"Let me buy you dinner. Anything you want."

"No, Alan. I'm the one with the successful business." Elizabeth's thin hand shot to her lips. "I'm sorry. I don't know what's happened in the past six years."

"The bookstore isn't grossing four million this year," he said, with a laugh. "But I'm comfortable. I can afford a brief vacation here."

"This is so nice running into you here," she said. "And you may buy me dinner."

"Only if you have a steak. You need the protein." He reached out and touched her cheek. The flesh was porcelain-cold.

She laughed and held his hand close, giving the palm a quick kiss. "Whatever you say, Alan."

After dinner, they had another drink in the bar. They en-tered their own private world when they sat in the high-backed booths.

"It's nice finding a bar without loud music. I hate shouting to make myself heard," she said. She giggled, then belched. "Sorry. Too much to drink.""You've only had two glasses of wine, unless you had more before we watched the sunset."

"I just had a Perrier. I can't hold my liquor like I used to. I hate to break it off. This has been so nice seeing you again, but I'm too tired."

"I'm a bit sleepy myself. It was a long trip down on the train. May I see you to your door?"

"Always the gentleman. Of course you may." Arm in arm they left the bar and took the elevator to the top floor.

Mitchell's heart raced when Elizabeth stopped outside the door and handed him her key. He opened the door.

"Thank you," she said. She stood, head slightly tilted and eyes closed. The kiss he gave her was hardly more than a quick peck. She hid her disappointment well.

"Good night," Mitchell said.

"Breakfast?"

"Not too early," he said. "Let's say nine?"

She nodded. He saw the sadness in her eyes-and a curious haunted expression. She spun around and closed the door behind her. The click of the deadbolt sliding home started him on his way back to his room.

He was drowsy, but he couldn't sleep. Rather than return-ing to his room, he went back outside onto the porch. A few other guests sat about in twos and threes, talking quietly. He didn't want their company, even if they had desired his. He walked across the dark, dew-damp lawn until he found the high wall. From here he started pacing slowly, intending to circumnavigate the SeaHarp's grounds.

He stopped and found Elizabeth's room on the fourth floor. He watched until the light went out. Six years ago there might have been more between them. Now, it was impossible. He started on his lonely walk again when the light in her room came on again.

He frowned when he saw that it wasn't the room light. A beam bounced and bobbed against the windowpane, as if someone with a flashlight had entered. He considered alert-ing the room clerk to the possibility of a sneak thief in the hotel. The light snapped off. He found himself unsure if he had seen anything important or if his active imagination played tricks on him.

Starting for the lobby, he paused when he heard a door at the rear of the SeaHarp open and close. He walked on cat-quiet feet until he saw the circular yellow disk of a flashlight moving on the ground. He stood beside a tree, invisible from a distance.

The gardener hurried toward his flower bed. In one hand he held the flashlight. In the other he carried a small capped jar. He dropped to his knees beside the bed of lilies and carefully unscrewed the lid. Mumbling to himself, he poured the liquid onto the flowers, being sure each got a measured amount. A lewd sucking noise echoed through the stillness of the night.

Finished, he stood and tucked the jar under his arm. The gardener left, whistling off-key.

Mitchell waited several minutes after the man had gone before approaching the flower bed. The lilies tracked him like radar. Kneeling, he avoided their questing stalks and ran his finger along the damp soil, then lifted and sniffed what he had found.

"Blood," he said, startled. In the past few months he had come to loathe the sharp, coppery smell. Involuntarily he rubbed his left arm where so much had been removed for tests. Oh, yes, he knew blood. And he knew why the gar-dener's lilies and other flowers grew so lushly.

The Egyptians had used slave's blood to fertilize their crops.

Mitchell wondered how many other guests beside Elizabeth Morgenthal contributed their lifeblood to the SeaHarp's thirsty flowers.

He returned to his room but sleep wouldn't come. He sat in an overstuffed chair staring at his opened suitcase holding the paraphernalia of his death.

At breakfast he watched Elizabeth eat double portions. "You're hungry," he said, knowing the reason. Blood losswould do it. His real questions were how the gardener had entered her room when she had thrown the deadbolt and how he had drawn the blood without waking her.

"The past few days I've been famished." Her cheeks burned with a fever. The paleness was greater this morning than it had been. Mitchell wondered how much blood the gardener had sucked from his victim.

"Did you sleep well?"

"I have since I got here." Elizabeth said, smearing home-made preserves on her fifth piece of toast. "That's odd, re-ally. I have insomnia. That's one reason I work such long hours."

"It might be the other way around," he pointed out.

"The doctor said that, too. It doesn't matter. Not at the moment, Alan. I'm sleeping like a log." Her green eyes locked on his. She didn't have to add that she wished he had been with her.

They spent the day walking along the shore of the bay, skipping stones like small children, examining sea shells and discarding them, finding a peacefulness that hadn't existed for either in many years. They returned to the SeaHarp Hotel at sunset.

"It's been a wonderful day, Alan," Elizabeth said almost wistfully. She reached across the small table in the bar and touched his hand. His fingers twined with hers.

"It doesn't have to end," he said. Her eyes glowed wit an inner light.

"I hoped you'd say that." She smiled almost shyly. "Your room or mine?"

"Yours," he said without hesitation, remembering the suitcase he had so carefully stored in his wardrobe. Even being in the same room with the implements of his destruc-tion seemed wrong now.

They took the elevator to the fourth floor and entered her room, arms around each other. She flipped on the light switch. Mitchell noticed her room was much smaller than his, but still larger than the standard hotel room. He studied the room as she fussed about, dropping purse and kicking off shoes. He saw nothing to indicate how the gardener had en-tered.

"Aren't they thoughtful, Alan?" she asked. "They leave a fresh flower for me each night." She lifted the bud vase from the dresser top and sniffed at the delicate blossom. He watched as she weaved slightly. Her eyelids drooped the bar-est amount. She took another deep whiff. "I so love fresh flowers."

"You're giving your life for them," he said in a low voice, understanding one part of the riddle.

"What?" She sank to the bed and tried to unfasten her blouse. She fell to one side, sleeping deeply. The combined exertion of the day-long walk and the potent effect of the flower's narcotic perfume had caused her to fall into a light coma.

Mitchell struggled to get her off the bed and into the bath-room. He put a blanket down in the tub and rolled her onto it, hoping she would be comfortable. He didn't want her to awaken in the morning with a kink in her neck. It took longer than he'd thought it would. His strength had been taxed, too. That was the progressive nature of his disease.

The T-cells in his blood turned traitor. Infections took hold more easily and conquered with little struggle.

His entire auto-immune system had betrayed him. AIDS. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes at the outrageous fortune that had visited him. He pushed the knowledge of a lingering, painful, ugly death from his mind and concen-trated.

Mitchell went to Elizabeth's wardrobe and opened the door. At one end of the fragrant, redwood-lined cabinet hung a frilly nightgown. He stripped off his clothing and donned the gown. It was too tight across the shoulders but should pass in the dark. It hid the different flow of his muscles-what remained of them-and gave him a hope of stopping the gar-dener.

Before he lay down in the bed, he returned to the bathroom to check on Elizabeth. Her deep, regular breathing showed she was all right. He took a few minutes to shave the hair from his left arm. Even in the dark the gardener might notice the hirsute difference. No longer. Mitchell thrust out his thin arm and knew it might pass for a woman's.

He returned to the bedroom and turned out the light. Crawling under the covers, his needle-marked left arm dan-gling over the edge of the bed, he waited.The light going out gave the gardener his cue. From the ceiling came scurrying sounds, as if rats had infested the century-old hotel. From half-closed eyes Mitchell watched as a piece of the intricate plasterwork turned into utter black-ness. The gardener dropped down to a chair from the exposed crawlspace. The flashlight's beam darted around, checking. The gardener hummed to himself as he came over and gripped Mitchell's arm.

A thin rubber hose circled Mitchell's upper arm. The nee-dle sank into veins almost collapsed from too much blood being drawn. The gardener didn't notice. He had been milk-ing Elizabeth heavily. Mitchell almost protested the amount of his blood taken. Even lying down and feigning sleep, he felt dizzy from the loss. To have taken this much from Eliz-abeth would have killed her.

Only when the jar was filled to the brim did the gardener remove the rubber constrictor hose and retreat. Mitchell watched openly as the gardener jumped from the chair and into the dark square overhead. Like a monkey, the man van-ished. Seconds later, the ceiling was again whole.

Mitchell had to fight to sit up. The bloodletting had taken too much from him. An hour later he had wrestled Elizabeth into bed and left quietly. In two he had made his calls. In four his phone jangled for long minutes. He didn't answer it. He knew he would eat breakfast alone.

He slept fitfully, nightmares of grotesquely twisted blood cells chasing him. The sound effects accompanying the night-mares were worse. The sucking noise, the awful obscene sucking.

As Mitchell went into the dining room, a bellman stopped him. "Sir, the lady left this for you."

"Thank you," Mitchell said, knowing what Elizabeth had put in the note. He opened it and read anyway.

"Darling Alan," it began. "I'm so embarrassed about last night. I remember nothing-but do know it had to be as won-derful as you. I wish we could have spent more time together, but it's not possible. I received a call last night.

There was a lire in my office and my manager was severely burned and is in critical condition. The quickest way back to New York was the 5:10 train. I tried to call your room but you didn't answer. Please, Alan, call me when you get back to the city. With all love, Elizabeth."

He tucked the note in his pocket. She would be angry and confused when she learned there hadn't been a fire and that none of her staff had been hurt.

Mitchell sat in the main dining room and stared out at the blooming flowers.

As he sipped his tea, white-uniformed men rushed past the window. Mitchell turned in his chair and craned his neck. They went to the bed of lilies the gardener had tended so carefully. In a few minutes, they returned, pushing a gurney laden with a black plastic bag large enough to hold a body. A body the size of the gardener.

Mitchell felt no triumph. What the lilies had become, he didn't care to know. He shuddered, thinking of them propa-gating. But that was no worry of his. He finished his Earl Grey, put the cup down with a steady hand and returned to his room.

The suitcase opened, and Alan Mitchell began his journey.

INTERLUDE.

by Wendy Webb

It was her first night at the SeaHarp Hotel in seventy years. And her last. That is, if all went well. And of course it would.

She had planned this night since the last kiss on her grand-mother's cold cheek. Thought it out as the shadow of a heavy oak lid darkened the old face. Saw it while the locks were thrown, and her grandmother's almost weightless body was slowly lowered into the soft, damp earth.She threw the first clump of dirt, heard the empty sobs of family and friends fall around her like shards of broken glass ready to cut and bleed her of all that was left. If she let it. But she wouldn't. Not then.

Not now.

Now it was her turn. Her time to face the closing. End the interlude of what was. She smiled, looked around the lobby of the old hotel. The SeaHarp knew her. Knew her almost as well as her grandmother did. Maybe even better.

She had come home.

"Room 209, Ms. Claire Smythe. Just as you requested. Sign here, if you will." He pushed a leather-bound registra-tion book towards her.

She peered at his nametag, saw "V. Montgomery, Owner" etched in brass. "I knew your father."

"Ma'am?"

"Simon Montgomery. He is your father, isn't he?" - "Yes ma'am. He passed on a few years ago. I run the place now.

Have been ever since he retired."

"And Elinor?"

"Aunt Elinor died four years before him."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Claire said. "We, the three of us, used to play together when we were children. Simon could play quite a game of croquet. Elinor wasn't so bad herself, a bit temperamental mind you, but not bad with a mallet."

"So I heard." He flipped through a pile of embossed pa-pers, pulled one out, and scrutinized it. "The private dining room will be ready for you at eight. Place settings for six. Are there any changes?"

"No." She hesitated. "On second thought ... yes. If possible could you add two more to the list?"

"I don't see any problem with that. We always do an over-age to cover potential changes anyway. We'll take care of it." He made a quick addition to the note, tucked it away among another stack of papers. "Are any of your guests stay-ing the night with us? We'll be glad to leave a message re-minding them of the dinner time."

"No, thank-you. None is staying." Claire reached into her pocketbook, produced a roll of bills, and pushed them to-wards the owner.

"We'll bill you at the end of your stay, Ms. Smythe. No need to worry about it until then."

"I'll pay for it now, please." Montgomery shrugged, took the money, gave her a receipt and the room key. "Has my package arrived yet?" she said. "It should have come a day or two ago."

"Let me check." Another rustle of papers, a raised eye-brow, then the found information. "Yes. It arrived and is waiting in your room." A quick flick of his wrist and a bell-hop appeared next to her elbow. "Danny will help you with your luggage."

"This way, Ms. Smythe. Room 209 is one floor up." He gave her a quick appraisal, then made a decision. "The ele-vators are right around the corner."

She bristled at the slight. "Young man, I may be old, but I'm not dead. I'll walk."

Confusion crossed his face. "I'm sorry. ..."

"That you are. Besides, I only have one bag. I can carry it by myself for that matter."

"No, please." The young man looked to boss, then to Claire. "Really. I'll be glad to carry your bag."

"No need. But thank-you anyway." She picked up the small bag and walked to the stairs. "209 still sits over the gardens I suppose."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good." She hoisted the luggage and started up the steps. The broad, thickly carpeted stairs were just as she hadre-membered them those long years ago. A little worn perhaps, but still holding their elegance in the subdued pastels and floral patterns. How many times had her grandmother walked those steps on the way to the reading room, the dining room, to the front porch for a view of the ocean, or to the gardens to inhale the deep, full scent of summer flowers in bloom?

And how many times had she walked the steps to room 209? What did she feel, think about, when she went to that room for the last time?

How often had she gone with her grandmother, together, hand-in-hand, to share the special times? And they were special times. Moments that only the two of them had shared. Could share.

Until her parents took her away. Forced her into private school. "To learn some discipline," they had said. And tore her away from the only family member she loved.

She never saw her grandmother again.

Until the kiss on the cold cheek.