She shrugged. "Here's one at random. We have one nice little ship. The Princess Markopoulo, Panamanian registry. We think the captain and the agent are conspiring against us. The profits are so tiny. You could go aboard as my special representative and find out what is wrong. There are always problems. And we don't want to give up the way we live and handle them ourselves. It would be too dull. You would be busy. It would be amusing. And we would pay you well. Between a.s.signments you could be with us. We would pay you twice what your Uncle Omar paid you."

"Do you know what he paid me?"

"You told us, dear. And you've saved a veritable fortune! Eight thousand dollars. Dear Kirby, that would last me perhaps one month. And you will have to find work."

"I must have done a lot of talking."

"You told us your inheritance from your dear dead uncle. A pocket watch and a letter."

"And I don't even get the letter until a year from now," he said, and divided the small amount of champagne left.

She hitched closer to him, touched her gla.s.s against his, looked into his eyes. "So why not have the amusing life? It is good fortune for all of us we met the other night. We are very good friends, no? Here is what we shall do, Kirby Winter. You settle what must be settled here. By then the Glorianna will be here. And we shall have a cruise."

"The Glorianna?"

"My dear toy yacht, dearest. Holland built. Lovely staterooms and a crew of five. We always have charming guests aboard. Much fun, much wine, maybe a little love. My crew is bringing her down from Bermuda now. The best food in the world, my dear. We insist on that. Spend a month as our guest and then we shall decide your future. Why do you look so troubled?"

He shrugged. "Superst.i.tious, maybe. Things like this just don't fall into my lap, Charla."

She put her empty gla.s.s aside and moved closer to him. She took his hand and lifted it to her lips. It made him feel curiously girlish and awkward. She looked at him with a sweet gravity. "You do make me like you, too much, perhaps. We should have met another time. When there were no jobs to offer, when you were not troubled and disappointed. When we could both be honest."

"What do you mean?"

"I meant nothing. A woman's chatter." There was a knock at the door and she asked him to let in Joseph. With great enthusiasm Charla told Joseph that Kirby had agreed to come cruising on the Glorianna and then he would take the job they had decided to offer him. Kirby found himself shaking Joseph's hand and being effusively congratulated. Things seemed to be moving too fast. He tried to find the right opening to tell Joseph it was not that definite, and suddenly realized he was being instructed to move out of his own hotel and move here, to the Hotel Elise.

"But I, but I, "

Joseph put a fatherly hand on Kirby's shoulder. Charla was on Kirby's other side. She slid her arm around his waist, hugged herself close to him. In the arctic reaches of his mind, walls of ice toppled into the sea.

"Nonsense, my boy," Joseph said. "The hotel is not full. I happen to own a certain percentage of it. When you return with your luggage you will be all registered. Because I am busy on small matters, Charla is often lonesome. We would be grateful, both of us. You will be doing us a favor."

"Well, I guess I could, "

"Splendid!" they cried simultaneously, and Charla gave him a heartier little hug, full of rounded dizzying pleasures. Her glowing face was upturned toward his, her eyes full of warm promise. Joseph had taken a gold cigarette case from his pocket. It slipped from his hand. Both men stooped simultaneously and cracked skulls. Kirby straightened up, off balance, half-blinded by the white burst of shock and pain. He swung his arm up to catch his balance and caught Charla smartly under the point of the chin with his elbow. Her teeth made a chopping sound and her eyes glazed and she wobbled momentarily.

She looked at him fearfully and made a curious gesture and spoke in a foreign language. It sounded like an incantation, and in the middle of it he thought he heard her say, "Omar Krepps".

"Shut up!" Joseph said to her in a deadly tone. He was holding a palm against his brow.

"I'm sorry," Kirby said miserably. "I just seem to, "

"It was an accident," Charla said. "Are you hurt, dear Kirby?"

"I, I'd better be on my way, I guess."

Chapter Three..

As Kirby opened the rear door of the cab to get in, a girl eeled by him and took the cab.

"Hey!" he said indignantly.

Betsy Alden glowered at him. "Just shut up and get in, stupid!"

He hesitated, got in beside her and said, "But what are, "

"Driver! Go north on Collins, please. I'll tell you where."

"But 1 want to go, "

"Will you shut up!"

They rode a dozen blocks in silence. He looked at her rigid profile, thinking she would be quite a pretty girl if she wasn't always mad. The taxi was caught by a light. "Right here," she said and quickly handed the money to the driver and got out. When Kirby caught up with her, she was walking south, carefully examining the oncoming traffic.

"Will you kindly tell me, "

"In here, I guess," she said, caught at his arm and swung him along with her into a narrow walkway leading to the side entrance of one of the smaller beach hotels. Once in the lobby she looked around like a questing cat, then headed for a short flight of stairs to the mezzanine. He followed her up the stairs. She wore a green skirt and a white blouse. She had changed to a smaller purse. Her toffee hair was more orderly. Following her up the stairs he realized she was singularly expressive. Even in the flex of lean haunches under the swing of the skirt she seemed to project both stealth and indignation.

"Sit over there," she said, indicating a fake Victorian couch upholstered in shiny plastic under a fake Utrillo upon an imitation driftwood wall. He sat on the couch. She stood by the railing, looking down into the lobby for what seemed to be a long time, then shrugged and came slowly over and sat beside him.

"I'll tell you one thing and you remember it, Winter," she said. "No matter how careful you are, it might not be enough." She gave him a very direct green stare.

"Are you all right?"

"How are you reacting to my dear Aunt Charla? How's your pulse?"

"Miss Alden, I have the feeling we aren't communicating."

"When she wants to really set the hook, she can make any Gabor look like Apple Annie. There's fine steam coming off you, Winter."

"She'sanunusualwoman."

"And she takes no chances. She had to have me here on standby. Just in case you'd rather settle for something younger, taller and not quite so meaty. But I told her a long time ago I'm through playing her games. She can take care of her own pigeons without any help from me. I got off her merry-go-round when I was twenty years old. And I was a very old twenty. Charla would be all right, she might even be fun, if she weren't so d.a.m.ned greedy."

"What is that about a pigeon?"

"What else do you think you are? Do you think she's smitten by your charm?"

"She got smitten a few times."

"What?"

"Miss Alden. Just for laughs. What are we talking about?"

She frowned at him. A strand of the tan-gold hair fell across her forehead and she pushed it back. "I checked the newspapers. Omar Krepps was your uncle. That's what we're talking about."

"I don't understand."