"You're full of copybook maxims," she saidwith some malice. "I want a serious answer."

"You could always try me."

"I may at that. I have a use—I mean, I need aman."

"Is that a proposal, or a business proposition,or are you thinking about some third party?"

"You're the man I have in mind. What would yousay if I told you that I'm likely to be killed this weekend?"

"I'd advise you to go away for the weekend."

She leaned sideways toward me. Her breast hardlysagged. "Will you take me?"

"I have a prior commitment."

"If you mean little Mr. Alex Kincaid,I can pay you better than he can. Not to mention fringe benefits," sheadded irrepressibly.

"That college grapevine is workingovertime. Or is Dolly the source of your information?"

"She's one of them. I could tell youthings about that girl that would curl your hair."

"Go ahead. I've always wanted curlyhair."

"Why should I? You don't offer a quidpro quo. You don't even take me seriously. I'm not used to being turned downflat, by the way."

"It's nothing personal. I'm just thephlegmatic type. Anyway, you don't need me. There are roads going in threedirections-.Mexico, the desert, or Los Angeles—and you have a nice fast car.

"I'm too nervous to drive any distance."

"Scared?"

She nodded.

"You put up a good front."

"A good front is all I have."

Her face looked closed and dark, perhapsbecause the sunlight had faded from the room. Only her hair seemed to hold thelight. Beyond the slopes of her body I could see the mountains darkening down.

"Who wants to kill you, Helen?"

"I don't know exactly. But I've beenthreatened."

"How?"

"Over the telephone. I didn'trecognize the voice. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, or somethingin between." She shuddered.

"Why would anybody threaten you?"

"I don't know," she said without meeting myeyes.

"Teachers do get threatened from timeto time. It usually isn't too serious. Have you had a run-in with any localcrackpots?"

"I don't even know any local people. Except theones at the college, of course."

"You may have a psychoneurotic in one of yourclasses."

She shook her head. "It's nothing like that. Thisis serious."

"How do you know?"

"I have my ways of knowing."

"Is it anything to do with Dolly Kincaid?"

"Perhaps. I can't say for sure. The situation isso complicated."

"Tell me about the complicated situation."

"It goes a long way back," she said,"all the way back to Bridgeton."

"Bridgeton?"

"The city where I was born andraised. The city where everything happened. I ran away, but you can't run awayfrom the landscape of your dreams. My nightmares are still set in the streetsof Bridgeton. That voice on the telephone threatening to kill me was Bridgetoncatching up with me. It was the voice of Bridgeton talking out of thepast."

She was unconscious of herself, caught ina waking nightmare, but her description of it sounded false. I still didn'tknow whether to take her seriously.

"Are you sure you're not talking nonsense out ofthe present?"

"I'm not making this up," she said."Bridgeton will be the death of me. Actually I've always known itwould."

"Towns don't kill people."

"You don't know the proud city of my birth. Ithas quite a record along those lines."

"Where is it?"

"In Illinois, south of Chicago."

"You say that everything happened there. What doyou mean?"

"Everything important—it was all over before Iknew it had started. But I don't want to go into the subject."

"I can't very well help you unless you do."

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009