"Oh, for goodness sake, be honest with yourself. If I hadn't planted the seeds of suspicion, Charla'd have you on a leash by now, trotting you around, scratching you behind the ears, tying your new ascots, and giving you the slow strip and tease routine, until you wouldn't be able to remember your name if somebody asked you quick."

"I'm not so sure."

"You just don't know Aunt Charla. h.e.l.l, where are we? I think you ought to trudge on back there and play cute. Make out you know what they're after. Admit you tricked them. Say you'll listen to an offer. Maybe then we'll get a better clue as to what they really want, if they know."

"I don't think I'm very good at this sort of thing."

"I know you're not very good at it. But hang in there. I think we might get some volunteer help. Bernie's coming down soon with a crew and some models and so on to do some commercials here. Mad ones all. Maybe they'll help us add a little more confusion to the deal."

"Do we need more?" "Poor Kirby."

"The thing is, in eleven years you get sick of dealing with people you know you'll never see again. I kept wanting to get out. I had this idea of maybe finding a town way off a main road with maybe twenty-eight people in it, so I would know them and they would know me, tomorrow, next year, ten years from now. I could stop trying to remember names and faces. And I'd know where I was before I woke up in the morning, instead of figuring it out afterward."

"With me," she said, "it's a dream of being back in that school. I was there for six years, you know. From nine to fifteen, the longest I've ever been anywhere. And I dream a cla.s.s is leaving and I have to leave too, and I'm crying. But then they take me out of the line and I know I can stay, and it's the most wonderful thing. All the others are marching away, but they're going "to keep me." "But they didn't."

"Charla came in a car big as a freight engine, with a driver in uniform and an English Lady Something with her who made a horrible snorting sound when she laughed. I was supposed to be in a play at school, but they didn't give a d.a.m.n. They drove me to Paris and bought me a lot of clothes. We met some other people there, and then we all flew to Cairo."

"Sometimes you have more accent." "I can get rid of every trace of it when I have to." "Could Charla have arranged to have my uncle's places, robbed?"

"Why not? It isn't her usual style. It's a bit crude, and probably quite expensive. But she has the pragmatic approach."

"They won't be able to get that letter."

"They can afford to wait a year. And all you got was a keepsake."

He took the watch from his pocket. She reached over and took it from him. "A real grandpa kind of watch." Before he could stop her, she looked through the little gold telescope.

"Happy days," she said in a tired voice. "Don't let Bernie see this. It's all this apartment needs. There's room on that wall for a mural." She took another look. "They make this junk in j.a.pan. A girl in school had a candybox full. Hers were all set in rings." She handed the watch back to him. Just as he put it back into his pocket, she leaned toward him, reached toward him. Because of his humiliating flight from Wilma's apartment, he had resolved to fight fire with fire. He reached toward Betsy. His aim was defective. His palm slid into and across an abrupt nubbin of breast, frank and firm under the blue blouse as an apple in the sun. And he saw a glimpse of teeth in something not a smile, and something flashed and smashed against the left side of his face. The sudden pain filled his eyes with tears. She was a blur. As vision cleared he saw her looking gravely at him as she sucked her knuckles. With the tip of his tongue he isolated the metallic crumb in his mouth, moved it out to his lips, plucked it out and stared at it. It was a piece of filling. It made a small clinking sound as he dropped it into the ashtray.

In the silence she reached for him again, took his cigarettes from his shirt pocket, took one out of the pack and put the pack back.

"Get carried away by the decor?" she asked.

"I just thought, "

"Maybe Charla has warped your values, pal. Maybe with her it's a social gesture, like pa.s.sing the b.u.t.ter. Or asking for the next dance. Not with me, Winter. I put a higher value on myself."

"She said it was the other way around," he said miserably.

"How many lies are you going to believe?"

"From now on, not very many."

"I didn't mean to hit quite that hard, Kirby."

"I've had better days than this one, I guess."

She got up and moved across the room. Again he marveled at her talent for expression. The stretch pants projected demureness, regret and impregnability. She fiddled with a panel board on the far wall. Suddenly he heard a rising, hissing scream and knew a jet was diving into the building. As he sprang to his feet, the great sound turned into an infantry barrage. She twisted the volume down and it suddenly was Latin music, bongos, strings, a muted trumpet "High fidelity is part of the treatment, too. Two hundred watts, maybe, with tweeters and woofers hidden all over the place."

"Loud, wasn't it?"

"The records are down here. There's no activity you can think of that he hasn't got music to do it by. But I've got it on FM radio now." She moved restlessly across the room, moving to the rhythm, half-dance, half-stroll. "If we just knew exactly what they're after."

"Well ,I better go back there and see if I can find out."

"Don't let them know where they can find me."

"I won't. But what would they do?"

"Find a way to keep us apart. It might be something un He tried to think of Charla doing something unpleasant. But when he thought of Charla, the air seemed to get too thin. He saw her, vividly, wearing Wilma's smoky wisp, smiling at him, and the image was combined with the tactile memory of Betsy's small firm breast against his hand. Betsy came over and stared at him. "Do you have some kind of seizures?"

"Me?"

"Try cold showers, deep breathing and clean thoughts, Winter. Now take off, so I can take a nap."

Chapter Six.

He arrived at the Elise at quarter to five, and though he went directly to his room without stopping at the desk, the phone began to ring ten seconds after he had closed the door. It rang and it also flashed an imperative red light at him.

"Couldn't you have let me know you'd be delayed, dear?" Charla asked.

"I'm sorry about that."

"Do you have anyone with you?"

"No."

"That seems very odd."

"What's odd about it?"

"Don't public figures usually have a swarm of people around them, eh?"

"Public figures?"

"Kirby dear, you're so lovably obtuse. You better scoot right down here before the sky falls on you. Down the hall, dear. To the suite. I guess we're lucky we didn't try to do any shopping. We'll be lucky if we can make it to the Glorianna, dear. She got in this morning."

"What are you talking about?"

"Dear G.o.d, don't you really know?"

"No."

"Didn't you stop at the desk?"

"No."