He got up to unlock the door and put on his robe, then settled back into bed, under the covers and over the briefcase. It seemed hardly any time at all before the knock came. De-spite his best intentions he felt a tightening in his chest that choked his voice as he blurted out "Come in!"

What came, of course, was Harold, but at least it was Harold in disguise. He was still ugly as sin, yet he was in his human form. Perhaps he only changed at night, thought Dar-ling.

"Good morning, sir," said Harold as he put down the tray.

Darling decided to play along.

"Are you the only bellboy working here?" he asked.

"Oh, no sir. I just always seem to be the one on call when you want something, sir."

Darling didn't believe a word he said. There was an awk-ward moment of silence- "There's a dollar for you on the dresser," Darling said at last. "You shouldn't work such long hours. It isn't good for your health."

"I like it," said the wretched boy. "I'm saving up." He pocketed his tip and backed away. He was half out of the room when he stopped. He looked apologetic. "Is everything all right, sir?"

"Yes. Whatever do you mean?"

Harold hesitated. "I don't know. You look kind of pale. Like you might be sick or something." He paused again.

"And don't tell anyone downstairs I told you this, but you really shouldn't eat eggs and sausages. They're not that good for you."Then he was gone.

Darling was defiant. He clambered out of bed, pulled away the dish cover and prepared to devour his steaming breakfast. Deftly slicing off the top of one soft-boiled egg, he was about to attack the second when he heard a small sound that might have been a squeal. He stared at his opened egg and saw something moving inside it. Something small and pink and shiny, dripping with transparent fluid. The embryo of some misbegotten swine poked forth its quivering snout.

The second egg cracked open by itself, and mucus drib-bled from its shattered shell. The sausages began to squirm, blood spurting from their crisp brown hides. They emitted cries of sheer brute agony.

Darling leaped to his feet, painfully aware that they were naked and that liquids were dripping onto them. He had just enough sense to thank God that he had not upset the tray; if he had, the things might be loose in the room. With the steely desperation of a man determined to save his own life at any cost, he picked up the tray, holding it as far away from him-self as possible, and rushed to the door. He dropped the tray in the dim hallway with a crash, then slammed the door against invaders. He had torn off his clothes and thrown him-self under a shower to wash away the filth before he began to shake and then to scream.

"You really shouldn't eat eggs and sausages. They're not that good for you."

He stood under the scalding shower for so long that his skin became quite pink, then stared at it in deep dismay.

Could he be changing too? He was afraid to look into the mirror, but inadvertantly caught a glimpse of something pink and indistinct behind its steamy surface.

He fled from the bathroom, as naked as a pig, then leaped into the air with a strangled shout when he heard a frantic rattling and saw the door to the hallway being pushed ajar.

He was locked in the bathroom, whimpering and huddled on the floor, before he realized that the figure he had seen was only an old woman with a vacuum cleaner.

"Go away," he moaned. "We don't want any. Don't clean. Just go."

A quavering voice came from the other side of the bath-room door. "Please, sir. I thought there weren't nobody here. Please don't tell Miss Montgomery what I done. I gotta straighten up."

"Don't straighten up," said Darling cleverly, "and I won't tell her anything. Just go now, please."

"Yes, sir. Thank you sir."

Darling thought he heard her go, but he knew that it might be another trick. He also knew that she might have taken the money, but several hours passed before he could bring him-self to creep out into his room.

He squatted naked on the floor and counted his money again and again for most of the afternoon. He was ravenous.

He thought almost longingly of the tray outside in the hall. The toast might have been all right. He thought of it, cold and soggy as it might now be, but he realized that it was only bait. As soon as he opened up his door the ghastly bellboy would be there, pretending to retrieve the tray but actually bent on perpetrating some new horror. It was safer to stay inside.

He slipped the briefcase back under the bed, and as he did he noticed something that brought tears to his eyes. It was a newspaper. Some saint from room service had remembered him, and some angel had knocked this one precious item from the tray.

The Greystone Bay Gazette was a typical small-town pa-per, only twenty-four pages long, but Darling devoured it.He savored every sentence, every syllable. He blessed the missing child and the unsolved murder. He pored over high school sports statistics. He looked forward to a festival spon-sored by a church whose denomination he did not recognize. He laughed at a comic strip he did not understand. And when he was finished, he did it all again.

Night had fallen while he read, and by the time he had memorized the paper Darling felt almost sane again. He was also unbelievably hungry. He had never gone a day in his life without food, and now he knew why. His stomach made its anguish audible. His predicament was terrible enough, but this hollowness only made it worse. He would never be able to think of a way out while he was starving to death.

He stared at the telephone, and desperation gave birth to a plan. It was risky, but he knew what the bellboy wanted.

Darling ordered prime rib, two baked potatoes, a chef's salad, blueberry pie, a glass of milk, two cups of coffee, and a bottle of Chivas regal with a bucket of ice. He put on his robe, opened the door to the hallway, and locked himself in the bathroom.

The wait seemed endless.

Finally the knock came, and then a grunt, and then a rus-tle. Darling quivered on the edge of the tub. "Room ser-vice!" the voice squealed.

Darling took a deep breath. "I'm in the bathroom," he shouted, and his voice was squealing too. "Just leave it on the desk. Your tip is on the dresser.''

"All right, sir. Good night, and thank you!"

Darling controlled himself for almost a minute. He was actually drooling when he slipped gingerly out of the bath-room and approached the desk. Everything he had ordered had been delivered. It was too wonderful to be believed.

He approached the meal cautiously, but nothing seemed amiss. He cut himself a tiny piece of hot, red, juicy beef and slipped it tentatively into his mouth. Nothing had ever tasted better. He swallowed and sighed. He sliced himself a more substantial chunk, and had just dropped it onto his tongue when the door to the hallway burst open.

Harold the Hog stood there.

His tiny eyes gleamed scarlet, and his mottled flesh quiv-ered with coarse bristles. His filthy snout dribbled over yel-low, discolored tusks. His sea-green uniform was daubed with mud. His mouth fell open, and it was huge.

"Mr. Darling," the bellboy said.

Darling gasped. He felt his heart skip and his throat con-strict. He couldn't breathe. He tried to speak, but all he could produce were grunts. He waved his arms ineffectually to ward off the apparition and fell out of his chair. The monstrous bellboy waddled toward him. Darling crawled away. He felt its arms around his waist, its rancid breath on his neck. Both its black hands were clutching at his chest, and he knew they meant to rip his heart out.

Darling was growing weak, his vision blurred, but he reached back and grasped the creature by its tender snout.

The thing roared and released its grip, and Darling dragged himself toward his fortress in the bathroom, but in an instant it was on his back again, its arms encircling him. He shrugged it off once more, but felt that it had crushed something inside his chest.

He was dizzy, and the room was dim. He wanted to vomit, but something blocked the way. He felt his bowels loosen. He died disgraced.

Tears dripped down Harold's chubby, pimply, pug-nosed, innocent face.

"You did the right thing to call me first," Noreen Mont-gomery said. "We mustn't alarm the other guests."

"I did what they taught us," said the blubbering boy. "In Boy Scouts. I did the right thing."

"I'm sure you did, Harold."

"I could see he was choking, so I put my arms around him and I squeezed, just like it says to on the charts. The Heimlich Maneuver."

"That's right, Harold."But he fought me. He pushed me away. He even scratched me. Here. Right on the nose. And then he died."

"You did everything you could, Harold. It wasn't your fault. And I know how upset you are. Don't you think it would be best if we say that you weren't here at all, and that Mr. Darling died alone?"

Harold sniffed and looked ecstatic.

"Yes," she reassured him. "That would be the best thing. You just run along home now, Harold, and take tomorrow off. With pay. And don't let this spoil your summer. I'll take care of everything.

"Thank you, Miss Montgomery. It really could be like I never came back, couldn't it? And I never would've, either, but my folks raised me up honest, and when I saw the tip he'd left on the dresser I knew he'd made a big mistake. It should've been a dollar. He never would have given me a thousand dollar bill!"

The boy backed out of Room 403.

And when she was quite certain he was gone, Miss Mont-gomery reached down under the bed and pulled out Mr.

Dar-ling's briefcase.

EVIL THOUGHTS.

by

Suzy McKee Charnas

"Oh, Jeff, I didn't mean to be grouchy," Fran said contritely. "It's just that the crazy lady's goddamn dogs were barking again all morning back at the house. What a racket, on and on! I'm afraid it really got to me."

Jeff, hovering, escorted her through the immense dining room of the SeaHarp Hotel. Around them the warm air stirred with a muted murmuring of voices and the occasional chim-ing of china and crystal. "You're not upset over something about the dinner?"

"God, no, the dinner was wonderful!" she said. "I have to admit, I didn't expect anything this elegant in Greystone Bay."

He squeezed her hand. "Didn't I promise you something better than Wong's?"

Better, and more: a pleasing surprise. The faintly worn luxury of the place reminded her of similar settings in Boston.

How strange it was to be so close to her home city, in a place fitted to an old Boston hotel, and yet to feel so far away.

This wistfulness and unease was wrong for tonight. They were celebrating, marking forever in expensive indulgence their first month together in the house he had inherited from his parents, and his first job after accountancy school-working in the business office of this same hotel.

"Actually, Wong's is fine," she said, not wanting to put down the local Chinese joint near the house. "But this is great. A little pampering doesn't bother me, you know that. I'm all overcome to be taken to this-this institution by my very handsome, very poised, very beautifully dressed lover."

Young lover, her thoughts added inevitably. Were those grayhaired people over there staring at them? Did they per-haps know Jeff from his youth here in Greystone Bay, or were they just noticing the tall young man and his older compan-ion?

Oh, stop it, she scolded herself silently. As if anybody gave a damn about that in this day and age!

While he stepped aside to retrieve her coat from the cloak-room, Fran looked out past the tables at the high, dark win-dows over Harbor Road. Beyond the blurred reflections of people bent to their meals and conversation (not watching her and Jeff), she could see the silvered darkness of evening fog, and the smeary lights of the traffic. The sea beyond was in-visible. Suddenly the hotel seemed a safe and cosy place, and she wished they didn't have to headhome.

But she had work, and he had work. People like them only rented a few hours of this kind of extravagant living anyway. It wasn't really theirs until they had earned it-if they were lucky.

Her mind shied away from the thought of Jeff, richer, but also older, and herself older still.

Jeff held her coat for her. "Sorry about the wine, though," he said as she shrugged it on and walked out with him into the spacious lobby. "I've had some great Merlots in other places."

"Don't worry about it," she said, patting his arm. "I shouldn't have said anything about it. Who cares?"

"You don't, not usually," he said, lightly hugging her shoulders and smiling down at her. "Anyway, are you glad we came here for dinner tonight?"

"Of course," she said. His need to be reassured was en-dearing.

"Me too," he said. "It was time to get you out of the house anyway, before you grew roots through the floor."

"The house is fine," she said quickly. "It's the neighbors that are the problem. No, just one neighbor."

They walked out into the cool autumn night and down the stone steps at the front of the hotel. A light, tangy wind had been blowing fog in from seaward all afternoon. Now the breeze had a real bite to it.

Fran hugged her coat tighter around her neck.

"I thought it was her dogs that bothered you," Jeff said absently, tucking her arm warmly against him. They walked quickly toward the parking lot.

"Her and her dogs," Fran said. "I wish somebody would run over those damn dogs of hers. Save me, Lord, from little dogs! Everybody knows little dogs are crazy, from being so small and scared all the time. And in this case their owner is crazy too."

"Who, Whatsername next door?" Jeffrey said. "I thought she was a nurse. Do they let crazy people be nurses?"

Dear Jeffrey, who so charmingly lived in his youthful mind and was so tolerant even when you pointed out to him the things that should be driving him nuts the way they drove you nuts, even though you weren't an old married couple, only live-togethers, slightly mismatched. By age, anyway.

"No, dummy, not that one. I mean Whatsername across the street and up two houses," Fran said. "That's where the dogs are. God, Jeff, don't you hear them?"

"Oh, you mean those two mutts of Mrs. Deaken's," he said equably. "Heck, they're probably the only company she's got if she's as daffy as you think."

"Nuttier. No kidding. Did I tell you? She yelled at me for walking back from the park through the lane behind her house. Around twilight yesterday, while the oven was heating up to make dinner, I took a stroll up to that little park.

Then I thought I'd come back the long way, through the lane. It looked nice-hidden and a little wild, with all the weeds and the trees hanging out into it from people's back yards.

"All of a sudden her dogs started yapping and a floodlight came on, if you can believe that, at the corner of her house; and she started screaming from inside the house. It was the damnedest thing."

They turned the corner of the long white hotel facade at last and crossed the dark but sheltered expanse of the parking lot behind it.

"Screaming what?" he said. "What did she say?"

"I don't know, exactly, I could only catch a few words. Mostly it was about 'goddamn burglars.' As if a plain ordi-nary woman walking along a public lane in broad daylight would be a burglar."

"Thought you said twilight," he observed mildly, bending to unlock the red Tercel.

"All right, twilight, but good grief, Jeff, it was ridiculous! I could hear her shrieking, and those damn little dogs of hers yipping, all the way down to the other end of the lane.""Maybe she's been burgled a lot," Jeffrey said. "Things have changed a lot since I grew up here."

He was probably right. His parents' house had been equipped at some recent point with a fancy burglar-alarm (much too complex, a nuisance to use), which indicated something. Hell, give the crazy lady up the street the benefit of the doubt.

Though crime could hardly be as bad here as in Boston!