Play It as It Lays

13

WHEN CARTER CALLED the next morning it was from the motel on the desert. His voice was measured, uninflected, as if he had been saying the words to himself all night. "I love you,"

she whispered, but it was more a plea than a declaration and in any case he made no response. "Get a pencil," he ordered. He was going to give her a telephone number. He was going to give her the telephone number of the only

man in Los Angeles County who did clean work.

"Then we'll see."

"I'm not sure I want to do that," she said carefully.

'All right, don't do it. Go ahead and have this kid.'

He paused, confident in his hand. She waited for him to play it through. "And I'll take Kate."

After he hung up she sat very still. She had a remote sense that everything was happening exactly

the way it was supposed to happen. By the time she called him back she was calm, neutral, an intermediary calling to clarify the terms.

"Listen," she said. "If I do this, then you promise I can have Kate?

You promise there won't be trouble later?"

"I'm not promising anything," he said. "I said we'll see."