"Yes?" I said. "I'm afraid I don't understand. What possible objection could Pavlov have to his daughter's going about with Doctor Ashton's well-bred, brilliant and, I might add, handsome son?"

"Please, Bob-" His voice sagged tiredly. "Please do it. Leave her alone."

I hesitated thoughtfully. After a long moment, I shrugged.

"Well, all right," I said. "If it means that much to you."

"Thank you. I-"

"I'll leave her alone," I said, "whenever I get ready to. Not before."

He didn't flinch or explode, much to my disappointment. Apparently he'd been partially prepared for the trick. He simply stared at me, hard-eyed, and when he spoke his voice was very, very quiet.

"I have one more thing to say," he said. "A considerable quant.i.ty of narcotics is missing from my stock. If I discover any further shortages, I'll see to it that you're punished- imprisoned or inst.i.tutionalized. I'll do it regardless of what it does to me."

He turned and left.

I sc.r.a.ped up the dishes and carried them out into the kitchen.

Hattie was at the stove, her back turned to me. She stiffened as I went in, then turned part way around, trying to keep an eye on me while appearing occupied with her work.

Hattie is probably thirty-nine or forty now. She isn't as pretty as I remember her as a child-I thought she was the loveliest woman in the world then-but she is still something to take a second look at.

I put the dishes in the sink. I moved along the edge of the baseboard, smiling to myself, watching her neck muscles tighten as I moved out of her range of vision.

I was right behind her before fear forced her to whirl around. She pressed back against the stove, putting her hands out in a pushing-away gesture.

"Why, mother," I said. "What's the matter? You're not afraid of your own darling son, are you?"

"Go 'way!" Her eyes rolled whitely. "Lea' me alone, you hear?"

"But I just wanted a kiss," I said. "Just a kiss from my dear, sweet mother. After all, I haven't had one now, since-well, I was about three, wasn't I? A very long time for a child to go without a kiss from his own mother. I remember being rather heartbroken when-"

"D-don't!" she moaned. "You don't know nothin' about-Get outta here! I tell doctor on you, an' he-"

"You mean you're not my mother?" I said. "You're truly not?"

"N-no! I tol' you, ain't I? Ain't nothin', n.o.body! I-I-"

"Well, all right." I shrugged. "In that case . .

I grabbed her suddenly, clamped her against me, pinning her arms to her sides. She gasped, moaned, struggled futilely. She didn't, of course, cry out for help.

"How about it," I said, "as long as you're not my mother. Keep it all in the family, huh? What do you say we-"

I let go of her, laughing.

I stepped back, wiping her spittle from my face.

"Why, Hattie," I said. "Why on earth did you do a thing like that? All I wanted was-What?" My heart did a painful skip-jump, and there was a choking lump in my throat. "What? I don't believe I understood you, Hattie."

She looked at me, lips curled back from her teeth. Eyes narrowed, steady, with contempt. With something beyond contempt, beyond disgust and hatred.

"You hear' me right," she said. "You couldn' do nothin'. Couldn' an' never will."

"Yes?" I said. "Are you very sure of that, my dearest mother?"

"Huh! Me, I tell you." She grinned a skull's grin. "Yeah, I ver' sure, aw right, my deares' son."

"And it amuses you," I said. "Well, I'll tell you, mother. Doubtless it is very funny, but I don't believe we'd better have any further displays of amus.e.m.e.nt. Not that I'd mind killing you, you understand. In fact, I'll probably get around to that eventually. But I have other projects afoot at the moment-more important projects, if I may say so without hurting your feelings-"

She moved suddenly, made a dash for her room. I followed her-it adjoins the kitchen-and leaned absently against the door. The locked door to my mother's room.

The door that had been locked for . . .

Yes, my recollection was right; it is always right. I had been about three the last time she had kissed me, the last time she had cuddled, babied, mother-and-babied me. I would have remembered it, even if I did not have almost total recall. For how could one forget such a fierce outpouring of love, the balm-like, soul-satisfying warmth of it?

Or forget its abrupt, never-to-be-again withdrawal?

Or the stupid, selfish, cruel, bewildering insistence that it had never been?

I was a very silly little boy. I was a very foolish, bad little boy, and I had better pray G.o.d to forgive me. I was not sweets or hon or darlin' or even Bobbie. I was Mister Bobbie-Master Robert. Mistah-Mastah Bobbie, a reborn stranger among strangers.

My continuing illnesses? Psychosomatic. The manifold masques of frustration.

My intelligence? Compensatory. For certainly I inherited none from either of them.

I listened at night, when they thought I was asleep. I asked a few questions, strategically s.p.a.cing them months apart.

She'd had a child; she'd had to wet-nurse me. Where was that child? Dead? Well, where and when had he died? When and where had my mother died?

It was ridiculously simple. Only a matter of putting a few questions to a fatuous imbecile-my father-and an overs.e.xed docile moron, my mother. And listening to them at night. Listening and wanting to shriek with laughter.

He'd be ruined if anyone found out. It would ruin my life, wreck all my chances.

It would be that way if. And what way did the blind, stupid, silly son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h think it was now? What worse way could it be than as it was now?

And, no, it did not need to be that way. Needn't and wouldn't have been for a man with courage and honesty and decency.

I had deduced the truth by the time I was five. Several years later, when I was able to be up and around-to post and receive letters secretly-I proved my deductions.

He, my father, had practiced in only one other state before coming to this one. It had no record of a birth to Mrs. James Ashton, or of the death of said Mrs. Ashton. There was, however, a record of the birth of a son to one Hattie Marie Smith (colored; unmarried; initial birth). And the attending physician was Dr. James Ashton.

Well?

Or perhaps I should say well!

As a matter of fact, I said G.o.ddammit, since the cigarette was scorching my fingers.

I dropped it to the floor, ground it out with my shoe and rapped on my mother's door.

"Mother," I said. "Mammy-" I knocked harder. "You heah me talkin' to you, mammy? Well, you s...o...b..ttah answer then, or your lul ol' boy gonna come in theah an' peel that soft putty hide right offen you. He do it, mammy. You knows all about him-doncha?-an' you knows he will. He gonna wait just five seconds, and then he's gonna bus' this heah ol' doah down an' . . ."

I looked at my wrist.w.a.tch, began counting off the seconds aloud.

The bed creaked, and I heard a m.u.f.fled croak. A dull, weary sound that was part sigh, part sob.

"Now, that's better," I said. "Listen closely, because this concerns you. It's my plan for finishing you off, you and my dearly beloved father . . . I am going to take you out to some deserted place, and bind you with chains. I shall so chain you that you will be apart from each other, and yet together. Inseparable yet touching. And you shall be stripped to your l.u.s.tful hides. And in winter I shall douse you with ice-water, and in summer I shall smother you with blankets. And you shall shriek and shiver with the cold, and you shall scream and scorch with the heat. Yet you shall be voiceless and unheard.

"That will go on for seventeen years, mother. No, I'll be fair-deduct a couple of years. Then I'll bring you back here, pile you into bed together, and give you a sample of the h.e.l.l that could never be hot enough for you. Set you on fire. Set the house on fire. Set the whole G.o.dd.a.m.ned town on fire. Think of it, mammy! The whole population. Whole families, infants, children, mothers and fathers, grandparents and great-grandparents-all burning, all stacked together in lewd juxtaposition. And it shall come to pa.s.s, mammy. Yeah, verily. For to each thing there is a season, mammy, and a time-"

She was moaning peculiarly. Keening, I suppose you would say.

I listened absently, deciding that Pete Pavlov should be spared from my prospective holocaust.

No one else. At least, I could think of no one else at the moment. But certainly Pete Pavlov.

It was early, around eight o'clock, when I arrived at the dance pavilion. The bandstand was dark. The ticket booth-where Myra Pavlov serves as cashier-was closed. Only one of the ballroom chandeliers was burning. There was, however, a light in Pete's office. So I vaulted the turnstile, and started across the dance floor.

He was at his desk, counting a stack of bills. I was almost to the doorway when he looked up, startled, his hand darting toward an open desk drawer.

Then he saw it was I and he let out a disgusted grunt.

"d.a.m.n you, Bobbie. Better watch that sneakin' up on people. Might get your tail shot off."

I laughed and apologized. I said I hoped that if anyone ever did try to hold him up, he wouldn't try to stop them.

"You do, huh?" he said. "How come you hope that?"

"Why-why, because." I frowned innocently. "You have robbery insurance, haven't you? Well, why risk your life for some insurance company?"

I suspect, from the brief flicker in his eyes, the very slight change in facial expression, that he had entertained some such notion himself-that is, I should say, a fake robbery to collect on his insurance. He needed money, popular opinion notwithstanding. A robbery would be the simplest, most straightforward means of getting it. And he was a simple (I use the term flatteringly) straightforward man.

I would have been glad to help him perpetrate such a robbery. Broadly speaking, I would have done anything I could to help him. Unfortunately, however-although I respected him for it-he distrusted me instinctively.

So he treated me to a long, unblinking gaze. Then he grunted, spat in the spittoon and leaned back in his chair. He rocked back and forth in it, hands locked behind his head, looking down at the desk and then slowly raising his eyes to mine.

"I tell you," he said. "Used to be a hound dog around these parts. Fast-footedest G.o.ddammed dog you ever saw in your life. You know what happened to him?"

"I imagine he ran over himself," I said.

"Yup. Bashed his brains out with his own b.u.t.t. h.e.l.l of a nice-looking dog, too, and he seemed smart as turpentine. Always wondered why he didn't know better'n to do a thing like that."

I smiled. Pete would not have wondered at all about the why of his allegorical dog. Nor the why of anything. Like myself, Pete's concern was with what things were, not how or why they had become that way.

He finished counting the money. He put it in a tin cash box, locked it up in his safe and came back to the desk. Sat down on a corner of it in front of me, one thick leg swung over the other.

"Well-" His hard, hazel-colored eyes rolled over on my face. "Figure on sleepin' in here tonight? Want me to move you in a bed?"

"I'm sorry." I got up reluctantly. "I was just-uh-"

"Yeah? Something on your mind?"

"N-no. No, I guess not," I said. "I just dropped by to say h.e.l.lo. I didn't have anything to do for a while, so I-"

He looked at me steadily. He spat at the spittoon without shifting his eyes. I cleared my throat, feeling a hot, embarra.s.sing flush spread over my face.

He stood up suddenly, and started for the door. Spoke over his shoulder, his voice gruff.

"Ain't got nothing to do myself for a few minutes. Come on and I'll buy you a sody."

I followed him to a far corner of the ballroom; followed, since he kept a half-pace in front of me. I wanted to pay for the drinks, but he brushed my hand aside, dropped two dimes into the c.o.ke machine himself.

He handed me a bottle. I thanked him and he grunted, jerking the cap on his own.

We stood facing the distant bandstand where the musicians were arriving. We stood side by side, almost touching each other. Separated by no more than a few inches-and silence.

He finished his drink, smacked his lips and dropped the bottle into the empty case. I finished mine reluctantly, disposed of the bottle as he had.

"Well . . ." He spoke as I straightened from the case; spoke, still looking out across the ballroom. "You and Myra steppin' out again tonight?"

I said, why, yes, we were. As soon as she got off work, that is. And after a moment, I added, "If that's all right with you, Mr. Pavlov."

"Know any reason why it shouldn't be?"

"Why-well, no," I said, "I guess not. I mean-"

"I'll tell you," he said. He hesitated, and belched. "I ain't got a G.o.dd.a.m.ned bit of use for you. Never have had, far back as I can remember. But I guess you already know that?"

"Yes," I said. "And I can't tell you how sorry I am, Mr. Pavlov."

"Can't say I'm not sorry myself. Always rather like someone than dislike 'em." He belched again, mumbling something about the gas. "On the other hand, I got no real reason not to have no use for you. Nothing I can put my finger on. You've always been friendly and polite around me. I don't know of no dirty deals you've pulled, unless'n it's this stuff with Ralph, and I can't really call that dirty, considering. Might've gone off sideways like that myself when I was your age."

"I knew you'd understand," I said. "Mr. Pavlov, I-"

"I was sayin'-" He cut me off curtly. "I got no reason to feel like I do, and reasons are all I go by. People don't give me no trouble, I don't give them any. I rock along with 'em as long as they rock with me. And whether I like 'em or not don't figure in the matter. All right. I guess we understand each other. Now, I got to get busy."

He nodded curtly, and headed back toward his office.

I moved toward the exit.

Myra had come in while Pete and I were talking, and she called to me from the ticket booth. I looked her way blindly, my eyes stinging, misting. Not really hearing or seeing her. I went out without answering her, and sat down in my car.

I got a cigarette lighted. I took a few deep puffs, forcing away my disgusting self-pity. Recovering some of my normal objectiveness.

Pete detested me. It was fitting that he should-things being as they were. And I would not have had it any other way-things being as they were.

But what a pity, what a G.o.dd.a.m.ned pity that they were that way! And why couldn't they have been another, the right and logical way?