on the court both Yanceys and Betsy greeted him with warmth, and as he stood beside Betsy every resident who passed the court stopped to give encouragement and voice their approval. 'You make a handsome couple out there' was the most common remark, but others commented on how vastly improved Betsy was-'Soon you'll be able to drop the cane' was Mr. Mallory's prediction.

It was Ella Yancey, however, who made the most telling remark, for sitting on the sidelines as the others rallied she said: 'You really look like the perfect doubles pair.' Long after the tennis sessions were over, Zorn heard this echoing in his brain, adding to the cacophony of his conflicting thoughts about Betsy.

The only person at the Palms who was aware of the waiting game that Betsy was playing was Nurse Nora because of her motherly interest. Miss Foxworth saw Betsy as a renter of one of the expensive apartments. Ken Krenek saw her as a young woman who needed additional rehabilitation in Florida's salubrious climate. The Yanceys saw her as a stubborn but courageous young person whose father was prepared to pay them additional funds to cater to her wishes.

But Nora, watching the two young people shadowboxing like fighters afraid to make significant moves in an important fight, grew impatient with what she properly called 'their stupidity,' so she waited for an opportunity to make a move of her own. Finding Andy alone in his office one day, she went in, sat on the edge of his desk and asked boldly, 'Wouldn't it be good for our girl Betsy if you-'

'She's not a girl, Nora. She's a grown woman.'

'That makes my question even more appropriate. Wouldn't it be a good thing to do to invite her to lunch and maybe a movie?'

'Not a bad idea to help her gain confidence. Why don't you take the afternoon off and give her a whirl?'

'Andy! You don't get it! Now that it's clear she's going to spend a while longer with us, you ought to take her out to show her there are no hard feelings.'

'Do you think so?'

'I don't think it, I know it. You take the afternoon off.'

'I'm not so sure. Things haven't been ... well, totally comfortable between us recently.'

'But she is here, and she deserves decent treatment. Now, pick up the phone while I watch, and make the call.'

Fortunately Betsy was in her apartment. With some hesitancy Andy said: 'Nora has just pointed out that I have no appointments this afternoon, and I wondered if you might be free to have lunch with me at some restaurant near here.'

Betsy, unsuccessfully trying to mask the joy with which she heard this invitation, said: 'Doctor, that would be delightful, where?'

'I haven't a clue-but I was thinking of someplace small where we could talk.'

She was careful about presenting him with options because she felt it was important that he make the decision: 'There's some great Chinese food in these parts, but they tell me Vietnamese is lighter and tastier. There's a German restaurant that's supposed to be first-class, but the food is too heavy if you want to play tennis later.' Then she said: 'My bridge partners tell me that a small place, not pretentious at all, the Captain's Table, has great seafood.'

'Let's give it a try,' he said enthusiastically and they drove to a Tampa waterfront bistro. The walls of its three rather small rooms were adorned with deep-sea fishing gear such as oars and nets and pilot's wheels, but the dominant features were the taxidermist's treatment of swordfish, dolphins and, in the room Betsy had chosen, a huge shark with a monstrous jaw filled, it seemed, with two extra sets of lethal teeth.

They ordered the house noontime special, a bowl of Louisiana gumbo, a platter consisting of three kinds of broiled fish and a baked potato in its crisp jacket. Each table was decorated with bottles of condiments ranging from a blistering hot sauce prepared from peppers to a mild Worcestershire-style mix imported from England. It was a Lucullan feast.

'What's this?' Andy asked the waitress about an unusual side dish and she said: 'Dirty rice.'

'What's in it besides this discolored rice?' and she explained: 'Chicken giblets, maybe a touch of crab meat, maybe pieces of fish, and broth. It's big in New Orleans.'

'Delicious.'

'And for dessert you get a piece of Key lime pie.'

As he polished off this extremely tasty lunch, Andy said: 'If the German lunch is any heavier than this, God help the Krauts,' and Betsy replied with a twinkle in her eye: 'You didn't have to eat it all. Anyway, at your weight you can afford a big meal now and then, especially with all the tennis you're playing.'

As she said this she noticed that because their banquette was rather narrow his right hand was close to hers on the table, so without being in any way aggressive or forward, she allowed her hand to rest near his, and as they leaned back to sip their coffee, their hands met and each felt an electric thrill. Looking straight ahead, Betsy used her free hand to trace tiny grooves in the wonderful oaken tabletop, decades old and scrubbed so often that the softer wood between the ridges had worn away, leaving an almost satiny surface. 'This is quite beautiful,' she said, but her full attention was riveted on their hands.

As they started to leave the restaurant they saw on the wall near the cash register a poster from one of the Tampa movie theaters announcing a special showing of an Anthony Hopkins film, and she cried spontaneously and with no ulterior purpose: 'I hear that's a marvelous movie. He's such a strong actor, always full of surprises.' Andy said quickly: 'Let's go,' and they drove to the movie.

As the story unfolded on the screen, with Hopkins at his controlled best, their hands met again and remained clasped throughout the show.

In the days that followed, it was now Andy who proposed to Betsy and Yancey that they have a brief rally on the tennis court, and he invariably paired with Betsy, who each day became more attractive to him.

Two weeks later he surprised her by suggesting that they return to the Captain's Table for dinner, and as they sat on the banquette they had used previously with a great shark staring down at them, he said quietly: 'I like this place. I catch myself visualizing it as I work, as if it were our restaurant.' And that evening they also returned to the movies and held hands throughout the show. When he brought her home and walked with her through the corridors to her apartment, she lingered at the door as if the evening were not yet completed, and gently he moved toward her, took her by the hand and drew her to him for a good-night kiss.

As he walked slowly back to his own quarters he thought: I'm behaving like a fourteen-year-old schoolboy. Well, I have problems a teenager doesn't have. I'm still tormented by the ghosts of the past.

But he did manage to take the first big step. With a painful effort, he succeeded in burying forever the ghost of Ted Reichert, that pitiful young doctor he'd had to fire from his clinic. The memory of him had tortured Andy in his relations with Betsy Cawthorn. But now he realized: 'Reichert and me, there's no comparison between us! He was an arrogant fool. I'm not. He played one-night stands. I don't.' And the fear was exorcised for good.

For the first time he began seriously to consider the possibility of a life with Betsy: 'I'm only twelve years older, and there are lots of couples in Gateways who have that big a difference or bigger.' When he reached his quarters he went into the bathroom, stood before the mirror and assessed himself. After combing his hair and sucking in his stomach, he concluded that he was still eligible, and that twelve years was not so daunting.

Once Mr. Hasslebrook's true identity had been exposed, the representative of Life Is Sacred became an important fixture in the Palms. Setting up a kind of office in his Gateways room, he became both the critic of how the retirement area operated and the self-appointed defender of the patients' right to live. He kept on the table in his room copies not only of the literature put out by Life Is Sacred, pamphlets against euthanasia, but also those of sister organizations that were opposed to abortion. He himself rarely mentioned the crusade to protect the unborn, feeling that his primary obligation was difficult enough to require his full energy.

When Dr. Zorn and Krenek tried to stop him from haunting the third floor of the health-services building, they learned that he had acquired semilegal status as an amicus curiae, friend of the court, who policed nursing homes to ensure no one was committing euthanasia. As he visited the bedridden people in the hospice, he assured everyone that he was there to guarantee that they would receive good care and be protected from anyone who might want to shorten their lives: 'I am here to do God's work and to ensure that you are treated according to Christian principles. I am your friend, and you may call on me for guidance at any time.' His manner was grave but reassuring, and he gave many a feeling that in the confusing world of the hospice they had a friend they could trust.

If someone like Mrs. Umlauf had signed a living will that would legally empower the doctors to terminate a life that no longer had any meaning, he did not try to persuade the patient to revoke that decision. He offered to pray with patients so inclined in the hope that their sentient life would be prolonged and promised to do what he could to help them avoid slipping into a life-ending coma. As to Mrs. Carlson's protracted dying he insisted that it was the procedure that God had ordained. He kept close watch on the doctors and nurses and he was pleased that Mrs. Umlauf stopped her visits to Mrs. Carlson's room. She had told the office: 'I cannot abide what's happening to Mrs. Carlson. It's inhuman, un-Christian and probably against the law.' She was assured that she was 100 percent wrong. It was in strict conformance to Florida law and Mr. Hasslebrook was in effect an agent of that law.

For some weeks the members of the tertulia observed Mr. Hasslebrook from a distance, perplexed by what they were seeing and especially hearing. Some residents thought him a god-send because of his concern about their welfare, others considered him an unconscionable busybody. This difference of opinion piqued the curiosity of the tertulia and Ral Jimenez proposed inviting Hasslebrook to dine with them one night. President Armitage opposed the idea: 'I talked with him at length one night, or tried to. Found him a total bore, a Yes-No man without an idea. I judged he had made a mistake in coming to a place like this.' Jimenez argued: 'But if he's an agent of the Life Is Sacred group he must have something to say, and I'd like to hear it.'

So the invitation was extended, and the men, who had heard of his taciturnity and lack of ideas, were surprised to encounter an entirely different kind of person. He spoke not only with vigor but also with a considerable command of the language. He was, in fact, loquacious: 'Graduated from Holy Cross, but I'm not a Catholic. My wife died some years ago. Left six children, all properly launched. I was a member, but not a partner, of a good law firm in Boston. I was casting about for something of significance to apply myself to, and I discovered Life Is Sacred. I suppose the loss of my wife had made me brood about such things.'

'What principles does it espouse?' Ambassador St. Pres asked, and he explained, 'The name tells it all. At the moment of conception human life becomes the most precious commodity on earth. I don't get too involved in the abortion crisis; there are a lot of good Christians working on that. I'm concerned about the orderly, Christian miracle of death, the ending of a sacred life.'

'I understand,' Senator Raborn said, 'that you're opposed to euthanasia.'

'A horrible word. A horrible act. I am committed to fighting it in every way. That's why I'm here. Our group slips people into organizations like this that are running hospices, where terrible things go on. The perpetrators have to be exposed and condemned and sent to jail if they persist in committing murder.'

'You term it murder?' Raborn asked, and Hasslebrook started to reply at length: 'I suppose you men could be classified as typical East Coast liberals'-but Jimenez cut him short: 'I'm a Roman Catholic conservative, like your former wife, probably, and I am strongly opposed to euthanasia. I too consider it murder.'

Rebuked, Hasslebrook apologized, then continued with his set speech: 'Men who do my type of work, protecting the aged, serving as friends of the court to see that the laws are observed, have been much influenced by the lessons of Hitler's Germany. The Nazis started killing the Jews, whom they called an unclean race. Then it was the Gypsies. Then they killed the Poles, an inferior race. And the homosexuals, deviates from the norm. And the physically handicapped. And in the prison camps they planned the steady extermination of the aged because they were too old to contribute much any longer. Gentlemen, when you start down that fatal road you wind up, inescapably, killing everyone who is not like yourself. Mark my words, if Hitler had invaded some nation with a big black population, he would have had to exterminate them, too. And one still wonders how his pure-race Germans could ever have cooperated in harmony with the yellow-race Japanese. Sooner or later-'

President Armitage, who had been disgusted with Hasslebrook when the man first appeared at the Palms, was now intrigued by the thoughtful logic behind his rejection of euthanasia. 'Explain to me, Mr. Hasslebrook, how your logic leads you to such strong conclusions about orderly death?'

'As direct as a bolt of lightning on a clear day. Once the law gives you license to exterminate life at either extremity-the unborn or the elderly-soon you will justify writing your own rules for doing it at any midway point. You begin by advising the pregnant woman that she can abort her baby because she has a fifty percent chance of having a Down's syndrome child. That settled, you can later get rid of your unpleasant aunt because she's so tedious. And of course your grandmother because she is such an unproductive burden-she must go. And finally you shoot your wife because she is in considerable pain, and you can't stand to see her suffer. It isn't that she can't stand it. You can't, so you murder her. The word is murder, gentlemen, and don't try to mask it with Greek words and unusual spellings.'

He delivered these last words with such force that for some moments the tertulia was silent, a phenomenon in itself, but then Armitage, as the humanist, asked: 'And you are satisfied that you have the right to dictate how the rest of us must end our lives. Who gives you that commission?'

'Who gave anyone the right to say, in 1933: "Adolf Hitler, to kill a man simply because he is a Jew is a crime. And if you persist, society will have to hang you." Nobody was ordained to say that, but somebody should have. Same today. I have no moral sanction for what I do, only my share of the human experience. That ordains me, makes me a priest of the highest order.'

Raborn asked almost insultingly: 'Do you ever think of yourself as a fanatic?'

Hasslebrook smiled at him: 'No, I'm not going down the Goldwater route: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." If I were a fanatic I would do damage and should be condemned. But when society is heading down paths that are perilously wrong, somebody had better shout a warning.'

'And you think any form of euthanasia is perilously wrong?' Raborn persisted, and Hasslebrook snapped back: 'I do.' Raborn, wishing to nail down exactly how far the stranger would go in combating existing law, asked: 'How many of us at this table have executed living wills and distributed copies to our families and close friends?'

Before the men could respond, Jimenez saw Dr. Zorn entering the dining room on an inspection and called out: 'Zorn! Over here! Have dessert with us. A most fascinating discussion,' and a sixth chair was drawn up.

Hasslebrook and Andy sat facing each other, and Armitage, always observant, sensed there was bad blood between them. Obviously the doctor considered the newcomer a spy intending to damage the Palms, and Hasslebrook was aware that in trying to monitor conduct in Extended Care he must inevitably cross swords with Zorn.

Jimenez was explaining: 'Mr. Hasslebrook has told us he's vigorously opposed to euthanasia, and Senator Raborn has asked for a show of hands. How many have executed a living will permitting our lives to be ended by either wise doctors or trusted friends? Hands, please.' Jimenez and St. Pres sat immobile, but Raborn, Armitage and Zorn raised their hands.

'I'm surprised-' Hasslebrook began, but chose not to continue.

'What were you going to say?' Armitage prodded. 'You were looking at Dr. Zorn.'

Reluctantly Hasslebrook said: 'I was surprised that Dr. Zorn, who operates a hospice-'

'We do not use that word,' Andy said edgily.

'But that's what it is, whatever you call it. I'm surprised that he, of all people, should sponsor the living-will concept. Is not your obligation on the third floor to keep people alive as long as possible? Doesn't the law demand that? Doesn't Christian charity demand it?'

Slowly and carefully, and cursing himself under his breath for having allowed Jimenez to drag him into a discussion like this, Andy said: 'In Extended Care our doctors who come in to serve there, our permanent nurses who supervise the place, and all our staff, including me, are totally opposed to euthanasia-'

'We weren't talking about that,' Hasslebrook said abruptly. 'We're talking about living wills-invitations to commit murder.'

'Oh, wait a minute!' Senator Raborn exploded. 'I abdicate none of my right of decision to anyone else to end my life. But when I'm non compos mentis, a vegetable-'

'Do not use that stupid, pejorative word to describe a human being in a temporary coma-'

'But if it's final and fatal, it can't be described as temporary.'

'Gentlemen!' Jimenez said. 'We're having a discussion, not an alley fight. The question before us, if I remember correctly, is: How can Andy Zorn, as a medical doctor obligated to support human life whatever the conditions, justify having executed a living will? Well, Zorn?'

Grudgingly Andy said: 'As the man in charge of Extended Care I am totally committed to preserving life to the last possible moment. As an ordinary human being concerned about my own welfare, I do not want to be kept alive by the latest heroic measure invented last week by some ambitious medic.'

'No man with those ideas is qualified to manage an institution that stresses health care, including a hospice,' said Hasslebrook.

'If he has character and commitment, he is,' said Armitage, and the confrontation ended because St. Pres said in a conciliatory tone: 'Now let's get back to Senator Raborn's question, which started this debate: "How many of us have living wills?" '

Jimenez spoke up: 'I'll answer first. I don't, because I'm a good Catholic, and our Church has harsh rules. No suicide can be buried in consecrated ground.'

'Do you consider a living will synonymous with suicide?' Raborn asked, and Jimenez said: 'The Church does and that's good enough for me.'

'And you?' Raborn asked the ambassador, who said: 'I've enjoyed the wild fluctuations of life so much that I want to be present to see the end, however it comes.'

'But if you lie there unconscious?' Raborn asked. 'What kind of ending would that be?'

'I choose to think that even though I might look unconscious, that I'd be clever enough to catch some signals of what was going on. I'd still be in the great game. That's reward enough. I'll sign no will allowing some referee I don't know to blow the final whistle. I want to be listening when the real whistle blows.'

Raborn turned to Hasslebrook and asked: 'So what do you tell Armitage and me with our living wills legalizing what you term suicide?'

'I can only hope that some aspect of the majesty of life from here on out will tempt you to change your minds.'

'And you want people like Armitage and me to end our lives like Mrs. Carlson up in Extended Care? Is that the golden triumph of your teaching?'

'Senator Raborn, God plants on earth certain lives to serve as measuring sticks for the rest of us. These perplexing cases are not here by accident. He wants them to stand forth like beacons. The Down's syndrome child that tests the extent of a family's love. The hemophiliac boy of sixteen who contracts the HIV virus through a contaminated transfusion. Mrs. Carlson in her slow, agonizing departure from this life. They are the litmus papers that enlighten the rest of us. Mrs. Carlson ennobles this entire establishment. God is not testing you and me, He isn't ready for us yet, but He watches how we respond to the litmus papers He has strewn about.'

Senator Raborn had been respected as a bulldog on examining witnesses who came before his various Senate committees and now he asked: 'But will you-I mean of course your society-allow my living will to be executed according to the new Florida law?'

'Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's. The Florida law is a temporary aberration that I hope will be corrected in due course.'

'And your group will do everything possible to revoke it?'

'Yes.'

'I agree with you, Mr. Hasslebrook,' Jimenez said. 'You are a voice of reason in a troubled world.'

'I fear you're a fanatic,' Senator Raborn said, 'who will probably do much more harm than good. Keep your hands off my will, please.'

President Armitage made a curious comment as the tertulia ended: 'Mr. Hasslebrook, on our first meeting, if you recall it, you impressed me as being unusually reticent and almost boorish. Tonight you're being the sophisticated Boston lawyer. Why the change?'

'Simple, on that first night you were probing me with questions I was not prepared to answer. I had to feel my way along. Now that you know who I am, and what my mission is, I must show you the courtesy of being forthright.'

One night at dinner Judge Noble asked for the microphone and said in a voice quivering with joy: 'They're back! The manatees started north late this afternoon!'

The passage of the manatees to their warm refuge for the winter provided no breathtaking beauty like a flight of Canada geese in their sky-piercing V, and none of the exquisite charm of a snowy egret or the solemn majesty of a stately blue heron. To appreciate a manatee you had to love nature per se, and to love the ungainly creatures, as many did, you had to be just a bit off center. But many residents that first night set alarm clocks so as to be awake when morning broke and they could watch the solemn procession of these strange water creatures.

Early next morning Judge Noble was sitting in a chair with binoculars and bits of food for Rowdy, the pelican, in case he came by. But his attention and that of those who clustered around his chair with their own glasses, was on the center of the channel, where the manatees would become visible. Suddenly Ms. Oliphant, always the keenest-eyed, cried: 'Here they come!' and many residents had their first sight ever of a manatee.

When one moved in close to shore, watchers saw a huge, blubbery creature about fourteen feet long with a monstrous flat tail parallel to the surface of the water. The manatee is, in principle, much like a small whale, but the torpidity of its movement makes it unique among aquatic animals. It is a lazy, loafing beast, but its lack of mobility and easy charm make it lovable, like a worn teddy bear.

What had made it famous in sea lore was its amazing head, a large misshapen blob, and a face with a blunt nose, vast drooling mouth and whiskers that often in a certain light looked exactly like that of a careless old man who no longer shaves or tends to his appearance.

Muley Duggan, joining the group and seeing for the first time a group of manatees, shouted: 'They look like fat old men in a Turkish bath!' and others agreed that he had the best simile of the day, but the Duchess brought the comparison closer to the experience of the residents when she cried: 'That one looks exactly like my Uncle Jason,' and then made a correction that sounded as if it was important to her: 'On my father's side.'

As the beasts moved northward, Judge Noble explained: 'They're very partial to warm water, so you'd think they'd swim southward as cold weather creeps in. But there's a manufacturing plant north of Tampa that pumps a good deal of warm waste water into the channel, and what they're doing as you watch them now is locating the remnants of that warm stream and following it to its source.'

'How do they do it?' a woman asked, and the judge said: 'Two theories. Either extreme sensitivity to even the slightest modification of temperature or some chemical trace deposited by the manufacturing process.'

As the morning progressed, the watchers from the Palms were witnesses to one of the tragedies of wildlife in America, for the powerboats that ranged these waters daily began to appear and pose enormous danger to the slow-moving animals. 'It's so cruel!' Noble complained. 'The boats move so fast and manatees are so slow, collisions become inevitable. And the poor beasts are chopped to death.' With his binoculars he studied a manatee drifting along close to shore, and then he passed his glasses around to show how horribly sliced up the hide of the creature was. 'One more hit by a speeding boat, and that one's dead,' he told his listeners. 'The carnage each year is appalling.'

'Aren't there laws to protect them?' a man asked and Noble said: 'Yes. And loyal officials to enforce them. Powerboats are to slow down and stay clear, but look!'

As he spoke, two boats in an early morning race to test their motors, zoomed in from the south, roared past and headed right for the lumbering creatures ahead. It was obvious that if they maintained their speed they must crash into the animals and chop them up savagely with the razor-sharp blades of their whirling propellers.

'Slow down!' the judge shouted impotently at the roaring boats as they sped by, and, sure enough, the lead boat rammed into the big animals, sliced one of them badly and veered off.

To prevent such disasters, Judge Noble used his handkerchief and two borrowed from the other watchers to make a banner to alert the passing boats to the presence of manatees. When the drivers saw him waving frantically at them, most tended to slow down and even come closer to shore to see if an accident of some kind had happened. When he shouted: 'Manatees ahead!' they tended to go even slower and obey the law, but a minority accepted the news as a kind of challenge and actually revved up their motors to roar upstream and try to be first to run down a manatee.

This so infuriated the judge that he told listeners: 'Wish I had an Uzi. I'd blast those criminals out of the water,' and when a man asked: 'How do you know about the Israeli killer-guns?' he said: 'When you're a federal judge these days you learn a lot about Uzis.'

Dr. Zorn, who had watched the judge's futile attempts to stop the lawbreakers, brought to the chair a used pool cue to which he had attached a big red tablecloth and a small portable long-distance radio that he had tuned to the frequency used by the Tampa Harbor Patrol. Now the judge had both a very large visual signal to warn the boats, and a radio signal to inform the police ahead: 'Judge Noble at the Palms. Two Boston Whalers, one white, one green, passed here at thirty knots and going faster to overtake manatees.'

During the spells when there were neither manatees nor pursuing boats, he shared his knowledge of these creatures with the residents gathered around him: 'Sailors as far back as Roman times saw an occasional manatee and mistook it for a human being with the body of a whale, and the men concluded that if there were these men, there also had to be women, and of course, they had to be beautiful. Hence the invention of the mermaid.'

As the lovely day drew to a close, Dr. Zorn returned to express his appreciation: 'You made a lot of people happy today, Judge-they learned a lot from you. Thank you.'

'Sit for a while,' he said, offering the doctor his chair. 'I've been sitting all day and would enjoy moving about a bit, casting my bait out farther might catch me some fish.'