"I'm fine," he said. "I'd be better, though, if you joined me for a drink."

There was a long silence. "Are you sure you know what you're doing, Michael?"

"No," he said.

She laughed. "In that case, give me a half hour."

He hung up and took the elevator to his room and shaved, not very well, being careful to avoid opening up the scratches on his face, but well enough so that he wouldn't look as though he had been sleeping out in the wilderness since she had seen him last. He showered and put on some clean clothes and remembered to wear a tie she had given him for Christmas some years ago, which was a color she said she liked on him.

Then he went down to the bar, no longer feeling any self-pity, and found a small table and said with satisfaction to the waiter, "We'll be two," and ordered a martini.

When she came into the room, the men turning their heads, as usual, to watch her and the women looking secretly damaged, he rose to greet her. He kissed her cheek, which was cold from the walk from her apartment and fragrant of only slightly scented soap. There was no sign on her face or in her clothes that she had spent a whole day in an office and that she had probably made a hundred decisions that might conceivably change the course of her life or the lives of the people who depended upon her.

She frowned as she looked across the table at him. "What in the world happened to your face?"

"I ran into a tree," he said. "Hang-gliding."

"Oh, Michael," she said sadly. "Still?"

"I was careless," he said. "For once."

"For once," she said, her voice dead. "As usual. Do people know where to find me to tell me when you've been killed? After all, I'm still your wife."

"I'll have a dog tag made up and hang it around my neck," Michael said, displeased, "saying, 'Please call my wife, in case of decease,' with the telephone number. I may not make The New York Times"

From then on the evening was all downhill. He tried to entertain her, told her about Antoine falling down the stairs, but she was not amused and said, "That's not like you, being involved in a con game," as though without her at his side he had allowed himself to become corrupt.

He could not tell her about Andreas Heggener or Annabel, the town bang, or the suit against him for breaking the jaw of a man who had pulled a knife on him. He could not describe his feelings when he had schussed the Black Knight or the ecstasy he had felt in bed with Eva Heggener and his complicated emotions about her or about David Cully revealing to him that Norma Ellsworth Cully had been a virgin on her marriage night. It was impossible to ask her advice about whether or not to take up Heggener's offer of a job or what he felt about Green Hollow or about Antoine's persuading an innocent black girl to smoke marijuana to help her singing or about Jimmy Davis risking his life to inform the Feds about Clyde Barlow, or about the cigar smoking old lawyer, Mr. Lancaster, or the dotty old drunken cop saying, "Thug, speeder, mugger, breaker of the peace, unwelcome element." He could not tell her that he was as committed to saving a man's life as he had ever been committed to her, or of being accused of being homosexual and a fortune hunter by the man's wife. There was no way of letting her know how he felt when he looked out his window at dawn and saw the glow of sunrise on the tops of the mountains or sat at the table with Harold Jones allowing his sixteen-year-old daughter to drink a glass of champagne because she had had her first triumph in a shabby little hill-town bar. He could not tell her of his moments of peace and his moments of turmoil, of the gun in the secret drawer and the man who had as much as threatened to kill him if he treated the man's wife, who was his mistress, badly. Marriage was an ongoing, continuous, intimate, confiding, interlocking history; separation was sealed vaults, crammed with classified, nonrevealable documents. When he asked her if she had found any men who interested her, she said, coldly, "You know I won't say anything on that subject."

Even her drinking habits had changed. When they were together and she found him drinking a martini she would always say, "The same, please." Now she was drinking straight vodka on the rocks. At just what moment in the time between had she changed? Never to know.

And he longed for her, achingly, overpoweringly, but no word he could say that night could please her. And the truth was, no word she said to him pleased him.

They went to a restaurant on Sixty-first Street where they had dined well in the past and where they had been warmly welcomed by the whole staff. But now the management had changed and nobody recognized them and the meal was awful.

And still he longed for her. The strangeness between them, the sense of their being two new persons facing each other, only intensified the longing. And that, above all, he could not tell her.

When he walked her home and asked if he could go upstairs with her, she said coldly, "I don't go in for one-night stands," and they didn't kiss goodnight and neither of them inquired when they could see each other again.

After he had left her he went back to the hotel and had a whiskey. He knew that he couldn't sleep, although he had awakened early and had driven more than three hundred miles that day. The desire she had aroused in him had now become general, vengeful. But the city he had known before Tracy, the city teeming with lovely, pliant girls, had vanished as completely as Troy, telephone numbers buried in the ashes of Pompeii. Suddenly he remembered the number of Susan Hartley. She had written it large on a piece of paper and mailed it to him after she had left, with only the words "Use it, Susan" on the sheet of paper.

He was not good at remembering telephone numbers, but now, late at night, after the lethal evening with his wife, it came to him clearly and he called it and she was home and she sounded unsurprised and pleased and gave him her address, which he could walk to, which was convenient. He walked to it and spent most of the night with her and he enjoyed it, if that was the right word, and she was a delicious girl, and it served Antoine right, but he kept seeing his wife's face as she said, at her front door, "I don't go in for one-night stands," and he couldn't make himself be a gentleman and stay in Susan's bed until morning, but said he had to get up early to drive back to Green Hollow and she didn't seem to mind, but said, "It was bound to happen," but didn't explain why she said it and he dressed and went back to his hotel without knowing what Susan had meant. Either she had meant that it had been inevitable that they would go to bed together or that he would leave when he shouldn't have left. In either case, it didn't matter at the time.

Feeling drained, he got into his own bed and slept fitfully and dreamt of his mother, which he had not done for many years.

ooooo He awoke late, with a huge and senseless erection, feeling bruised and as though he had a hangover, although he hadn't drunk all that much the night before. He called the hospital, but Mr. Heggener, he was told, was in X-Ray and could not be reached. He left a message saying that he would call again to find out when Mr. Heggener would be discharged and that he would come to fetch him.

Dave Cully would have been more tolerant this morning if he had sat across from him at breakfast, because he had only one slice of toast and three cups of black coffee. He dressed slowly and paid his bill and got his car out of the garage and saw that he would arrive back at Green Hollow long after dark and got caught in a traffic jam in the Bronx and cursed New York as he left the city, under a pall of winter smog, behind him.

It was nearly midnight when he arrived in Green Hollow and he hadn't eaten all day and was hungry, but he was too tired to stop at The Chimney Corner for a sandwich. He drove straight through the town to the cottage. When he got there, he saw a car parked, without lights, near the gate, pointing toward the town. He did not recognize the car. He drove on a little farther and parked the Porsche deep in the shadow of an embankment and walked quickly back to the gate. He hesitated only a moment at the gate, then he went up toward the mansion, staying on the soft, wet side of the road so that his footsteps were noiseless. Almost instinctively, as he came to the big house, he bent over to make himself as invisible as possible. There was no barking and he remembered that Eva had taken Bruno to the animal hospital. He could see a light in the big bedroom at the front of the house and then the beam of a flashlight in the little library that led off the living room. The light was enough for him to see two dark figures moving around in the library, where, he knew, there was the small wall safe where the Heggeners kept their valuables. The front door was slightly ajar, so he didn't have to use his key. He slipped into the dark hallway and then into the living room and started feeling his way between the familiar pieces of furniture to the desk where the pistol was kept. There were footsteps on the staircase that led down to the hallway and then a sudden flare of light as the hallway chandelier was switched on. He heard something being knocked over in the library and the crash of glass, then saw two figures running past the French windows that gave on to the porch.

"Stop!" he shouted, "or I'll shoot." He ran toward the desk and was feeling for the spring to open the drawer when a shot rang out from the hallway and he heard the whistle of the bullet as it passed over his head and smashed a windowpane. He dropped to the floor and screamed, "Stop! Stop!" Eva Heggener was standing outlined in the doorway against the hall light. She fired again. He crawled behind a couch, yelling, "It's me, Eva, Michael." She fired again and again, wildly, the bullets thudding into furniture and ricocheting off the walls. In a minute, she had used up all six cartridges in the revolver. He heard the click of the hammer on the empty chamber and stood up and turned on a lamp. "For the love of God," he shouted, "what do you think you're doing?"

She wavered unsteadily on her feet, looked down at the pistol in her hand, then dropped it on the floor. "I heard noises . . ."

"You let them get away," Michael said angrily. "And you damn near killed me."

"I heard noises," Eva repeated dully.

"It's okay," he said. "They're gone now." He went over to her and put his arms around her. She was in a nightgown and shivering. "There, there . . ." He tried to comfort her.

"This damned house," she moaned. "Stuck away in the woods. I'm always alone when I need anybody . . ." But she didn't cry and she didn't sound frightened, only angry.

"Listen, Eva, why don't you go upstairs and get dressed and I'll take you to the hotel for the night."

"I'm not going to be driven from my own house by you or anybody else," she said. She pulled away from him. "I'm going to sleep in my own bed."

"Whatever you say," Michael said soothingly. "I'll stay on down here if you need me for anything."

"I don't need anything," she said and turned and went steadily up the staircase.

When he heard the door of her room slam he bent and picked up the pistol. It was a small, pearl-handled revolver. Despite what Heggener believed, there was more than one weapon in the house and there easily could have been a death because of it. He pocketed the gun. Eva might have a dozen boxes of shells secreted upstairs.

He left the hallway chandelier lights on and went through the living room into the library and turned on the light. Except for the broken window through which the men had escaped and a table that they had knocked over in their flight, nothing seemed to have been touched. The painting hiding the wall safe was neatly in place.

Michael went back into the living room and inspected the damage Eva's fusillade had caused. It was considerable. For a moment he considered phoning the police, but that would mean keeping Eva up all night answering embarrassing questions about whom exactly she was shooting at and having to endure Norman Brewster's lectures on the criminal folly of the indiscriminate use of firearms. He decided not to call the police, but settled in an easy chair, with the lamp still on, and tried to sleep.

He was sure he hadn't slept at all, but he was awakened by Eva, shaking him. He blinked up at her from the chair. The morning sunlight streamed in through the windows. Eva was dressed and her face was calm. "I have to leave now for Burlington," she said. "I have to pick up Bruno. Thank you for being so vigilant in guarding my safety." Her tone was ironic, because she had had to shake him to wake him.

He stood up, still groggy. "Before you go," he said, "I have to have a word with you about what happened."

"It was very simple," she said calmly. "Criminals broke into my house and I routed them."

"What I want to say is, I don't think you ought to let the police in on it," Michael said. "Criminals or no criminals, they won't take a kindly view of all that shooting. They'll badger you for weeks."

She nodded, as though she were a teacher and he was a student who had come out with a surprisingly intelligent suggestion. "Perhaps you're right. I'm sure they'd never catch the men, anyway. When the house was looted last year they never even arrested anyone. They're useless."

"I looked into the library after you went to bed," Michael said, "and as far as I could tell, nothing had been taken."

"I frightened them away before they could get their hands on whatever it was they were looking for. Whatever else I am," she said proudly, "I am not a coward."

"No, you're not. But," he added drily, "one shot into the air would have done the job just as well."

"I would gladly have killed them," she said calmly.

"You damn near killed me."

"I thought you were still in New York," she said. "It was stupid of you not to let me know you were coming. If you had been hurt, it would have been your own fault."

"I yelled my name ten times."

"I didn't hear you," she said, staring hard into his eyes. "There was so much noise." She looked around the room. "This mess will have to be cleared up."

"If you agree," Michael said, "I'll ask Herb Ellsworth to come and mend everything he can. He's a handyman and he's dependable and he won't talk if I ask him not to."

"Tell him to come tomorrow when I'll be back with Bruno," Eva said. "Now I have to go and explain to the cook what happened so she won't run screaming from the house when she sees the state of this room, and then I have to go to Burlington. You ought to get some sleep. You look perfectly dreadful."

She left the living room and he could hear her shouting in the kitchen in German to the seventy-year-old deaf cook.

Before he left the house he put the front door key on the library table back of the sofa. He was not going to have any further use for it. As he walked slowly down the graveled path toward the cottage, he wondered if, despite the noise, she hadn't heard him calling his name after all. And he remembered that she hadn't asked him anything about his trip or how her husband had taken it. He went out the gate and got his car. It had not been touched. He drove it up to the cottage door. For a moment, out of habit, he reached in to take out his bag. He had his hand on the grip and was raising it, when he let it drop back. Then he went into the cottage and packed the remainder of his belongings and put them in the car. If Eva Heggener was to be protected she would have to find someone else to do the job.

He drove to Ellsworth's office and explained what had happened. "The lady was hysterical," he said, "and just fired all over the place at random. There's some patching and mending to do and she'd rather not let the police get wind of it."

"I can understand that," Ellsworth said. "They still haven't found my truck and whenever they have nothing else to do they come around bothering me asking me questions about people who worked for me ten years ago, as if I remembered. I'll do what I can, Mike, and keep my mouth shut."

"Thanks, Herb. You're a good man to have in a town."

"They're asking me to run for mayor," Ellsworth said. "Fuck them."

Michael laughed and said, "By the way, I've moved from the cottage."

"Where you going to be? The hotel?" If Ellsworth thought Michael's moving had anything to do with the shooting, he kept his suspicions to himself.

"No. I'm just going to mosey around the countryside for a week or two and settle my nerves. I'll be back when I get Heggener out of the hospital."

"About this time of year," Ellsworth said, "I get mountain fever, too, and feel like taking off. Only / can't. Some people're born lucky and some have to work. Have a good time. See you."

"See you," Michael said and went out and got into his car and drove slowly through town and out along the sunny road.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

He went from one ski village to another, always alone, going up when the lifts opened in the morning and ending the day when they closed in the late afternoon. He skied in a snowstorm, in sleet, in powder, on ice, always at full speed, then when night fell got into the car and drove on to the next village, where he would take a room at a motel, gulp dinner and fall into bed, exhausted. He avoided talking to anyone and lived in his ski clothes and only took them off when he went to bed. He slept without dreams, woke early, barely looked to see what the weather was, went grimly to the mountain to ski as though the mountain were his enemy, to be defeated only by speed and relentless onslaught. He didn't fall once in the whole week he spent on this purgative downhill voyage and when the week ended and he knew from calling the hospital that Mr. Heggener was expecting him to come and drive him back home the next day, his body, at least, was singing and his face was so burned and whipped by sun and wind that he looked like a lean and dangerous Indian brave after a long and hazardous raid.

He drove all night so that he could pick up Heggener early the next morning. Heggener was waiting for him just inside the hospital entrance, not looking as well as when he had gone in just the week before; not ill, but a little pale because his tan had gone from his face in the seven days.

"My God, Michael," Heggener said when he saw him, "what have you done to yourself? You look absolutely gaunt."

"I took a little skiing holiday," Michael said, as he stuffed Heg-gener's overnight bag in beside his own piled luggage.

"How was the snow in Green Hollow?"

"I don't know," Michael said. "I've been in Stowe, Sugarbush, Mad River, Big Bromley, other places."

They got into the car and started off.

"How was it?" Michael asked. "In there, I mean."

"Not so bad," said Heggener. "They believe I'm well on the road to recovery." He smiled. "Although one of the older men said there must have been some faults in the tests and he's going to go over the data again. They want to see me again in a month." He made a sound of distaste. "Enough of illness. How about you? Have you come to a decision about the hotel yet?"

"I'm afraid not, Andreas. I'll need some more time, if you don't mind. If you can't wait, please make other plans."

"I can wait," Heggener said.

They were on the big open highway winding north when Michael asked, "Did Eva tell you what happened?"

"I haven't spoken to her," Heggener said quietly.

"She didn't call?"

"No. I imagine she was busy," Heggener said. "With Bruno coughing and all." He permitted himself a small smile. "And I decided to give her a rest for a few days from thinking about me. We may be on better terms because of it when we see each other again. What did happen?"

For a moment, Michael was tempted to tell the man that nothing in particular had happened or make up some harmless little lie of village gossip. But no matter how skillfully Ellsworth had worked at patching up the damage to the living room, he couldn't have done enough to hide all evidence of the shooting. Heggener would know soon enough and it was better that he be prepared before he went into the house.

"All right," Michael said. "There was a burglary. Or rather an attempted burglary." Then he told Heggener the whole story, the car parked with no lights, his own scouting expedition, the two figures and the flashlight beam in the library, his moving toward the desk to get the pistol, then Eva's sudden appearance and the wild shooting and the men's flight.

"Good God," Heggener said, "Eva handling a gun! Where did she get it?"

"I don't know," Michael said. "It's a little pearl-handled thing. I have it in my bag. Didn't you know she had it?"

"Certainly not." Heggener sounded angry. "Didn't I tell you that the Smith and Wesson was the only weapon in the house?"

"I thought you might have forgotten," Michael said tactfully.

"You may think I'm an old man with a failing memory," Heggener said, "but I would remember if my wife had a gun."

"I didn't call the police," Michael said. "No real harm was done and Eva was in no condition to answer questions by policemen."

"That was considerate of you, Michael," Heggener said softly. "In fact, your whole performance makes me rather ashamed of myself. I wonder if I would have done as much."

"I didn't do anything much," Michael said. "I was curious about the parked car and I went to investigate. That was one of the reasons you gave me the cottage, remember."

"Yes, I know. But it didn't include getting killed."

"Sneak thieves in a place like Green Hollow weren't likely to be carrying guns," Michael said, although he remembered that the year before Bruno's predecessor had been shot. "In fact, they went out the window so fast when they heard footsteps a greyhound wouldn't have caught them. All I did was duck."

"All I can say is that there won't be more than one gun in that house from now on," Heggener said grimly. "Not if I have to go through every drawer and look under every carpet and bed and behind every book in the house to make sure."

"I'm positive Eva must have learned her lesson by now."

"/ am not so positive," Heggener said.

"Anyway, to avoid any further target practice," Michael said, "I've moved out of the cottage."