"You didn't like her?"

  "Emotions are the enemy of clear thought; my appraisals have nothing to do with personal affections."

  "I'll put it this way, then: what bothered you about her?"

  The pepper joined the salt on the checkered pattern. "She seemed terribly old."

  "She is seventy -two."

  "I speak of her state of mind. You can be seventy-two or ninety-two and still feel young inside."

  "People are different."

  "Mmm. Well, call it my natural caution at work. You were cautious as well. Why did you give her Miss Smythe's telephone number and not my own?"

  I shrugged. "I didn't really think about it at the time. You're going to be gone for a while and I'm over at Bobbi's a lot."

  "And perhaps you're worried that Braxton might trick or force my number from Gaylen and trace it down."

  I frowned agreement. "There's that. I've got the house detective looking out for him, though, so Bobbi should be all right. The geezer's a little cracked, but I don't see him getting violent with an old lady."

  "No doubt, but violence can emerge from the most unexpected sources. I can recall an exceptionally sordid case of two children knifing their grandmother to death to obtain her pet cat."

  Escott's food arrived and delayed conversation for a while. Between the smell of the steaming dishes and his story, my stomach began to churn.

  "I saw a drugstore on the corner and need to get some stuff," I said. "Be back in a few minutes."

  He nodded, his attention focused on carving up his meal.

  My shopping expedition left me with some mouth gargle, shoe polish, new handkerchiefs, and a handful of change for the phone. I folded into the booth and got the operator.

  This time my mom answered, and for the next few minutes bent my ear as she reported the latest domestic crisis. Webber and Braxton had shown up at the house early the next morning, but unfortunately for them my brother Thorn had dropped by for breakfast. The last three generations of Fleming males have been on the large side, and so he and Dad had no trouble throwing the troublemakers out. The yelling and language woke up any late-sleeping neighbors, but they were more than compensated by the show.

  That same day the cops came, and at first Mom thought Braxton had called them, but they had different business altogether. Someone from the Grunner farm had reported vagrants on our old place, but the Grunners maintained total ignorance about the call. However, there had been a break-in as reported.

  "Your father is fit to be tied over this, I can tell you," she concluded after giving me a full inventory of the damage.

  "Is he fixing it, then?"

  "Well, certainly, but it will take him awhile, and then there's no guarantee that the place will be left alone."

  "Oh, yes, there is."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, what would it cost Dad to install some real indoor plumbing?"

  When we'd still been living there. Mom had known the figure down to the penny, but now she wasn't so sure. "What does it matter now, anyway?"

  "Because if he puts some in he can rent the place out. That way it's occupied and you two have some extra income every month."

  "You want a bunch of strangers running all over our old house?"

  She'd never been so affectionate about the place when we'd been living there. "Better a bunch of strangers paying you rent than some tramps tearing it all up."

  "Well…"

  "Try to find out how much and I'll put up the money—"

  "But you can't afford to—"

  "I can now. I have a very understanding boss who pays bonuses for good work."

  "In these hard times? He must be one of the Carnegies."

  "Just about. Will you do it?"

  She would, and when I hung up it was with a little more confidence in their future.

  My personal future included immediate plans to visit Bobbi. I dialed her next and asked if she were receiving callers.

  "That's a funny way of putting it," she said.

  "I'm feeling old-fashioned tonight."

  "Oh yeah? Well, come on over. I'm rehearsing, but I think we can squeeze you in."

  I was disappointed, but kept it out of my voice. "You've got company?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Marza?"

  "Yes, that's it." Her phrasing indicated she was being overheard.

  "Maybe I should stay away."

  "No…"

  "You mean if you can stand it so can I."

  She laughed. "Sure, that sounds right."

  "Okay, but if she threatens my life I reserve the right to withdraw to a safe distance."

  She laughed again in agreement and we said good-bye.

  Escott was in deep conversation with a stout bearded man wearing a white apron when I returned. They seemed to be talking about food from their gestures. They were using German and I only knew a couple of words. The man made some kind of point, Escott conceded, and the man looked pleased and left.

  "What's all that about?"

  "Against my better judgment, Herr Braungardt has tempted me into dessert, a torte of his own invention. This may take some time, I don't wish to tie you up."

  "How long could it take to eat a dessert?"

  "Long enough for him to try and persuade you to have a sample. I can find my own way home. Don't worry."

  "If you need help, I'll be at Bobbi's." Grinning, I left him to his overstuffed fate.

  I found a place that sold flowers and bought a handful of the least wilted-looking roses. They were cradled in my arm when I stepped off the elevator onto Bobbi's floor. The operator didn't have to tell me she had company this time, I could hear the piano and her voice clearly enough, despite the walls and solid door.

  I thought to wait outside until the song was finished, but she cut off in mid-note. There was a murmured consultation, then the music began again. Marza's voice was hardly recognizable, and when she spoke to Bobbi her tones were soft and affectionate and heavily sprinkled with endearments.

  "You've got to hold the note just a bit longer, baby. Count one, two, three, then we both start the next phrase…"

  I knocked and a second later Bobbi answered.

  She just looked at the flowers, and her face lit up in a smile that sent me to the moon and back. She accepted them gracefully, her hands lingering on mine. "Any special reason?" she asked.

  "I felt sentimental."

  "Do I do that to you?"

  "Among a lot of other things."

  She took my hand and led me inside. Marza was at the piano, just lighting a thin black cigar. Her posture was straight and stiff and she was wearing another V-necked disaster, this time in yellow. It was quite a contrast to the pink satin lounging pajamas that Bobbi had clinging to her rounded figure. Marza glanced once in my direction without making eye contact, then pretended to study the sheet music before her.

  On the sofa sprawled her Communist friend, Madison Pruitt. He looked up doubtfully, having seen my face once, hut unable to attach a name to it. He was holding a tabloid, apparently interested in a murder investigation that the police weren't conducting to the satisfaction of the paper's editor.

  "Madison, you remember Jack Fleming from last night?" prompted Bobbi.

  "Certainly," he replied, still uncertain. At the party he'd been too involved spouting politics to Marza to notice our introductions. I regretted that the present circumstances were not similar, and didn't relish the prospect of conversing with a zealot.

  "I think we should take a break," said Marza, not looking up from her music. "My concentration's all broken. Some coffee, Bobbi?"

  Bobbi took the broad hint and I offered to help, so we had some semi-privacy in the kitchen. It was cramped, but organized; she worked on the coffee, and I ended up scrounging for something to put the roses in. I found a container that looked like a vase and loaded it with water.

  "Here, put a little sugar in the bottom, they'll last longer. What's so funny?"

  "Marza. I have to laugh at her or sock her one."

  "I don't blame you, she can be a little trying at times."

  "A little? That's like saying Lake Michigan's a little wet."

  She stifled her own smile, and then we said hello to each other until the coffee was ready.

  "Time to get the cups," she murmured.

  "Couldn't we do this for a few more hours?"

  "The coffee'll get cold."

  "I don't want any."

  "Yes, I suppose you want something else."

  "Bobbi, you're psychic."

  "Nope, I've got eyes. You're showing."

  I snapped my mouth shut, trying the gauge the length of my canines with my tongue. Bobbi snickered and pulled out a tray, cups, and saucers. I carried it all in while she got the coffeepot.

  Marza was next to Pruitt on the sofa and looked up. "What did you two do, go to Brazil for the beans?"

  "No, just to Jamaica," Bobbi answered smoothly, filling the cups.

  Marza approached her coffee delicately, tested one drop on her tongue, and decided to wait for it to cool. In contrast, Pruitt just grabbed his cup, leaving his saucer on the tray. I supposed he considered saucers to be an unnecessary bourgeois luxury.

  "Your flowers, Bobbi, where are they?" Marza asked.

  "Forgot 'em. I'll be right back." She slipped into the kitchen, but didn't come right back. Instead she was opening a cupboard, clattering a plate, and making other vague sounds.

  "Flowers, such a thoughtful gift," Marza said sweetly. "You did know that Bobbi is allergic to some of them, or didn't you?"

  "A lot of people are," I said evenly, and smiled with my mouth closed. I was speaking normally, but taking no chances on revealing the length of my teeth.

  "Waste of money," said Pruitt, his nose still in the tabloid. "They die in a day or two and then you're left with rotting plants and no money. People are fighting and dying, you know."

  "So you've told us, Madison," she said. "I don't notice you joining them, though."

  "My fight is right here, trying to bring the truth to—"

  "Cookies?" said Bobbi, just a shade too loud. She put the roses on the piano and offered the plate of cookies to Pruitt. It was a skilled move on her part—he had to choose between the plate, his coffee, or the paper. A hard decision for him, but the food won out and he dropped the paper. He was further distracted from his train of thought as he tried to figure out how to help himself to a cookie with both hands occupied holding the plate and his cup.

  "You're not joining us?" Marza asked me as she walleyed Pruitt's juggling act. If he dropped anything it would be on her.

  "No, thank you."

  "Watching your weight, I suppose."

  "No, I have allergies."

  Pruitt finally gave the plate to Marza, then grabbed some cookies from it. They didn't last long and disappeared all at once into his wide mouth.

  "You'll have to excuse Madison, he was raised in such a large family that he had to compete with his siblings for food, and learned to eat quickly in order to gain any nourishment."

  "You know I'm an only child, Marza," he mumbled around the mass of crumbs in his mouth.

  "Oh, I must have forgotten."

  Pruitt nodded, content to correct her.

  "What do you do for a living, Mr. Fleming?" she asked.

  I couldn't say I was an unemployed reporter doing part-time jobs for a private investigator and opted for the next best thing. "I'm a writer."

  "Oh? What do you write?"

  "This and that."

  "Fascinating."

  "Need a writer," said Pruitt. He cleared his mouth with a gulp of coffee. "We need people good with words, articles for magazines, slogans—can you do that?"

  "I'm sure anyone who knows even a little about the alphabet can help your cause, Madison," she said.

  "Great. You think you could help out, Fleming?"

  I could see how he was able to get along with Marza, since he was totally oblivious to her sarcasm. I was beginning to like him for it. " 'Fraid I don't have the time."

  "For some things in life you have to take the time. People have to wake up from their easy living and realize they must join with their brothers to battle for the very future of man on earth."

  "H. G. Wells."

  "Huh?"

  "That sounds like his War of the Worlds."

  "Who's that again?" He pulled out a little book and scribbled it all down. "What else has he written?"

  "Lots of things. They'll be in the library." I wondered how many English courses he'd skipped in school to go to political rallies.

  "Madison can't go there," said Marza. "They won't let him in."

  Pruitt got a look on his face that would have done justice to a New Testament martyr.

  "Why not?"

  "Because there is no true freedom of speech in this country. The people here think there is because their capitalistic lords say so, but that isn't really true."

  "Why not?" I tried again, this time with Marza.

  "The library didn't happen to have a copy of some book he wanted. There was no English translation available and they weren't planning to order one. Madison protested by setting fire to some newspapers in the reading room, and they had him arrested."

  "I had to bring to their attention that censorship to one is censorship to all."

  "His father paid the fine, but the library still won't let him back in again."

  "Censorship." He shook his tabloid. "This story is a prime example. A man speaks his mind in a so-called public place, and then the police arrest him because his political views disagree with the established order."

  "They arrested him because he shot at a heckler," I said.

  "That's what the paper wants you to think. That 'heckler' was really an assassin for Roosevelt's Secret Service. He'd been sent to silence a voice of freedom for the masses and only got what he deserved."

  My mouth sagged a little. Pruitt got the satisfied look of one who had scored a real point. A half dozen counterarguments popped into my head, but the best course was to say nothing. There was absolutely no point having a battle of wits with someone who was unarmed.

  Bobbi put her cup down and suggested more rehearsal. It was gratefully accepted and the ladies returned to the piano. Madison stretched his legs out, crossed his arms, and yawned loud and long. The volume was sufficient for yodeling and the size of his mouth—a quantity of crumbs were still trapped in his molars—was an inspiration to well drillers everywhere. He wound up his musical solo and shut his eyes. From the not-so-subtle movements of his jaw, he seemed to be rooting out the last remnants of cookie with his tongue. I settled back in my chair to listen and wondered what the hell Marza saw in him, not that she was any social bargain herself.

  Her true worth, as Bobbi had said, was as an accompanist. Her hands went solidly over the keyboard with expert ease, though she had to hold them at a low angle to keep her long nails from clicking against the ivory.

  They did a warm-up on scales, and then Marza began one of the songs Bobbi would sing for the broadcast. It was a rich slow number and made a good showpiece for her voice, which was excellent. I sighed and let the sound wash over me, soothing and exciting at the same time. Perhaps later in the soft darkness of her room I would ask her to sing again.

  They finished and held a consultation over it and I cast around for something to read, my eye catching on a fresh copy of Live Alone and Like It on the end table. I flipped through, noticing it was a gift to Bobbi from Marza. It would be. I was just starting to read a chapter with the unbelievable title: 'The Pleasures of a Single Bed,' when the room got unnaturally quiet.

  Pruitt was staring at some point behind me, mouth and eyes looking as if he'd borrowed them from a dead fish. Marza and Bobbi were also frozen and doing a reasonable imitation of gaffed sea life. My back was to the door, and with a sinking heart, I turned to see what inspired the tableau.

  Advancing slowly from the wide-open door, with large silver crosses clutched in their hands were James Braxton and

  Matheus Webber. Both of them looked determined, but very nervous.

  What made the bottom of my stomach drop out was the revolver Braxton held stiffly in his other clenched fist. His finger was right on the trigger, and I didn't know how much pressure it would take for the thing to go off. If the damned idiot forgot himself…

  I stood up cautiously, my hands out and down and my eyes fixed on Braxton's. His were little pinpoints in a sea of white, gleaming with fearful triumph. Mine must have been just as wide, but without the triumph, only the fear. Unless that gun had wooden bullets, I had no concern for my own life, but anything else was another matter. If he shot at me, the bullet would pass right through, going on to Bobbi and Marza, who were right in the fool's line of fire.

  From somewhere I heard myself speaking, pleading, "Please don't do anything, Braxton. These people are innocent, please don't shoot."

  The seams on his brown face twitched a little, but I couldn't read him. I didn't dare try any kind of hypnotic suggestion— the least mistake on my part could kill Bobbi.

  "I'll do what you want, just don't shoot," I told him. "These people… they're… they're not like me, I swear they're not. They know nothing about this."

  "That remains to be seen, you leech," he said. He punctuated this by a wave of his cross and took a step forward. I flinched and fell back, but also stepped to one side. Bobbi and Marza were still out of sight behind me. Maybe they were marginally clear, but only if Braxton were a good shot.

  Matheus was as keyed up as the rest of us, but he looked around and tapped Braxton's shoulder. "Mr. Braxton, look— they had coffee."

  His eyes snapped to the tray and cups. "Is that true? Did you have coffee?"

  Only Bobbi understood the significance of his question. "Yes, we did, and cookies, too. Didn't we Madison?"

  Pruitt's head bobbed several times.

  I heard Marza shift next to Bobbi. "That's right, we all had coffee and cookies." She spoke slowly, as though to an idiot child. In this case she wasn't too far off the mark.

  Braxton shook his cross at me. "But not him."

  I repeated my flinching act and moved another step to the side. "Braxton. they know nothing at all. You have no reason to involve them—

  "Shut up."

 

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