"Irony isn't your forte, so drop it.All I'm asking for is a small service which I will repay in kind at theearliest opportunity. Are you recording?"

I heard the click of the machine, and toldit and Arnie about Helen's death. "A couple of hours after the shooting,the man I'm interested in came out of the murder house and drove away in ablack or dark blue convertible, I think a late-model Ford, with a Nevadalicense. I think I got the first four figures—"

"You think?"

"It's foggy here, and it was dark.First four figures are probably FT37. The subject is young and athletic, heightabout five-eleven, wearing a dark topcoat and dark snap-brim fedora. I couldn'tmake out his face."

"Have you seen your oculist lately?"

"You can do better than that, Arnie. Try."

"I hear senior citizens can get free glaucomatests nowadays."

Arnie was older than I was, but he didn't like to havethis pointed out. "What's bugging you? Trouble with the wife?"

"No trouble," he said cheerfully."She's waiting for me in bed."

"Give Phyllis my love."

"I'll give her my own. In case I comeup with anything, which seems unlikely in view of the fragmentary information,where do I contact you?"

"I'm staying at the Mariner's RestMotel in Pacific Point. But you better call my answering service inHollywood."

He said he would. As I hung up, I heard agentle tapping on my door. It turned out to be Alex. He had pulled on histrousers over his pajamas.

"I heard you talking in here."

"I was on the phone."

"I didn't mean to interrupt."

"I'm through phoning. Come in and have adrink."

He entered the room cautiously, as if itmight be booby. trapped. In the last few hours his movements had become verytentative. His bare feet made no sound on the carpet.

The bathroom cupboard contained twoglasses wrapped in wax paper. I unwrapped and filled them. We sat on the twinbeds, drinking to nothing in particular. We faced each other like mirror imagesseparated by an invisible wall of glass.

I was conscious of the differences betweenus, particularly of Alex's youth and lack of experience. He was at the age wheneverything hurts.

"I was thinking of calling Dad,"he said. "Now I don't know whether I should or not."

There was another silence.

"He won't say 'I told you so,' in somany words. But that will be the general idea. Fools rush in where angels fearto tread and all that jazz."

"I think it makes just as much senseif you reverse it. Angels rush in where fools are afraid to tread. Not that Iknow any angels."

He got the message. "You don't think I'm afool?"

"You've handled yourself very well."

"Thank you," he said formally. "Even ifit isn't actually true."

"It is, though. It must have taken somedoing."

Whisky and the beginnings of human warmthhad dissolved the glass wall between us. "The worst of it," he said,"was when I put her in the nursing home just now. I felt as if I was—you know,consigning her to oblivion. The place is like something out of Dante, withpeople crying and groaning. Dolly's a sensitive girl. I don't see how she'll beable to take it."

"She can take it better than someother things, such as wandering around loose in her condition."

"You think she's insane, don'tyou?"

"What I think doesn't matter. We'llget an expert opinion tomorrow. There's no doubt she's temporarily off base.I've seen people further off, and I've seen them come back."

"You think she'll be all rightthen?"

He'd grabbed at what I said like a flyingtrapeze and swung up into hopefulness. Which I didn't think ought to beencouraged:

"I'm more concerned about the legalsituation than the psychiatric one."

"You can't really believe she killedthis friend of hers—Helen? I know she said so, but it isn't possible. You see,I know Dolly. She isn't aggressive at all. She's one of the really pro-lifepeople. She doesn't even like to kill a spider."

"It is possible, Alex, and that wasall I said. I wanted Godwin to be aware of the possibility from the start. He'sin a position to do a lot for your wife."

Alex said, "My wife," with akind of wonder.

"She is your wife, legally. Butnobody would consider that you owe her much. You have an out, if you want touse it."

The whisky slopped in his glass. I thinkhe barely restrained himself from throwing it in my face.

"I'm not going to ditch her," hesaid. "If you think I ought to, you can go to hell."

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009