"In short, we fell in love," Porter said as if this inevitably followed from what he'd just told me. "I'd had women before but there was no one in my experience to compare with her. I was completely smitten, I was ready to give up everything for her."

"But from what you've told me it doesn't seem as if you had anything to give up to begin with."

He smiled. "You have forgotten my life."

They agreed to get married as soon as Sally could settle her divorce. Sally assured him that there'd be no problem, no complications or legal entanglements; she wasn't a woman to allow anything to stand in her way. He realized from the start that she was the stronger of the two, that he was a fool to believe that he would be able to hold onto her. He was grate-ful for every day he had with her, certain that one morning he would wake to find her gone.

Strange things began to happen to him-good things. His career, which had been stymied for so many years, began to flourish. It got so that he could walk out into a desert of rocks and scrub brush and pinpoint with uncanny accuracy the lo-cation of ruins no one had any idea were there at all."I achieved everything I could have hoped for," he said. "I won grants, honors, prizes. And all the time I knew that it was because of her." Then his eyes narrowed. "Would you mind coming up to my room? There's something I'd like to show you."

This was all getting too bizarre and outlandish for me but it was nothing compared to what would come.

The Porters' room-206, located just down the hallway from Kalish's-was crowded with her belongings, her dresses, her shoes, her toiletries, her perfumes. It even smelled like her. Porter then did an extraordinary thing; after rummaging through his effects he produced a gleaming dagger. It was beautifully crafted, its gold handle, though blackened with age, was still intact, with intricately mythical figures set in jewels on either side of it.

"It's very nice," I said. "How old is it?"

"It is of great age, this is possibly the only knife like it extant."

"You got this in your travels?"

"Yes, yes, I did. It is a ceremonial knife, you see-a sac-rificial knife. I would like you to give it to your friend the writer, Mr. Kalish."

I was bewildered. "I'm sure he'd be delighted to receive such a gift but really I think you're better off keeping it.

Kalish, I'm afraid, doesn't go in big for antiquities. If you're going to give it away give it to somebody who'd appreciate it more."

"No," he said firmly, "it must be given to Mr. Kalish. Do you recall what I said to you before about Sally's hus-band?"

"You said that she divorced him."

"I'm sorry to say that I wasn't telling you the truth. You see, Mr. Stowe, I killed him. With that knife you're holding.

Gently I placed the knife down on the table. "I don't think I understand."

He smiled wanly. "Of course, you don't. Here, let me show you something else." He reached into one of his suit-cases and produced a small black figurine which he held up for my inspection. "It's a moon goddess," he said, "She must be at least five thousand years old."

Whoever had sculpted her had done a competent but by no means exceptional job: the figurine was ripe, the breasts heavy, the pubis exaggerated, the belly engorged by preg-nancy.

"Note the face."

The features were eroded by time and abuse but from what I can see there was little beauty there.

"What do you see?"

I shrugged.

"That is my wife."

I looked up at him, more confirmed in my impression that he was mad. "I'm sorry to say, Mr. Porter, I can't see much of a resemblance."

"The resemblance is irrelevant, it doesn't matter." He made a dismissive gesture with his hand, his expression be-traying his impatience with me, my failure to understand.

"You must give this dagger to Mr. Kalish." His voice was more insistent now.

"But why? He won't know what to do with it, I'm telling you."

"Listen to me, Mr. Stowe, my wife is enraptured by him, I don't know why, I don't know why she should be attracted to him anymore than I know what many years ago led her to pick me. But the fact is that she did and now she has chosen Mr. Kalish."

Thinking that I would play his game, at least until I could conveniently excuse myself and flee his room, I said, "Allright, so she's chosen Kalish." Not for one moment did I believe that there was anything to it, at the most it was a brief dalliance. I couldn't believe that it would turn into a full-fledged affair.

"No, listen to me, Mr. Stowe, it is not so simple. If she has chosen him it means that he must kill me."

"Wait a minute now, I 'm sorry but this is a little too crazy for me." As I was saying this I was backing towards the door.

Porter, however, sensing my alarm, turned suddenly apol-ogetic. "You must pardon me for not explaining first. I didn't think. Please don't leave like this, Mr. Stowe. If you go now grave consequences might ensue which you could have pre-vented. You must give this knife to Mr. Kalish and instruct him to kill me just as twenty-five years ago I killed Mr. Bar-nard."

"If you want to die, you'll have to do it yourself. I don't think that Kalish is at all disposed to killing anybody, espe-cially people he doesn't know." It was on my tongue to make some cruel reference to cuckolded husbands but I refrained- wisely I think. I merely said, "It's not in his nature," I was hoping that by keeping my voice level and cool that somehow I might break through to him and make him see reason.

"It's no longer a matter of what Mr. Kalish wants or what I want. It is Sally who makes the decision. Once she has chosen there is no longer a choice. Either he must kill me or else, failing that, I am sorry to say I will have no choice but to kill him. I'm imploring you, Mr. Stowe."

"There's nothing I can do," I said. "I don't want any part of this."

"I know that you think me mad. You can't imagine what it was like when Sally told me what I must do to Mr.

Bar-nard. But it is worth it. No court of law will ever find your friend guilty, Sally will see to that. And she will inspire him beyond his wildest dreams. Already, I think, he is producing excellent work. It will only get better, believe me. He will produce a great hit for you, I guarantee it." "Until the next man comes along," I said. "It may take years, decades, who knows? It's worth it. It was worth it to me. But now I am all used up, there's nothing left I can give her. In bed you see ..." He let his words hang there in awkward silence. "But if Mr. Kalish will not win her . . ."

"By killing you?"

He smiled as if I were a dullwitted child who'd finally grasped the most fundamental of concepts. "Exactly." He gave a shrug. "Then I will be obliged to kill him and remain with Sally until such time as she discovers another man to whom she is equally attracted. Take a look at this if you don't believe me."

From out of his battered wallet he extracted a photo. It was worn from handling through the years and smudged. It was a photo of Sally. "That was taken when we first met. Tell me the truth, Mr. Stowe, does she look any different to you now?"

Except that she wore her hair shorter then, I had to admit that I couldn't distinguish any difference.

"You see, she is ageless, it is just what I am telling you."

I said I wasn't convinced. Photographs could be deceptive even if this one was in fact taken a quarter of a century ago. My words pained him. He grew more imploring. "Please, Mr. Stowe, take the dagger. It has to be done tonight."

"Tonight?" I was almost on the verge of believing him, such was the conviction in his voice.

"Yes, tonight." His gaze found the dagger, then returned to me. "What will it be, Mr. Stowe? It's your choice."

II.

Following my unpleasant meeting with Charles Porter I went back to the lobby, desperate for a drink. Only with a forti-fying brace of whiskey did it seem possible for me to deter-mine what I should do about this business. Uncertain how Kalish would react, particularly if he really was in the throes of an infatuation for Sally Porter, I decided not to say any-thing to him, not until I'd had an opportunity to discuss the situation with my partners.

Before I could summon the energy to go find them Marty appeared. From the troubled expression on his face I had a feeling that word of Porter's sinister proposition must have reached him too.It turned out that after my rebuff Porter had indeed solic-ited Martyrs help, using-I garnered-some of the same blan-dishments on him that he'd used on me. Like a Silas Marner who never tired of telling his tale, he'd repeated it in detail for Marty's benefit. If anything, Marty was more agitated and distressed than I had been.

"What do you think we should do?" he asked. "Drag Kalish away from his girlfriend and go back to New York?

This guy Porter's a lunatic, nothing good can come of this."

"I don't know. If we try to separate Kalish from Sally he may go on strike, refuse to write another work for us. As it is, he's going great guns. I'd hate to do anything to gum up the works."

"I don't want to sound mercenary, Jack, but if this bastard kills him then we're really going to be stuck."

Somehow I couldn't believe that Porter, for all the passion with which he'd invested his words, would actually attack Kalish. "Besides," I reminded Marty, "Kalish is several years younger than Porter and physically much stronger.

"So long as he isn't three sheets to the wind," Marty said ruefully, "Then a five-year-old kid could knock him down."

"My feeling is that if we warn Kalish and tell him to take adequate precautions we really don't have much to worry about. Tell you what, why don't we wait to talk to Paul, see what he says?"

"By the way, where the hell is Paul?"

"Isn't he upstairs in the room?"

"Haven't seen him since this morning." We both looked at each other. We had a good idea where he must be.

About twenty minutes later Paul appeared. Unlike the two of us he seemed in excellent spirits. An inexplicable smile was on his lips. "Well, hello there!" he said. "Why so glum?"

"Porter," I said.

"What about him?"

As Marty began to explain he cut him off. "I know all about the dagger and that goddess crap, I was with him just now."

"You told him to take his dagger and shove it, I hope," Marty said.

Paul looked startled. "Are you kidding? I figured what the hell? He wants Kalish to have it, let him have it. What's the big deal? Better it's in Kalish's hands than his, right?"

"I can't believe you did that, Paul," I said. "You're play-ing his goddamn game, it's crazy. What did Kalish say when you gave it to him?"

"He was a little puzzled I guess, but he took it and told me to say thank you to Porter and then went back to his work. His work, by the way, is proceeding by leaps and bounds-nine pages so far today, a record."

At that moment I wasn't concerned about Kalish's output or his sudden fecundity. "I think you're not going to like what happens, Paul," I said.

He just looked at me as if I were just saying that to aggra-vate him and didn't reply.

That night I couldn't sleep, nor did I want to. Instead, my attention was concentrated on the room below mine as I strained to pick up any sound that might signal the start of violence. I even went so far as to prowl the second floor hallway late at night, surreptitiously pressing my ear to Kal-ish's door and then to the Porters'. But I heard nothing alarming, in fact I barely heard anything at all. No laughter, no music, no strange chanting, not even the fitful clacking of Kalish's aged typewriter; the terrifying scenario I'd begun to envision after listening to Porter's fearsome tale seemed to exist solely in my head.

Sometime before dawn I must have dozed off. When I came awake there was no telling from looking out the window what hour of the day it was; the skies were leaden gray, it could have been the middle of the morning or twilight. It was ac-tually a little past ten a.m. My frayed nerves hadn't allowed me much sleep after all.

I knocked on the door to Paul and Marty's room, anxious to discover whether anything untoward had occurredduring the night, but there was no response. With a great deal of hesitancy I rapped on Kalish's door but again my knocking was met with silence.

They'd stopped serving breakfast in the dining room by this time and all I could procure for myself was the brioche and coffee a waiter found for me in the kitchen.

Later when I went outside on the porch the maddening screech of seagulls filled my ears; they were making such a racket that no other sound could get through. Glancing to my left I caught sight of a solitary figure sitting in a rocker chair staring out to sea. It was Porter.

My heart lurched, I couldn't suppress the lurid tableau that immediately sprang to my mind: Kalish lying in a heap on the floor of his room, blood trickling from the fatal wound in his chest. I was almost about to duck back into the hotel, afraid of having to confront Porter, but it was too late. From where he was sitting there was no way he wouldn't have spotted me. I was sure to find out what had happened (if anything) sooner or later, I thought, it was better I get it over with now.

Steeling myself for what was to come I approached him. He was a study in white-hat, jacket, slacks, shoes-his hands clasped together, his legs crossed at his ankles. "Mr. Por-ter," I said, "How are you this morning?" I tried to sound casual but I doubt whether I came across that way.

Porter didn't stir, the direction of his gaze remained un-wavering. I was now standing right in front of him so that there was no possibility of his ignoring me. Though he might be angry with me I wasn't prepared to be shunned so abso-lutely. "Mr. Porter!" I said a second time.

Now when he didn't respond I drew closer to him. Then I reached out and lowered my hand to his. It was cold. I felt for a pulse. There was none. Though I could see no dagger nor any trace of blood, the fact was that Charles Porter was dead.

III.

It was nearly ten years before I saw Kalish again. We met for drinks in the lobby of the SeaHarp, which was little changed from what I remembered. Kalish had noticeably aged but renewed prosperity and fame had kept him invigorated- though probably not nearly as much as his wife had. Sally looked as lovely as ever, with those glorious dark eyes of hers that caused an unsettling sensation in my chest whenever she focused them on me. If Kalish found it strange that the last decade had failed to add even a slight wrinkle to her face or put an extra pound on her miraculous body he certainly didn't let on to me about it.

Mostly what he talked about was the new wing they were building onto the house that they'd bought in the North Hill. It was my impression that Kalish still had a hankering for the city but nonetheless had settled in rather agreeably to life with Sally in Greystone Bay. She said that from the first mo-ment she'd laid eyes on the town she'd felt at home.

There was something about the people who lived here, she said, that she could identify with.

There was no mention-by any of us-of Charles Porter. Talk of his unhappy end, attributed by the local coroner to a stroke, would only have put a damper on our reunion. In any case, there were more pressing concerns on my mind.

When Kalish's play Sleep With Their Fathers had opened we were prepared for a certain critical and financial success but nothing like what happened. Within six months the play moved from its original Off-Broadway venue to Broadway, where it played for almost three years, reaping substantial rewards for all of us-Kalish, Paul, Marty, and myself.

Only, as often happens in such cases, success ultimately proved more devastating for us than failure and uncertainty had been. An acrimonious dispute that began in a drunken exchange of words at a dinner party culminated in a long and bitter legal battle, one which ended in tragedy-Paul died of a heart attack which his family blamed on us.

They main-tained that if Marty and I hadn't repeatedly dragged him into court he'd still be alive. Even after a settlement was reached, Marty refused to speak to me again because he thought I should have held out for more. Kalish meanwhile was never really a part of the dispute; he had the good fortune to be able to bank his royalty money without having to spend it all on lawyers.

Only desperation would have driven me to seek Kalish out for a favor. But there was no getting around it: my situation was desperate. Because of legal expenses and unexpected business reverses I was now staring into the abyss of bank-ruptcy with no way out. There were no longer many people I could tap for loans to tide me over until something finally worked out-if something finally worked out. But Kalish had the money, his name counted for a lot in the entertainment business, and besides, I believed he owed me a favor. Surely he wouldn't be where he was today, in a grand house with a beautiful wife, if it weren't for the efforts of my partners and myself.His home in the exclusive North Hill section of Greystone Bay proved to be a stately Victorian mansion which, with its festive gingerbread style, might have been designed by the same architect responsible for the SeaHarp. It turned out that Kalish had a lawn party planned for the evening which he urged me to stay for. "You don't have to get back to the city so soon," he said, "I'm having over some interesting people from around here, you'll have a ball."

He was so preoccupied by the preparations for this affair that he scarcely seemed to hear what I had to say. My plight failed to elicit much interest or sympathy from him; maybe he believed it too nice a day to discuss indebtedness.

The way he said he'd think about it caused me to suspect that nothing would happen; no money would be forthcoming nor could I expect him to agree to let me use his name or his contacts. I noticed that after I'd made my pitch he began to keep a certain distance from me as if I bore the mark of Cain on my brow. I had become one of them.

He probably regret-ted having invited me to his party.

Sally, however, seemed more interested in my unhappy tale. Was I mistaken to think that there was even a measure of sympathy in her eyes for me?

About half an hour before the party was to begin the house was swarming with caterers and servants, a small army taking their orders from Kalish. A big buffet table was being set up on the lawn. The gardener was raking the gravel in the driveway to make it neater for the limousines that would shortly be parking in it. Everywhere there was an air of ex-citement and intoxication that had nothing to do with me.

Drunk already and disgusted with myself for not handling Kalish's rebuff better than I had, I went in search of a bath-room. Somehow I found myself in a room with mirrors-a dressing room. In one of the mirrors the half-naked form of Sally Kalish took shape. She caught a glimpse of me in the mirror; an enigmatic smile slowly formed on her newly red-dened lips. A moment later I felt her touch on my arm. I looked around, dazzled by the sight of her, unable to speak.

"It's time," she said. "You can have what you want- everything you want." She paused, the smile vanished. "You can have me too. It is much simpler than you imagine."

"What is?" My voice sounded unnatural and foreign to me.

"You know what," she said solemnly. "The blade only has to break the skin, the poison on the tip does the rest. He won't even feel it-it's that easy." She was standing so close that I could almost feel her lustrous skin, her warmth. I had difficulty keeping my gaze on her face. "But of course if you refuse . . . you know what happens then. It will be you. I will have to tell him, he'll have no choice."

"When . . . ?" In my nervousness it was all I could man-age to get out.

"Now, this evening." She pressed the dagger into my hand before I realized what she was doing. Then she closed my fingers around the handle.

When I joined the party it was in full swing. Somebody pointed out to me that I had lipstick on my face but by then that was the least of my worries.