"Might make rather a nice t.i.tle, that."

'"Sometimes you sound English."

"I did have some schooling in England."

"You know, I bet you'd like to help me sort out those cases of personal records."

"Is there that much!"

"h.e.l.l, yes."

"I'd be happy to help, of course, if you need me."

Kirby felt shrewd as a fox. "All in storage under my name at the Hotel Birdline. Cases of crud. Diaries."

"I had no idea you had all that. You didn't mention it the other night."

"Forgot it."

"When the Glorianna gets in, we can have it all brought aboard."

"Oh sure."

"Aren't you acting a little strange, Kirby?"

"Me? Strange?" As he grinned the room tilted and then came slowly back. He felt reckless, "Joseph, old buddy, we're all strange, each in our own little way. You, me, Charla and Betsy."

"Betsy?"

He grinned broadly and drained Ms Irish coffee. "She's maybe the weirdest one of all. She can tell what's going to happen before it even happens. She's a witch, maybe."

Joseph's big, bronzed, glossy face was suddenly like something on a coin. "Just what did she predict, Kirby?"

Suddenly, too late, the alarms rang. The fox became a rabbit and ran under a bush.

"Who predict what, Joseph?"

"Has Betsy been talking to you?"

"Excuse. I think maybe I might be going to be a little bit sick."

He went into the men's room, leaned close to the mirror, and made strange savage faces at himself until somebody else came in ....

"Naughty boy," the gentle, chiding, loving voice said, husky-sweet in the night. "Oh, yes indeed, a very naughty boy." Fingers stroked his forehead. He opened his eyes cautiously. He saw a dark edge of building overhead, and half a sky full of stars. A head, bending over him, blocked out some of the stars. The face was in dark shadow, but light came from somewhere behind her, silvering the outline of her head.

"Dear G.o.d," he whispered.

"Oh yes, darling boy, you drank much too much. And such a waste, really. Such a waste of all manner of good things."

He moved his head slightly. There was a smooth, rounded, pneumatic warmth under the nape of his neck. As he began to wonder just what it was, a stir of the warm night breeze ran along his body and he felt as if he was entirely naked. He moved one hand cautiously. He was naked. He sat up abruptly in spite of the pain which split his head in two. He got his head up into the light for a moment before Charla took him by the shoulders and yanked him back down so firmly his head bounced once off the resilience of her thigh then settled into its previous position. At least he had gathered some information. He was on a sun deck, on a sun cot, and from the micro-glimpse of the room beyond, he guessed it was his own. Charla sat at the end of the cot, his head on her lap. And at least there was a rea.s.suring layer of fabric over the rubbery convexity of his fleshy pillow.

"Don't leap like that, dear one," she said.

"I was just, "

"So naughty," she crooned. "Getting so squiffed. Lying to me. You shouldn't lie to me. You did see Betsy."

"For a minute." He hesitated. "Where my clothes?"

"Right here on the floor, sweet. After we got you up here and you pa.s.sed out here on the deck, you felt so sweaty and hot and miserable, I took them off."

"Oh."

"I'm really very angry with you. You don't know who your real friends are, do you?"

"I don't feel very good."

"Of course you don't! And you haven't acted very well. Just rest now. You've spoiled it all for us, for tonight. Didn't you know you were spoiling things for your Charla?"

"I didn't know it was, "

"Did you think I'd be so vulgar as to make an appointment? I'm a woman, darling. Maybe there'll be another night. Maybe not. Who can say?"

"The liquor hit me."

The fingertips closed his eyelids, then moved gently across his lips. "Maybe you were exhausted, dear. Maybe poor, stringy, little Betsy used all your resources."

"No! We just sat in a hotel and talked."

"Her hotel?"

"No. Just a hotel. In the lobby."

"And you listened to that poor crazed mind and began to doubt us. Where is she staying, dear?"

"An apartment."

"Do you know the address?"

"She didn't tell me."

"Don't you think you've done enough lying for one night?" w "Really, she didn't tell me. She said she'd get in touch."

"She knows you've moved here?"

"Yes."

"And when she does get in touch with you, you'll let me know, won't you, lover. Immediately."