Smoke

What would the cops do next? They must have received more than one report about a bicycle traveling all on its own, because one report they would have figured was a nut. These two officers had been sent out to check into it. They'd seen the bicycle, or they'd seen something, far away and indistinct, and they'd seen it go into the cornfield. Now they'd look around in here for a while, and then they'd radio in that they thought they'd seen it but had lost it, and they'd be told there's no point hanging around, let's see if there's any more reports, and in any case a bicycle riding by itself doesn't actually break any man-made laws, only natural ones. So they'd go away.

That was Freddie's theory, anyway, and he liked it. What he didn't like was that, as he moved into the dip in the land, he saw that just ahead the cornfield gave way to pasture with cows in it, surrounded by barbed-wire fence.

There was nothing for it but to turn left and go back out to County Route 14. He was in the dip now, and the state-police car was out of sight. May it stay out of sight. Freddie coasted to the bottom of the dip, switched to the climbing-out-of-a-dip gear, and sped on.

There was no rearview mirror on this thing, unfortunately. Freddie had to keep looking back over his shoulder. Up to the top of the dip, and he saw way behind himself to the police car still stopped beside the cornfield. Around the curve he went, shifted into the good-level-road gear, and hit forty-five without working up a sweat.

Robert said, "Peter, if I didn't know you have no sense of humor—"

"Well, thank you very much."

"You're welcome. And if I hadn't seen those two ghostly cats of yours with my very own eyes, I would think, when you tell me an invisible man is on his way here to this house from the city, that you were pulling my leg."

David said, "Robert, I would give my leg for this not to be true."

One of the four who had just heard the whole story for the first time, a talent agent named Gerald, said, "Peter, what I still don't understand is, if you never considered using these potions togeth—"

"Formulae."

Gerald smirked a bit, but nodded. "Whatever you say, dear. If you never put these things together on purpose, in your lab, how can you be so sure what their combined effect might be?"

"Computer models," David answered.

"Also, I'm afraid, empirically," Peter said, and looked mournful. "On the phone just now, Freddie asked me when the invisibility would fade off and he'd get to be visible again."

David made a low moaning sound. "Lunch," said the canapй waiter.

Martin got to his feet. "We have an hour and a half, at the very least, before this fellow gets here. We'll have our lunch, and then we'll decide what to do."

"I know what to do, Peter said, also standing. "Once we've got our hands on Freddie, I want to keep him. Not lose him stupidly, the way we did last time."

"And not," David added, "turn him over to those awful tobacco people."

"Nor," Peter said, "that even worse policeman."

"Oh!" David cried, at the very memory of Barney Beuler. "Certainly not!"

"We'll capture him," Robert decided. "Thirteen of us, one of him. I don't care how invisible he is, or how clever, we can surround him and capture him and tie him to a piece of furniture if we have to."

"A large piece of furniture," Peter advised.

"First," Martin said, "lunch."

The car that squealed to a stop in the middle of the road was full of drunken teenage boys. It came down Route 14 from the north, weaving back and forth in the road ahead of Freddie, polluting the air with terrible rap noises, and then it stopped so suddenly its front bumper kissed the blacktop, and five teenagers piled out of it, leaving the doors open and the rap snarling as they ran with drunken intensity straight at Freddie. That is, at the bicycle rolling along all by itself at the edge of the road.

Damn, damn, double damn. By Freddie's calculations, Quarantine Road would be just a little beyond that next curve up there; he was almost to it. But these drunken clowns were too close and coming too fast for Freddie to take any evasive action, even if he'd had a friendly cornfield beside him instead of these hilly, rocky, underbrush-clogged woods. No time to swing around and head the other way, and no profit in it, either, since they could always catch up with him in their car, and probably run him down with it, too.

Freddie jumped off the bike and gave it a shove toward the woods. It was still rolling, though with a distinct wobble, when the first of the drunken louts reached it, and launched himself through the air and tackled it, which must have hurt.

Freddie was already through them, running toward their car, the blacktop hot beneath his bare feet. The car was an old Ford LTD that had apparently been used as a stable for several years. The driver had not only left the rap crap blasting and the key in its ignition, he'd left the engine running as well, merely shifting into "park" before he'd leaped out in pursuit of the bike. Sliding behind the fuzzy-cloth-covered wheel with its eight-ball speed-turner mounted on it, feeling his body immediately stick to the vinyl fake-zebra seat cover, Freddie grabbed the eight-ball-topped gearshift with one hand while slamming the driver's door with the other, shifted into "drive," and drove.

The assembled meatheads looked up from dismembering the bicycle to see their former chariot execute a fast hard K-turn, its other doors slamming as the LTD shot forward, its wheels smoking as it reversed, and the whole car bouncing like something in a demolition derby when it slashed away, northbound.

How they yowled! Like hyenas disturbed over carrion. Freddie couldn't hear them, because he was leaving so fast and also because he couldn't figure out at first how to stop that strident yawp out of the LTD's oversize speakers. Then he was around the far curve, the throwbacks were out of sight, and he slowed down long enough to discover the racket didn't come from a radio station but a tape. He ejected the tape from the player, and then from the car.

Quarantine Road. Freddie made the turn, and on this narrow dirt road there was no other traffic at all. If he'd only made it this far on the bike, he'd have been absolutely safe.

On the other hand, this LTD was faster, if grubbier. Freddie drove along, and in no time at all he passed the archway with the double S's. A blacktop road went in under it, but no structures could be seen from here in those woods.

Freddie kept going, and a quarter mile later he found a weedy dirt track that wandered away to the right. He drove in there, went far enough to be invisible from Quarantine Road, turned off into the scrubby woods, and kept going until the bottom was torn out by a rock. That seemed far enough.

Most people wanted to talk about the invisible man during lunch, but Martin would have none of it. "Our digestions come first," he said. "We can wait, and take our time, and have a nice lunch, and then, over coffee afterward, we can discuss exactly what to do about Peter and David's invisible man."

Of course Nurse Martin was, as usual, right. So everybody thought about the invisible man, but spoke, if they spoke at all, disjointedly about other things that didn't matter a bit.

At last lunch was finished, coffee was served, and the plates and staff were removed to the kitchen. Robert said, "Now, does anyone have anything they've been dying to say?"

A clamor of voices arose, but through them drove the Kissingeresque basso of Edmond, a corporate attorney in his other life, who said, "I would like to say a word about kidnapping."

That shut everybody up. They all stared at Edmond, a bearlike man famous in his group for having more hair on his shoulders than on his head. At last, William, an antiques dealer, said, "Edmond, this isn't kidnapping. This is an invisible man!"

Edmond spread his meaty hands. "Hath an invisible man no rights? Hath he not hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, even if you can't see them? If you prick him, doth he not bleed?"

"Not so's you'd notice," said Peter.

Edmond said, "I just think you should consider the ramifications, from a legal point of view, before you proceed."

"Fine," David said. "Then we'll proceed."

"And it isn't kidnapping," Peter insisted. "We had an agreement with the man."

"Which he abrogated," Edmond said, "when he left your house."

"And which he reinstated," Peter said, "when he phoned me. He phoned me, Edmond, not—"

"Us," said David.

"Exactly," Peter said. "He phoned us, he asked for either of us, so he was returning to the original agreement, and in fact he said so on the phone, offered to go on with the observation pattern we'd agreed to in the first place."

"An interesting question," Edmond said. "Unlikely, I suppose, to go to court."

"Freddie is very likely to wind up in court," Peter said, "but hardly as the plaintiff."

Robert said, "I know we have an hour, or more than an hour, but let's figure out now what we're going to do when he gets here."

"How will we know when he's here?" asked Curtis, a set designer. "I mean, if we can't see him."

David said, "I suppose he must have some sort of car, to come all the way up from the city."

"That should be something to see," Daniel, an architect, said. "An empty car, speeding along the highway."

David said, "Maybe he has a friend who can drive him," and Peter said, "Or possibly he wraps his head in bandages like Claude Rains in that movie."

"That would be spooky," Curtis said.

Robert said, "All right, he gets here, we see his car or he rings the bell or whatever. Peter and David, you two discuss the situation with him, see if you can persuade him to cooperate, but if it becomes clear he isn't going to cooperate, we ought to have a plan."

Martin said, "Here's what we'll do. Peter, if you decide he's planning to give you the slip again, say, "Harvey,' as though that were somebody's name here—"

Peter said, "Why Harvey?"

"Because that was the six-foot invisible rabbit in the play of the same name," Martin said. "Don't worry about it, Peter, just say "Harvey' if you think we have to hold the fellow here against his will. Then we'll all jump up and block the exits, and imprison him in this room."

"I'm not very happy about that idea," Edmond said.

"But you'll go along with it," Robert told him.

Edmond shrugged those hairy shoulders. "If I must. But, Peter, if you can get his willing agreement to stay, that would be so much better than using restraint."

"We had his agreement last time," Peter pointed out, "and we saw what it was worth."

"Besides," David said, "when he finds out, you know, he's going to be mad at us."

"I'm afraid he is," Peter agreed.

"He's likely to go away," David said, "just out of spite, and then that awful policeman will get him."

"Or the tobacco-company people," Peter said.

"When he finds out what?"

"That it's permanent, of course," Peter said, then looked up and frowned at everybody, to see them all frowning at him. "Who said that?" he asked.

They all went on looking at him.

"It's permanent?"

"Oh, my God," David whispered. "He's here."

"Impossible!" Peter cried.

"Peter," David whispered. "Can he fly?"

"I'm never gonna get myself back?"

All the faces in the room were now ashen. Hair stood up on the backs of necks, throats grew dry, eyes grew wide. Everybody stared all around, even though everybody knew there would be nothing to see.

Martin leaned toward Peter. "Speak to him," he whispered.

Those first two shouts had seemed to come from over by the fireplace, but the next one sounded from the vicinity of the hall doorway: "You dirty bastards! You can't bring me back!"

Everyone was afraid to move. With nothing else to gape at, they gaped at Peter and David. Turning to gape toward the doorway, Peter said, "You shouldn't have taken the other formula, Freddie. You should have been honest with us, and none of—"

"What other formula?" The loud angry voice came now from near the front windows. "I didn't take any formula! All I took was that goddam useless antidote!"

"There is no antidote!"

"Now you tell me? You said it was the antidote!"

"I'm sorry, Freddie," David said, and Peter said, "We did lie to you, we're both sorry, but we had no idea you'd be in a position to take that other formula."

"You said it was the antidote."

"To calm you down," David said, and Peter said, "You said it first, remember? It was your idea. "Oh, yeah, the formula's the shot and the antidote's the thing you swallow.' Remember?"

"You lied to me."

"We were wrong to do that, Freddie," Peter agreed, "but you were wrong, too. You promised you'd stay, and you didn't stay."

"So what was that other thing, if it wasn't the antidote?"

"We had two formulae," Peter said, and David said, "You took them both," and Peter said, "If you'd just taken the one, none of this would have happened," and David said, "You'd be your old self now."

"I can't believe it," the bodiless voice said. It seemed to be moving steadily around the room, like a lion in a cage. "My girlfriend's leaving me because it's driving her nuts I'm like this, and now I have to tell her I'm always gonna be like this?"

"I imagine," said the other William, the screenwriter, "sex is rather odd, the way you are now." He managed to sound at the same time both sympathetic and prurient.

"We keep the lights out."

"Oral, in particular," the other William mused.

Peter said, "Freddie, if you'll come back to the lab with us, we'll work on it, I swear we'll work on it day and night. We'll devote our entire lab time to finding an antidote. I'm sure, if you'll just give us some time—"

Edmond said, "I could draw up a preliminary agreement for you all right now. There'd be profit in it, too, of course, for all of you. Film and television rights, a sort of super magic act onstage—"

"You're gonna make a freak show outta me?"

"Oh, hardly anything that tasteless," Edmond assured him.

"The rose room was nice, wasn't it?" David asked. "You wouldn't mind staying there again, would you?"

"You could put the door back on," Peter said.

"Your girlfriend could come visit you all you wanted," David said.

"We'll study you," Peter said, "we'll show you to the scientific community and we'll all study you, we'll study the effects, and I'm sure we'll find the antidote in no time."

"That's right," David said, blinking, looking hangdog.

"You're lying, aren't you?"

"Freddie, what else are you going to do?" Peter demanded.

"Stay the way I am." The bravado obvious in that voice, he went on, "I'm doing okay, don't worry about me."

David said, "The policeman will get you, the really nasty one," and Peter said, "They know about the robberies you did."

"What robberies?"

"The fur place, and the diamond place. You can't wear gloves, Freddie, you leave fingerprints wherever you go."

"What?" The discorporate voice sounded more exasperated than ever. "Invisible hands leave prints?"

"I'm afraid so, yes," Peter said.

"Goddam it!"

A champagne bottle lifted itself out of its icer, rose into the air, and tilted itself upside down. They all heard the glug-glug-glug, and they all watched in astonishment as the amber fluid flowed down a twisty curvy route through the air and made a bowl of itself three feet from the ground.

The bottle lowered, and waved around. The swallowed champagne moved tidally, like the sea. "Son of a bitch!" Freddie cried, and the bottle leaped crash back into the water and ice, without breaking. "You are some goddam guys," Freddie snarled.

Peter said, "Freddie, for your own good, please don't leave," and David said, "We're on your side, honest we are."

Everybody watched the bowl of champagne.

"With friends like you . . ." said the bitter voice. The bowl moved toward the door. "Good-bye."

"Wait!" cried David, and Peter cried, "Stop him!"

"Harvey!" shouted Martin. "Har — wait! That's very very valuable!"

A Ming vase had just jumped up from its stand and hung in midair over by the door. The visible people in the room were all frozen in odd postures, half-seated and half-standing. Martin's hand was out imploringly toward the vase.

This tableau lasted one second, two seconds, and then the voice cried, "You'll want to catch it, then!" and the vase went arching up into the air in the middle of the room.

Everybody ran for it, arms outstretched. Everybody crashed into everybody else, and the vase crashed into the floor. Everybody stared at four hundred thousand dollars in tiny pieces, and the front door slammed.

45

Roving the outside of the house, while the thirteen pursuers went haring off in all directions — or, hounding off in all directions, since they kept baying at one another — Freddie felt a deep and total bitterness, very unlike his normally sunny personality. He had to keep reminding himself that violence wasn't part of his MO. Right now, he wanted to bust up a lot more than some stupid vase that wasn't good for anything but to throw your old pennies in.

He couldn't leave here, not yet; he was stuck in this place for a while. They were all running around, hither and yon, beating the bushes with brooms and cue sticks, looking for that telltale bowl of champagne, and every once in a while finding it: "There he is! There he is!" And off he would bound once more.

He shouldn't have drunk the champagne. The news had just been so sudden and so bad, that was all. The realization of what had been done to him, and why.

In the first place, and he couldn't really articulate this very well, but he instinctively understood it, in the first place, this was a matter of class. Not sexual orientation, that wasn't the issue here. What they'd done to Freddie, those two doctors, they would not have done to anybody they considered their equal, and it wouldn't matter if the guy swung this way or that way or both ways or no way at all. They had looked upon Freddie as being underclass or lower class or working class or however they might choose to phrase it, and therefore they could treat him any damn way they wanted because the civilized rules didn't apply.

That's right. The civilized rules only applied to people who talked like them, had their kind of education, read the same newspapers and magazines, had the same attitudes toward things, including the attitudes toward people like Freddie. To know that you've been fucked over not because science needed it, or nobody else was available, or it was the luck of the draw, but only because you're scum, can take some getting used to, and can move a nonviolent guy very near to the edge of the envelope of his MO.

In the second place, Peg. Already, he and she were about to begin a trial separation just because of the way he already was, and figuring this problem had to be temporary and sooner or later he'd be getting back his regular self again. And now what? How could he tell Peg he didn't have a regular self anymore? She'd have to write him off, wouldn't she? Give up on him entirely, find some other guy she could look at over a candlelit table. Leave him completely alone.

He wasn't exactly in a state to meet girls, was he?

Over there by the house, they were coming to the conclusion that he'd gotten away. He couldn't leave the property yet, though, and in any case he was in no hurry to go away from here, to go anywhere, to do anything; not with what he knew now.

He kept roaming, wishing the champagne would hurry up and finish digesting — it hadn't improved his mood, and it kept putting those guys on his trail — and then he came across the swimming pool, out behind the house. He and the champagne could both hide in there, couldn't they, while he waited? They could. Freddie eased himself down into the pool, and morosely began to do laps.

It was Curtis the set designer who saw it. They'd all come back inside, barricaded themselves in here to some degree, and were gathered around the living room trying to decide what to do next.

Was the invisible man still somewhere on the property? If so, did he plan some sort of awful vengeance for what Peter and David had done to him? And if he did have such plans, would he be willing to restrict his vengeance to Peter and David, who after all did deserve the fellow's wrath — "Thank you I don't think" — or would he make the Draconian decision that the friend of his enemy is also his enemy, and thus wreak his awful vengeance indiscriminately on the whole crowd?

"And with thirty-four people more invited for this evening," Robert said. "This is some little contretemps you two brought us, I must say."

"You wanted him to come here," Peter said, and David said, "You all just thought it was going to be fun."

Curtis didn't like squabbling; he got enough of that in the theater. So he roved the living room while the others bickered, and after a while he picked up the bird-watching binoculars and casually looked through them, adjusting the focus, wondering what sort of bird one might watch in this neighborhood, and all at once he stiffened. "Robert," he said, half-afraid to breathe. "Robert, there's something . . . in the pool."

Freddie loved to swim. His body moved through the buoyant water, resisting him and helping him at the same time, urging him along. Below the surface, he swept along, pushing through the clear slightly warmed water, surfacing only when he needed to breathe, then rolling like a dolphin down again beneath the air.

Time disappeared. The hot thoughts in his brain cooled. He knew he was an adaptable sort of guy, inventive, basically positive. He was giving those qualities their most severe test at the moment, and he was pleased to see his better side coming through. If this is who he had to be from now on, he realized, somehow he'd figure out a way to handle it. The only real insoluble problem he could see was Peg.

What did please him, in this whole mess, was that he hadn't the slightest urge to go back to dope. Not that finding a vein would be at all easy, even if he wanted to; though on the other hand he wouldn't have that much trouble finding his nose. But he didn't want to, not even in this extreme situation, and he was glad to see that in himself. I may be disappearing, he thought to himself, but at least I seem to have grown up.

Out of air. He rolled to the surface, took in a lungful of air, heard the motor sound, and had already slip-slid back down into the moving water when the echo of what he'd just seen and heard came back to him.

The thirteen guys. They were all around the pool, looking at him. And some kind of motor was running.

Staying underwater, Freddie fishtailed on, remembering what Peg had said about being able to see him, or at least find him, in the pool. Time to get out of here. Then, as he thought that, the world around him darkened; not black, but suddenly much dimmer than before. He rolled over onto his back, and couldn't for a second figure out that darkness up there, spreading inexorably from one end of the pool to the other, And then he understood.

The pool cover! The bastards were closing their electrically run pool cover over him!

He swam ahead of the advancing darkness to the far end of the pool, but the second his wet hand touched the top of the coping around the pool's edge half a dozen of the bastards yelled, "There he is! There he is!" And came running, to surround that wet handprint.

Can't get out, not here. Freddie pushed away from the edge as people risked falling in fully dressed to reach for him. He flowed away, faceup, kicking, and here came the pool cover, right over him.

Hell! Hell and blast and damn son of a bitch!

Narrr, said the pool-cover motor, as Freddie quartered beneath it like a goldfish in a too-small aquarium. Click, said the pool-cover motor, and Freddie was completely roofed in, floating in a big room of water with no exits.

"Turn off the heater!" one of the bastards yelled.

Oh, you bastard, Freddie thought, I'll get you for this, I'll get you all for this. The rage that had consumed him, back in the house, when he'd first learned the truth, came back into him now in full force, as though it had never gone away. Go ahead and turn off the heater, he thought, my brain could heat this pool.

"Freddie? Freddie!"

It was one of the doctors, he recognized the voice, the blond baby-fat one, Dr. David Loomis. Freddie was damned if he'd talk to the bastard. To conserve his strength, he moved down to the shallow end of the pool, sat there on the lowest step, his head just below the thick tarp of the cover, and considered his situation.

Not so good. The cover was loose down both long sides of the pool, only fastened tight across the ends, but the bastards were watching the sides, they'd see the cover lump up if he tried to get out, and they'd see his wet prints on the pool surround.

Trapped. And, face it, his brain would not heat the pool. With the cover on, the sun's warmth no longer reached the water. There was no place under here that he could go without being in water. After a while, this was not going to be a pleasant place.

Crap. Freddie rested a wet elbow on a wet knee, cupped a wet chin in his wet palm, and waited.

Martin knelt beside the pool, holding up the edge of the cover so he could look in at the shadowed grotto within. It had been nearly two hours now, and the invisible man had so far refused absolutely to respond. He won't speak, he won't move, he won't do a thing. He just sits there, on the steps at the shallow end.

Martin called, "Freddie? Wouldn't you like to come out now? Isn't it getting a little cold in there? We could give you towels, a robe, we have lovely terry-cloth robes, one size fits all. No? Would you like a cup of coffee? Tea? A drink? We have a nice Spanish red that might warm you if you're feeling a bit chilly. Freddie? Forgive my informality, but I don't know your last name. You're going to make yourself sick if you stay in there much longer, you really are. Trust Nurse Martin, please do. Freddie? Darn it, you know, I can see you there, the parts of you that are under water, I can see you sitting there on that step, the least you could do, I mean, it is our pool, the least you could do is give us the courtesy of an answer. Freddie? No? Oh, Freddie, this isn't going to get you anywhere but a good case of the flu."

Reluctant, saddened, Martin dropped the pool-cover edge and got to his feet. He shook his head at Peter, nearby. "He's just stubborn, Peter, he's just very very stubborn."

Peter had decided to be coldhearted; it was the only way to handle the situation that he could see. He said, "Let him stay in there as long as he wants. Let him get really exhausted down in there, and when he finally does come out he'll be that much easier to deal with."

"I suppose so," Martin said, sorry to treat a fellow human being in such a way, and a gray van came tearing around the end of the house, over the lawn, through the hedges, with a sudden blaring squawk and ruckus of horn.

"Good God!" Martin cried. "What now?"

The van drove straight for the pool, horn screaming, regardless of whatever else was in the way. "My delphiniums!" screamed Robert.

People ran toward the van, but then they turned and ran away from it, because it was not veering out of the way. And the horn of the thing just kept blaring and blaring and blaring.

"There he is!" screamed Peter, pointing at the sudden bulge that had risen up at the side of the pool cover, and then the spray of moving water drops in the air, the sudden wet footprints on the deck.

"Stop him!" a lot of people cried, and a few tried. Gerald the talent agent happened to be nearest the expanding line of wet footprints; he ran over there, arms widespread to capture the invisible man, and suddenly he went, "Whoooffff!" and doubled up, clutching his midsection.

William the screenwriter stuck out a foot in front of the advancing prints, to trip the fellow, instead of which his ankle was grabbed by a hard hand, his leg was yanked up over his head, and he was dumped ass-over-teakettle over a folding chaise longue that then folded around him like a Venus fly-trap.

Peter came running at an angle to intercept the footprints, yelling, "Freddie, listen! Freddie, listen!" until he abruptly flipped over and fell on his back. When he sat up, his nose was bleeding. "He hit me," Peter said, in utter astonishment.

Meanwhile, the van was circling around and around, as near the pool as it could get, running roughshod over all sorts of plantings, while the grim-faced young woman at the wheel kept everybody from getting too close. Then all at once she braked to a stop, which did the lawn no good, and the passenger door snapped open and shut, and the van shot away, which did the lawn even less good.

It was gone. The van was gone. Without question, the invisible man was gone. The pool was covered, the lawn and the gardens were a wreck, the guests were staggering around in filthy disarray, the hosts were furious, nobody remembered the van's license number, and Peter's nose was bleeding.

And the weekend had just begun.

46

"How are you?"

Peg waited to ask that question until after they'd bounced over a lot of shrubbery and plantings and railroad ties and pebbly Japanese gardens and a lot of other stuff all the way around to the front of the house, and then out the weaving blacktop driveway, and then the sharp squealing rattly right turn onto the dirt of Quarantine Road, with all this time Freddie somewhere in the vehicle, no telling where, probably just holding on for dear life. "How are you?" she asked, as they settled down to the more or less straight and more or less even dirt surface of Quarantine Road.

"Iiiiii' mm freezing!"

"Oh, you poor baby!"

The voice had come from the passenger seat, and sounded much frailer and weaker than Freddie's normal voice. She reached out and touched a leg, and that was cold flesh she was feeling there. Cold and clammy. "What did they do to you?"

"In the pool," he said. "Forever, Peg."

"I saw them there," she told him. Here was the end of Quarantine Road; she made the left onto County Route 14. "I got back to the house," she said, "and saw your note, and the little map you drew up, and I came up here as quick as I could."

"Th-th-thank you."

"There were all those cars parked there, and I went first to the front door, but then I saw everybody was around back, so I snuck over and saw them around the pool, and listened, and finally figured it out they had you trapped in there."

"Boy, did they."

"When we get home, you'll take a nice hot tub, and I'll grill hamburgers, how does that sound?"

"Better than anything else I heard today."

Peg drove another half mile or so before that penny dropped. When it did, she said, "Oh? You got to talk to the doctors?"

"I got to listen to them. They didn't know I was there."

"And what did they say?"

"Well, the first thing I learned," he said, and she didn't have to see a face or body language or anything like that to know he was stalling, so that bad news must be on the way here, sooner or later, "the first thing I learned, if they do talk to me, they're gonna lie to me. They said they were, they told those other guys that."

"Who were all those people?"

"I dunno, some kind of house party. I got the feeling it was like Dracula's house, you wouldn't want to go there after dark."

"You don't want to go there in the daytime. What was the other thing you learned, Freddie?"

Long silence. Very long silence. How bad could this bad news be? And then at last he said it: "Well, Peg, what they told those other guys, this situation is permanent."

She stared at the road, appalled. Out there, five drunken teenage boys, flopping around beside the road, made some hopeless attempt at hitchhiking; she didn't give them a second's thought. "Permanent?"

"What they say now," came his deeply gloomy voice, "was that the thing they told me was an antidote wasn't an antidote, so they lied to me from the very beginning, it was their other experiment, and they never figured to put those two experiments together, so they're trying to put it around it's my fault."

"Your fault! Doctors!" Peg cried, curling her upper lip, a thing she rarely did because it didn't look good on her. "Blame the patient!"

"That's it. They lied to me before about it being the antidote, and they told their pals they were gonna lie to me about it being permanent. So the only way I can trust those guys is when they don't know I'm around."

"That's probably true of all doctors," Peg said. "But what about it, Freddie? Why not get a second opinion?"

"I wouldn't trust anything they said to me."

"From a different doctor, Freddie. Have a different doctor examine you, as best he can."

"Peg, those are the guys made up those experiments, they're gonna know better than anybody else what's what with them."

Peg scrinched up her face, as though at a bad taste. "So you really think they're right, huh?"

"Well, Peg, I've had this thing a month now, with no booster shots or nothing like that. If it was gonna wear off, wouldn't it start by now?"

"I guess. Probably."

Another silence, each of them alone with troubled thoughts, and then Freddie said, "I know what you got to do, Peg, and I don't blame you. I'd do the same. I mean, with men, a woman's looks are more important than a man's looks to a woman. Imagine if I couldn't see that nice face anymore." Then, perhaps realizing the other implication of what he'd said, he added, "I mean, if you were invisible."

"I know, Freddie."

"Here, but I couldn't see you."

"I know, Freddie."

Something touched her right forearm; she couldn't help it, she flinched, but then immediately pretended she hadn't. Freddie said, "This doesn't change anything, Peg, not between you and me. You still got to go away, see how you feel, get away from this situation for a while."

She sighed, long and sincere. "Yeah, I do, I really do."

"We can still talk on the phone, you can still come up and see me — Jeez, Peg, the language is full of land mines — you can come up and visit me when you want, we won't have to worry about what happens long-term, just take it one day at a time."

"Okay, Freddie," she said, grateful to him and loving him and sorry for him and absolutely unable to go on living with him — not right this minute, anyway.

Some of their silences together were comfortable, but not this one. It was with a real grinding of gears being shifted that Freddie suddenly said, in a bright new artificial voice, "Well, anyway, did you get me a car?"

"I got you wheels," she said.

"What do you mean? It isn't a car?"

"No no no, it's a car."

"It's not a truck, or a hearse, or a school bus."

"Come on, Freddie, I'm not going to get you anything stupid. It's a car, okay?"

Did you ever have that feeling, even though you can't see anybody, you know eyes are watching you?

"What is it?"

"It's called a Hornet. An American Motors Hornet. It's eighteen years old, and in perfect mechanical condition, except the right window doesn't roll down."

"It's green, Peg."

"So?"

"The green Hornet, Peg?"

"You worry too much, Freddie," she told him.

This was Saturday morning, around eleven o'clock. Yesterday, when they'd gotten home, Freddie had taken a long hot tub, he'd had two big cheeseburgers and two ears of corn on the cob and two bottles of beer from Pennsylvania, and then he had slept until eight that evening, and woke up just in time to eat his way through a complete dinner, after which he'd announced he was beginning to feel a little better.

This morning, Peg had called the dealer over in Putkin to be sure the car was ready, which it was. Freddie, in Dick Tracy mode, then rode in the van with Peg to Putkin, left her there outside the used-car lot, and drove on back to the house. Half an hour later — even when the dealer says it's ready, it isn't ready — Peg showed up in this thing.

The green Hornet was very low, about elbow height, and small, with two doors and a backseat just big enough for two bags of groceries and one — not two — six-pack. The front and rear windows were both so steeply slanted they almost looked straight up. The rear and side windows were covered with smoky film, and even the windshield had a faint coppery gray tinge to it. The interior was very hard to see. Freddie said, "What's with the windshield?"

"It's bulletproof. All the windows are."

"Who owned this thing? Al Capone?"

"It's not that old, Freddie. I've got the car's whole history, and it only ever had one owner, and she was a little old lady—"

"Who only drove the car once a week."

"Well, yes," Peg agreed.

"To go to church on Sunday."

"Well, no," Peg said. "Actually, to go visit her son the ax murderer in the state penitentiary."

"That's what the dealer told you."

"He showed me the newspaper clippings," Peg said. "There's a law, there's a lemon law, if a car has anything unusual in its history that you oughta know about, like a bad accident or a dead body stuffed in the trunk for a couple months, anything like that, the dealer has to tell you."

"I've heard of a lot of laws," Freddie said, "and none of them have ever made a hell of a lot of sense, if you want my personal opinion, but that one there is just about the dumbest yet. You're makin a law that mice can fly."

"Nevertheless," Peg said, "he had to tell me the history, and that's why the car was so cheap. Three hundred bucks. With a one-year guarantee on everything except tires."

"Peg," Freddie said, "there's bumps all over this car, dents and bumps."

"Well, according to the news clippings," Peg said, "the ones the dealer showed me, the people in the neighborhood hated the family, especially because the mother always kept saying her son was a good boy—"

"They always do."

"So people would throw rocks at the car every time she went by. That's why the bulletproof glass, too. And that isn't the original paint."

"No, I could see that," Freddie said. "You don't usually get brush marks on a factory job. Peg, when I drive this thing around, people are gonna throw rocks at me?"

"No, no, this all happened in Maryland. They had to move the car far away to a different state so they could sell it at all. When they auctioned it."

"Who auctioned it?"

"It was a consignment from the state of Maryland. Apparently, this dealer in Putkin is the only one even put in a bid."

"How come it was up for auction? What happened?"

"Well, the son's prison time was up, so they let him go."

"Yeah? And?"

"And he went home."

"And?"

Peg shrugged, looked away, looked back. "And," she said, "he took the ax to his mother, so now he's back inside forever, no parole, and the car came on the market."

"The car came on the market," Freddie echoed, looking at the lumpy green Hornet.

"It's a very hard sell, all in all," Peg said. "But I figured, a guy like you, a story like that wouldn't bother you."

"Oh," Freddie said. "Right. Not a bit."

Peg smiled fondly on the little green monster. "And if you don't think about its history," she said, "it's perfect, right?"

"Right," Freddie said. The Dick Tracy head nodded and nodded. "Perfect," he said.

47

The worst thing was knowing they'd never be invited back.

Well, was that the worst thing? Wasn't the worst thing losing Freddie, the invisible man, twice? This time, no doubt, for good? Wasn't that the worst thing? And if not that, then wasn't the worst thing losing their funding for their melanoma research and having to do the bidding of a monomaniac out of James Bond, who wanted to genetically alter the human race so he could sell cigarettes? Wouldn't that be the worst thing on a whole lot of lists?

Well, yes, of course. And both of those are extremely bad and terrible and horrendous and unfortunate. But nevertheless, when you come right on down to the nitty-gritty, the worst thing was knowing they'd never be invited back.

Not that Robert and Martin displayed by the merest iota of a scintilla that anything was even the teeniest weeniest bit wrong. They were as polite and civilized as ever, or almost; the destruction of their landscape had necessarily dimmed their sparkle somewhat.

And there had been an extra moment of trouble, unfortunately, when Peter — and then David, just a few seconds later — had tried to limit the damage by insisting that none of the thirty-four guests soon to arrive for the dinner party should be told about the invisible man. "And just what," demanded Robert, waving a hand that quivered over the moonscape of his former lawns, "am I supposed to say happened here? A remake of All Quiet on the Western Front?"

"You can say," Peter suggested, "you're redoing the exterior."

"And that wouldn't be a lie."

But there was no hope for it. Even if the physical evidence hadn't been so extreme, there was the fact that the eleven people already present were absolutely bursting with the story, bubbling over with it, half-wanting to end the weekend now so they could go away and regale someone who hadn't been here. If gossip is the fuel of social interchange, this was rocket fuel, and no power on earth would keep it from going off.

"All I ask, then," Peter said, when everything else he'd asked for had been refused, "is to make the announcement. At dinner, let me tell the story."

"When at dinner?" Robert asked, suspicious. "Over coffee? Believe me, everybody will know by then."

"No no no, before dinner is served."

Dinner would be buffet-style, and announced, so people could get on line. Peter said, "They'll be waiting for you to announce dinner, so announce me instead, and I'll tell them what happened, and then we'll have dinner, and that will be that."

"Please, Robert," David said. "Our future hangs on this. Robert, Martin, you've always been dear friends, you know how horribly we feel about what happened here, please let Peter tell everybody in his own fashion."

"Put his spin on it," Robert suggested.

"If you like," Peter said, who would have agreed with anybody about anything at that point.

Well. It was easy to refuse Peter, no problem, but everybody had always found it hard to refuse David, so it was finally agreed, with great reluctance, that no one would tell the new arrivals anything about the invisible man before Peter stood up and made his general announcement.

And that, a few hours later, was what he did: "Thank you, Robert, thank you, Martin. Thank you for a lovely weekend, as usual, for charming and exciting guests, for a dinner that we already know is going to be superb. And thank you both for being so understanding and sympathetic and forgiving about an experiment that went so very very wrong."

Peter sipped his vodka. There was so little grapefruit juice in it by now it looked pretty much like the invisible man himself. Peter went on: "You all saw that horrible destruction outside, when you came in."

They had. The murmuring the last half hour had been about nothing else, with those privy to the story merely giggling or sighing or shaking their heads, saying only, "We promised to let Peter tell."

So here it came: "As most of you know, David and I are scientific researchers, and skin cancer, melanoma, is the area of our research. An experiment on a willing — and I must emphasize willing — volunteer subject went terribly awry. It affected his body in the way, well, somewhat in the fashion we'd expected and hoped, but it seems to have, well, affected his mind as well, making him angry and mistrustful, and possibly even violent. I'm sorry, I don't mean to tell you a wolfman story here, but the fact is this fellow, who happens to be a convicted felon, by the way, and his name is Freddie, is, well, he's, you can't see him."

Everybody looked around. Can't see whom? So what?

Robert called out, "Say the word, Peter, say the goddam word!"

"Oh, all right!" Peter cried, and finished his vodka, and announced, "He's invisible! All right? He came here because he knew we were here, and he wanted us to help him stop being invisible, and we can't! And he's, he's extremely angry! And he had a, he had a cohort here—"

"Peter," David interrupted, "I don't think one person can be a cohort."

"I don't care!"

The newcomers were wide-eyed, disbelieving, asking quick whispered questions, getting quick whispered answers, yes, yes, it's true, it's all true, an invisible man, in this very room!

Peter drank from his empty vodka glass, rolled his eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "This man, this Freddie, is invisible. Yes, he is. He was here, and now he's gone away, we don't know where, we wish we could help him—"

"Oh, yes, we do!" David cried.

"— but we can't, and he's probably gone for good, and we're just so sorry that Robert and Martin's beautiful house and beautiful grounds were just so wantonly, wantonly, that everything here was so, so, so . . ."

Peter was floundering by now, which Martin saw and understood, so he got to his feet and stood in front of Peter, faced the openmouthed guests, and said, "Peter and David asked if they could invite this person here, this man who'd been a volunteer in their experiment and was turned invisible, and we said yes, of course, because nobody realized, and certainly not Peter and David, just how much trouble this individual would be once he understood that the effects of the experiment were irreversible. It did upset him terribly, and I'm sure we can all sympathize with what he must have been going through, even while we do regret the certain amount of damage that resulted. And now that's the whole story, and I believe dinner is served, and now we can forget all this and go on and discuss other things."

Not one word was said, on any other topic, the entire weekend.

"A fantastic weekend," David said, on Sunday afternoon, as he shook Robert's hand and then Martin's, out by the cars in the sunshine. "You rose to the emergency so well."

"And so did you, David," Martin assured him. "And Peter, too."

Robert, with a gruff and hearty false laugh, said, "The landscaping was due for a makeover anyway. You get tired of the same old fountains."

Peter said, "We still feel terrible about the whole thing. You two have always been such dear friends, I'd hate to think of something like this coming between us."

Martin, with his sweetest smile, said, "Peter, please, don't think another thing about it."

Smiles; air-kisses; waving farewells. Peter and David climbed into the red Ford Taurus, which seemed smaller and nastier than on Friday, in a more garish and plebeian red. In silent misery, they put on their yachting caps.

David was driving, for the return to the city. He steered out to Quarantine Road, made the turn, and Peter said, "That Martin. What a slimy creep he is. Nurse Martin indeed. Did you hear him? At least Robert comes out and tells you what he thinks."

"No, he doesn't," David said.

"You know what I mean. "Don't think another thing about it,'" he simpered, mimicking Martin. "You know what that's all about. Don't think you're ever coming back here."

David sighed, but saw no point in discussing their ouster from Eden any further. They were on County Route 14 now, and he looked at the remains of a bicycle by the side of the road; it must have been in a truly ghastly accident. I'd hate to have been riding that bike, David thought, trying to find somebody in the world worse off than himself.

"And now the story's out," Peter complained.

"Oh, not really," David said. "That part doesn't worry me. Already it's just an anecdote. People who weren't there won't really believe it, they'll think it's just another of those urban legend things."

Peter brooded. "I'd like to see that Freddie now," he growled.

David sighed. "Well, that's the problem in a nutshell, isn't it?" he asked.

48

Sunday afternoon. No more stalling. It was time to leave. "Freddie," Peg said, looking mournfully at Frankenstein's monster, "I wish you'd chosen another head."

"This didn't seem like anybody else's moment, Peg."

She should have left here yesterday, after she'd done the test spin with Freddie in the green Hornet and he'd pronounced himself pleasantly surprised with its comfort and handling. But somehow neither of them could permit it to end there, just like that. They stood on the driveway blacktop beside the new car, Freddie at that time, yesterday, still in his Dick Tracy mode, and they hemmed and hawed together for a while, and at last Freddie said, "I have a little idea, Peg. Come on to the pool."

"What for? I've seen you swim, it's the only time I can see you, or something like you."

"Just come along, okay?"

His Playtex hand took her hand, and she allowed him to lead her around the house and up the slope to the pool, where he carefully closed the door in the fence and said, "Come on in the pool, Peg."

"In?" That would truly be exposing herself to sunlight, with no protection at all. Water was no protection. "I didn't bring my suit," she said.

He laughed, as he peeled off his own clothing. "You don't need a suit," he told her.

That was so strange, to watch him disappear like that, to watch a complete human being turn into nothing more than a pile of clothing on the deck. Then there was a giant splash as he cannonballed into the water, and there it was, the ghost dolphin again, coursing through the pool.

"Come on in, Peg!"

It was along the lines of a last request, after all, she told herself, so she decided to go along with it, stepping out of her clothing, leaving it all more nearly on a chair than he had on the deck, and then stepping gingerly into the pool to find it not cold at all, the water first warmed by the pool heater and then by the sun. She descended into the sparkling water, and the giant dolphin swept toward her through the pool, and put his warm wet arms around her, and kissed her on the mouth.

"Mmmmm," she said.

"It's nice, isn't it?"

"Mmmmm," she said.

Sex in the swimming pool, in the buoyant warm water, languorous and slow. This was the first time since Freddie's transformation they'd been together like this when it wasn't pitch black, and it was kind of terrific. Very sexy, very loving that was, to be turned and stroked by a giant ghost dolphin in the water, someone you couldn't really see, but almost, and finally, when all was said and done, it didn't matter. Peg and Freddie and the warm moving water flowed together into one being, loving and content.

Well, after that she couldn't just put her clothes on and go home. They spent the afternoon together, for a while with Freddie in a terry-cloth robe — one size fits all, as Martin had pointed out — and espadrilles, with a white towel tossed over his head. That wasn't so bad, seeing the spaces where there ought to be a person. Maybe, if she had small doses of it like this, particularly with pleasant interludes like the one in the swimming pool as part of the arrangement, maybe eventually she could begin to get used to this new Freddie. In small doses.

It was Peg's idea they try a candlelight dinner at home, with only two candles. That made it a bit hard to find the food, but Freddie was now in a short-sleeved polo shirt and slacks, no gloves or head, and in the dimness she hardly minded the fork as it moved in and out of the candle glow, or the lack of anything at all above the shirt's soft collar. They had wine with dinner, and it was impossible for Peg to leave after that, and in any case the pool experience and the romantic dinner, and the protected solitude of their hideaway house here in the country, suggested a different ending for the evening, so that was what they did.

But now it was Sunday afternoon, and they could stall no longer. Peg could not bring herself to kiss Frankenstein's monster's cheek, but she patted the cheek, and that was no good either: cold, and not at all lifelike. "Freddie," she said. "I'm going to close my eyes now, and I want you to kiss me good-bye."

"Hell and damn," he said, but she closed her eyes, and she heard the rustle of latex, and then he kissed her for a long time. Then she opened her eyes, and the morose monster was back. "I'll call you tonight," she told it, and got into the van quickly, before she would start to cry in front of him.

Which was another advantage he had, she told herself, as she tried to be hard and cold. If he cried, who would know?

The monster stayed in her rearview mirror, waving its Playtex hand. She honked as she went around the curve that put him out of sight.

Driving south, she thought furiously but profitlessly about herself and Freddie and their problems and their options, and nothing seemed to make sense, nothing at all. She drove much faster than usual, because she was upset, and it was lucky she didn't get a ticket. At one point, on the southern part of the Taconic, she zipped past a red Ford Taurus poking along moodily in the right lane, with two long-faced guys in white yachting caps inside it, illuminated like a stage set because of their sunroof, but she didn't even give them a glance. She had troubles of her own.

The apartment was hot and stuffy and dusty and empty. There was a window air conditioner in the bedroom closet, which she lugged out and installed in a bedroom window, sweating gallons along the way. After she showered, the bedroom was a little cooler, but the rest of the apartment was still hot.

She called Freddie from the bedroom phone, but it turned out they had very little to say to one another. Both felt extremely awkward, and both were happy to end the call, with, "Talk to you tomorrow." Then Peg went out to a deli to get some necessities, went home, called a Chinese take-out place, carried the TV set into the cool bedroom, and spent the evening eating anonymous foods in front of anonymous reruns.

She went to bed early, but it was very hard to get to sleep. On the other hand, she had no trouble at all waking up when Barney Beuler kicked the leg of the bed and snarled, "Rise and shine, Sleeping Fucking Beauty."

49

Like the valet in Sullivan's Travels, Mordon Leethe viewed the entire proceedings with a sense of gloomy foreboding. It was not his desire to be here, aiding and abetting the commission of any number of felonies not normally associated with the partners of corporate law firms, but on balance his situation was so impossible in every direction that it was probably best, all in all, that he be here, present and culpable in these acts of breaking and entering, kidnapping, coercion, and possibly even battery upon persons, because if he weren't physically in this place he'd still be a coconspirator, still just as guilty in the eyes of the law — and in his own eyes as well — and without even the hope that he might somehow influence events, blunt the worst excesses of Barney Beuler, this associate in crime to whom he found himself so inextricably lashed, or that he might help steer the fragile ship of his own good name through these felonious reefs toward the barely visible shore of early retirement, a beaching that was coming to seem more and more advisable with every passing moment. Or, as Henry James might have put it, he was in it now, up to his neck.

At six on Monday morning, they had let themselves into Peg Briscoe's apartment, Mordon and Barney and the three cigarette-company thugs, Creeping, silent, they had observed the woman asleep in her air-conditioned bedroom, with no second body shape mounded beside her and with no male clothing to be seen anywhere. Nevertheless, reclosing her bedroom door, they had swept the apartment just as they'd done last time, to be absolutely sure the invisible man was not here. Only then did all five invade the bedroom once more and Barney wake the Briscoe woman with his patented charm.

Her eyes popped open. She sat bolt upright, staring at the five men in her room. Under a sheet, she seemed to be wearing some sort of long T-shirt. Instead of aroused, Mordon felt embarrassed. Before Barney could do or say anything else crude, he stepped forward, saying, "Miss Briscoe, it's Freddie we want."

"Oh, Christ!" she cried, in apparently genuine exasperation. "It's you guys again. For a second there, you had me terrified. Hold on while I use the bathroom," she said, sliding out of bed. Yes, a long white T-shirt, not quite opaque enough. "Make some coffee, will you?" she said, and sloped out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Now it was Barney who looked embarrassed. His fearsome authority had just been deflected as though it didn't exist. "Well, whaddaya thinka that?" he said.

"I think she's right," Mordon said, and told one of the thugs, "Why don't you make us all some coffee? You remember where the kitchen is, don't you?"

"Sure." The thug looked around. "Everybody want?"

Everybody wanted. He went away, and the toilet flushed. Then the shower ran.

Barney and Mordon and the other two thugs wandered out to the living room, which was hotter and stuffier than the bedroom. They left the bedroom door open. "This is ridiculous," Barney said. "What we gotta do is lean on this bitch, not make her coffee."

"Freddie Noon isn't here," Mordon pointed out. "Peg Briscoe will know where he is."

"Damn right she will."

"We want her cooperation," Mordon reminded him. "It seems to me we should at least begin on a calm and civilized plane."

"That's fine," Barney agreed. "You be Good Cop. I'll jump in a little later."

It was after seven before they were all gathered in the living room, with toast and coffee. The only air conditioner was in the bedroom, but with it turned on full and the door open, it did help in the living room a bit. It seemed to Mordon that the fruits of Freddie Noon's crimes should have been juicier than this, but Mordon wasn't here — none of them were here — to enquire into the economics of burglary. They were here to find the burglar.

Mordon said, "Miss Briscoe, where is he?"

"No idea," she said. She was dressed now in jeans and a polo shirt and tennis shoes, and didn't look intimidated at all by this hostile mob in her house.

Mordon said, "Miss Briscoe, would you look at Barney here?"

Obediently, she looked at Barney, though clearly she didn't want to. Barney looked back at her, and smiled. Her confidence could be seen to slip a little, like a hat on a drunken song-and-dance man. Turning away from Barney's smile, she busied herself with her coffee cup, which had been empty for a while.

Mordon said, "I received permission from Barney, Miss Briscoe, to ask you these questions first."

"Uh-huh," she said. She was studying the empty interior of her cup, as though looking for tea leaves to read.

"If you don't answer me," Mordon said, "Barney will ask you the questions himself, and you won't say to him, "No idea.' I'm doing my best to make it easier for you here."

"That's nice," she said. She put the cup down and crossed her legs and clasped her hands around the upper knee and looked at Mordon. He could see her willing her face to be blank.

He shook his head. "I'll ask you once more," he said, "and please consider your answer very caref—"

"No idea."

"Oh, Miss Briscoe, if you would only—"

"My turn," Barney said, getting to his feet. "You guys hold her," he said to the thugs, and took a black handle out of his pocket. He did something, and a long knife blade popped out of the handle.

The thugs stood, alert, but didn't immediately approach Peg Briscoe, who sat up straight, staring at the knife. Barney turned the knife this way and that in his hands, admiring it, and then he said, "All I need from you is a mailing address, that's all. A box number, whatever it could be. Just someplace I can send the finger."

Her eyes widened. "I don't know where he is."

"What a waste that's gonna be, then," Barney told her. "See, what's gonna happen is, every day I'm gonna cut off one of your fingers and mail it to our friend Freddie, with a note with a phone number where he could call me if he felt like it. Now, if I don't have an address to send the finger it's a real shame and a waste, cause you're still gonna lose the finger. Hold her steady, guys. Better put a hand over her mouth."

"I don't know where he is!"

As the thugs closed on Briscoe, Mordon also got to his feet, saying, "Barney, we don't have to—"

"Sit down, Counselor," Barney said, and looked at Mordon, and the look all by itself knocked Mordon back into his chair. "Hold her, now," Barney said, turning again toward Briscoe.

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitmmmpmmmpmmmpmmmp—"

"Oh, all right," Barney said, weary, the knife poised over her left hand. "Let go her mouth, let's see what she's trying to say."

"I know where he is!"

"Well, yeah, sure you do, I know that. Hold steady, now."

"I'll tell you where he is!"

"Where I send the finger, that's right. Otherwise, it's a shame, right?"

"No no no, I'll tell you where he is right now, you don't have to mail him any—"

"Peg, Peg, Peg," Barney said, "I don't want to make you betray your best friend, you know what I mean? Let him come to me, of his own free will, after he gets a couple fingers in the mail. Hold steady now, I don't wanna take more than one."

"You don't have to!"

Barney paused. He seemed genuinely perplexed. He said, "What do you mean, I don't have to?"

"I can tell you exactly where he is, exactly how to find him!"

Barney chuckled. "And we leave here and we go to this location, and he isn't there. And then we come back here and guess what? You didn't wait for us. Hold the hand steady, guys."

"I'll take you there!"

Again Barney paused. He thought that one over. "I dunno," he said. "You probably had plans for today, this'd use up hours and hours of your time—"

"It's all right! It's a free day, I got a free day!"

Barney shook his head. "The finger in the mail, you know," he said, "it's a pretty surefire system."

"I'll take you there," she promised. "I'll take you right to him."

Barney sighed. He looked at the knife as though at an old friend, then turned to look at Mordon. "I don't know, Counselor," he said. "Traveling with her for hours, and then maybe she's planning something—"

"I'm not! I'm not!"

"— and then we still got her on our hands at the end of the day." Barney shook his head, troubled by the complications. "What's your opinion, Counselor?"

There was no way to tell to what extent Barney Beuler was bluffing, or to what extent Barney Beuler was insane. Mordon judged it safest to go along with the insane part of Barney, so he said, in his most sober legal-counselor manner, "There might be some advantage to it, Barney, to have her with us. If we use her van, with all the rest of us in the back . . ."

"Hmmm," Barney said. "Trojan horse, like."

"Exactly. Then we let her talk to him, let him see we have her under our control."

"If we have her under our control." Barney turned back to the girl, who was following the conversation very intently. "Do we have you under our control?"

"Yes! Yes!"

Mordon licked dry lips. He said, "If things don't work out, Barney, we can always fall back on the finger option later."

"That's true." Deciding, Barney smiled and pressed the knife between his hands, and the blade disappeared back into the handle. Pocketing the handle, he shook his head and said, "You're makin a softie outta me, Counselor."

50

When Geoff Wheedabyx saw the van, he was on his way home from this morning's emergency, a barn that had caught fire out on Swope Road. His was one of four fire companies that had responded and, as usual, all they'd managed to save was the foundation. You get one of these old barns, that old dry wood with all its nooks and crannies packed full of dry old straw and sawdust and crap — literally crap; the stuff they use for fuel in the Middle East — and when the fire starts, there's really nothing to do but break out the marshmallows. Well, and make sure the fire doesn't spread to the house or the fields or anything else. But once a flame takes hold in a barn, you can be sure that barn is gone.

The reason for this fire, as for most of the outside-of-town fires Geoff and his people responded to, could be summed up in one word that has yet to appear under "Cause" on any insurance report form: Farmer.

The problem is, your farmer will never call a mechanic, no matter what the job. Your farmer is his own carpenter, and he isn't a good carpenter. He's his own plumber, electrician, mason, roofer, auto mechanic, and midwife, and he's pretty bad at all of them. Geoff had seen wiring in some of these old farmhouses and barns that would give you nightmares; in the one that burned down this morning, for instance. If you ever see anything that's built to Code, you know a farmer didn't build it.

The farmers will tell you the reason they do everything themselves, instead of calling in somebody who knows what the hell he's doing, is because they're poor, which isn't exactly true. Oh, they're poor, all right, but that isn't the reason they do everything themselves. The reason is, they're proud; and we know what pride goeth before, don't we?

Geoff, in his ruminations, was just at the point of brooding on pride and its aftermath when he saw the van, definitely that selfsame gray van, owned by one Margaret Briscoe of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, and last seen zipping away down Market Street out of town with Margaret Briscoe at the wheel and an invisible man named Freddie as the passenger.

And now the van was parked in front of Geoff's house. Geoff, in his pickup and still wearing his smoke-permeated firefighting gear, drove on by his house and reached first for his police radio, switching it over to the frequency it shared with Cliff's Service & Auto Repair out on County 14, Cliff being one of his two part-time deputies. "Cliff," he said into the mike. "Tell me you're there."

Geoff drove to the end of Dudley, made a U-turn, and parked behind his police cruiser. "Come on, Cliff," he said into the mike. "Be there."

"I was under a car, dammit. What's up?"

"Cliff, get your badge and your gun and go on down to my house. Out front, you'll see a van, gray. Do not let anybody into that van."

"Do I use lethal force?"

Clearly, Cliff had been watching too many action movies on his VCR. "Only if you absolutely have to," Geoff said.

"Roger."

Geoff switched off the police radio before he could hear Cliff say over and out, and picked up his walkie-talkie. "Hi, guys," he said into it. "Somebody turn off the damn radio and pick up."

The walkie-talkie connected him with his construction crew. Having finished the porch conversion here in town, they were at work now installing two rest rooms out at the Roeliff Summer Theater. The summer-theater operators having been given an anonymous grant for this purpose, their patrons would no longer have to use the Portosans out in the parking lot; at least not once Geoff and his guys got finished installing the wheelchair- and handicapped-access, water-saving, energy-conserving, unisex, washable-wall interior rest rooms.

"Is that you, Smokey?"

"If this is a dumb joke," Geoff said, "this must be Steve. Yeah, Steve, it's me. I want you guys to down tools—"

"Missy's gonna be mad."

"That's Missy's problem. I want you to down tools and come over to my house. All of you. There's somebody in there, I'm not sure who, not sure how many. Bring your walkie-talkie, and stay just down the block. Park in front of Whalens'. Don't come in or show yourselves unless I call you."

Steve, his joking ways forgotten, said, "Geoff? You got a real problem there?"

"Don't know yet. Goin in to find out."

"We'll be around."

"Cliff's watching a van out front. Don't let him shoot you."

"He might shoot at me."

Geoff got out of the pickup. He was in his tall firefighting boots, and black water-repellent coat, and now he put back on his fire-chief helmet, pocketed the walkie-talkie, and crossed Market Street to come at his house from the rear, as he'd done the last time he'd encountered Freddie and Peg.

Letting himself quietly into the house through the back door, he paused to remove his firefighting boots, but kept his helmet on, and eased forward slowly through the house. Not a sound. Nothing visible out of place.

His office door was closed and, when very quietly and cautiously he tested it: locked. He palmed his key, eased it into the keyhole, slowly turned it, and eased open the door.

Nothing. Office empty. Office chair not tilted back, so the invisible Freddie was not in it.

So what was going on? Where were they? Turning away from his now-open office doorway, standing in the middle of his front hall in his tube socks and firefighting gear, arms akimbo, Geoff looked this way and that and up the stairs, and nothing was to be seen, nothing was to be heard. "Peg?" he called. "Freddie?"

A smiling fat man with a pistol in his hand came out of the parlor. The pistol was pointed at Geoff's chest. The smiling fat man said, "You lookin for Freddie, too? What a coincidence, so are we. Let's look together."

51

This was not what Peg had had in mind, not at all.

When she had realized, back home in the apartment in Bay Ridge, that this guy Barney was either too mean or too crazy to stand up to, that he would do terrible things to find out what he wanted to know, that in fact he might even be serious about cutting off her finger and sending it to Freddie, she had done her best to think fast. Not easy, under the circumstances.

She would have to give these people something. Not Freddie, but something. A place to go, and they would certainly bring her along. She absolutely would not turn poor Freddie over to the tender mercies of Barney and his friends, but if she took them somewhere and Freddie wasn't there, then what? Wouldn't they get mad? Wouldn't this guy Barney be both meaner and crazier? If she wouldn't be able to stand up to him when he was calm — and she knew she wouldn't — how could she possibly stand up to him when he was upset?

That was when she'd thought of the little town of Dudley, and its he-man police chief. There was a hero for you. He already knew about Freddie, so no long explanations would be needed, and in fact, they'd already explained to him that Freddie was some kind of scientist, she could no longer remember exactly what kind, and that bad guys were chasing him, so here would be the bad guys.

That's the way she'd seen it in her mind's eye, their arrival on the front porch of that big old house on the main street of Dudley, knocking on the door, and Chief Whatsisname answering, and her popping him a wink as she'd say, "These fellas are here looking for Freddie." And let him take over.

Instead of which, the bad guys captured the hero in the first second of play, just like that.

So now, with the bad guys seated around this old-fashioned parlor, and the he-man that failed standing in the middle of the room with Peg beside him, Barney questioned him, and Peg listened to the answers.

His name was Geoff Wheedabyx. He was police chief, and also fire chief and a lot of other stuff in this town, maybe even Indian chief as well. And he said he didn't know where Freddie Noon was. "This is the first I'm hearing his last name," he said. "Thank you for that."

"You know him, though," Barney said. "You know Freddie."

"I've seen him," Geoff Wheedabyx acknowledged, then chuckled sheepishly and said, "I've met him, I mean."

Mordon Leethe, the awful attorney, said, "He knows Freddie, all right."

"So why doesn't he know where he is?" Through his maddening perpetual smile, Barney was beginning to exhibit dangerous signs of frustration.

Leethe said, "Barney, there's another question that comes first."

Barney showed by a raised eyebrow that he didn't think that was possible. "Yeah?"

"This is the fire chief, is that correct?"

"That's what his costume says."

"But he's also the police chief, Barney. Is he armed?"

"No," Geoff Wheedabyx said.

Barney grinned. "You don't mind," he said, "we don't take your word on that. Search him," he told one of the thugs, who rose obediently to his feet.

Spreading his arms, Wheedabyx calmly said, "I don't lie."

The thug patted him down, and said, "No gun, but here's a walkie-talkie."

"No kidding," Barney said. "I wonder who's at the other end of it, do you think. Freddie? Give it to the chief." To Wheedabyx he said, "Say hello into it."

"I'm not in touch with Freddie Noon."

"Say hello into it, Chief."

"I don't see what you hope to—"

"Say hello!"

Obviously reluctant, Wheedabyx lifted the walkie-talkie to his lips. "Hello."

Immediately the room was filled with the staticky broadcast voice saying, "Geoff, everything okay in there? We're out here, man, we're ready. Everything okay?"

"Everything's okay," Barney prompted.

"Everything's okay."

"Come on in, all of you," Barney suggested.

Wheedabyx made a sour mouth, but repeated the words.

"Fine," Barney said. "Take the walkie-talkie away from him. Greet our guests when they come in, and lock them in the basement."

Two thugs left the room, drawing guns from inside their suitcoats. Wheedabyx called after them, "They aren't armed, they're my construction crew."

"No construction today, Chief," Barney said. "Where's Freddie?"

"I don't know."

"And you don't lie," Barney said.

Some noise in the hall; not much, and not for long.

Barney nodded. "I'm beginning to believe you, Chief. The last guy Freddie Noon is gonna hang out with is a straight-arrow police chief from some hick town. He probably dodged you one time, that's how you know about him. Right?"

"Yes," Wheedabyx said.

"There, you see?" Barney said, as pleased as if he'd invented Wheedabyx himself. "The man doesn't lie. But Peg might," he said, and leered at her. "Is that right, Peg? Like you didn't happen to mention this house belongs to the chief of police in this burg. You led us to this place because you figured Captain America here'd come to the rescue, is that it?"

Peg didn't answer, but she felt her face grow red. And when she glanced sidelong at Wheedabyx, his face was red, too. And he wasn't looking at her.

Barney gave an exaggerated shake of the head and said to Wheedabyx, "Sorry to involve you in this, pal. Is there a post office in this town?"

"Other end of Market Street. Why?"

"I got a little package to mail." Heaving himself to his feet, Barney said to Peg, "Let's take care a this in the kitchen, not get stains all over these nice antiques here."

Wheedabyx said, "What's that?" He was looking very alert, and as though he was thinking of doing something stupid and heroic after all.

So Peg gave up. "Okay," she said. "You win."

"Come on, Peg. Kitchen," Barney said.

"Fuck you, Barney," Peg said. "I told you I give up. I'll give you Freddie, dammit to hell, but I won't play your stupid fucking games anymore."

Barney beamed at her. "Peg," he said, "I admire you. You fought the good fight. And as long as you do what I want, you can use every curse word in the book. Is Freddie around here?"

"About ten miles away."

"What town?"

"Not a town, a house in the country."

"What I always dreamed of," Barney said. "We'll take the van, to keep him calm."

"Er," said Wheedabyx.

"No," said Peg.

"Hold it," Barney said to Peg, and to Wheedabyx he said, "Whadaya mean, er?"

Wheedabyx seemed very tired of this whole situation. "I have a man outside," he said, "keeping an eye on the van."

"Well, aren't you full of surprises," Barney said. "A fireman?"

"No."

"Is he armed?"

"He's just a part-time deputy, he's got a gas station out on—"

"So he's armed."

Sounding frightened for his deputy, Wheedabyx said, "Except in the qualifying sessions, he's never fired his weapon."

"Well, he won't start today," Barney promised. "Does he have a radio out there?"

"No."

"How do you get in touch with him, if you want him?"

"I go out on the porch and say, "Hey, Cliff.'"

"Ha ha," said Barney, without mirth. "You stand in the doorway, with these two friends of mine just out of sight, and you say, "Hey, Cliff, come in here a minute.' And if it turns out his name isn't Cliff, and he heads in some other direction, Mr. Wheedabyx, he will never get to fire that weapon of his, we will disqualify him completely."

"His name is Cliff."

"Good." To the thugs, Barney said, "Disarm Cliff, and put him with the construction crew."

Wheedabyx and the two thugs left the room, and Barney turned back to Peg. "You're making a lot of trouble for a lot of people today, Peg," he said, "and I don't know how big the basement is in this house, and it seems to me the last word I heard you say was no. Now, why's that, Peg?"

"We can't go there," Peg said. "Freddie knows you guys are after him. He knows you even had skip-tracers looking for me. So we've got a signal, if I show up in the van, just show up, he'll disappear, he'll know it's not my idea I'm there. I mean, he won't let you find him or talk to him, he won't let me find him. If Freddie decides to disappear, you know, he can really do it."

"So we'll take some other car," Barney said. "The chief'll loan us something."

"A strange car pulling in? He'll be off like a shot."

Mordon Leethe broke a long and troubled silence, saying, "You said you'd give him to us, Miss Briscoe."

"I'll phone him," Peg said. "I'll tell him you guys have me, I'm your prisoner, and it's gonna get tough for me if he doesn't come here and talk it over."

Barney said, "And you think he'll show up, on your account?"

"If I'm wrong," she said, "I'm in deep trouble."

"You certainly are."

Wheedabyx came back in, then, looking disgusted, trailed by the thugs. Everybody ignored him. Leethe said, "Barney, I think it's worth the try. If Peg Briscoe is the hook that'll hold Freddie Noon to us, let's use it. If she isn't, let's find out now and go kidnap his mother next."

With a surprised laugh, Barney said, "Counselor, I'm beginning to rub off on you!"

"In for a penny," Leethe said. "Once she brought us to this police chief. . . . What happens when we leave here, Barney, and all these people start identifying us?"

"First they have to find us," Barney said. "Peg's the only one who knows who we are, and she isn't gonna tell, are you, Peg?"

"Not unless I can get away from you," Peg said, seeing nothing to be gained by trying to soft-soap these people. What she was up to would work, or it wouldn't work, that was all.

And Barney loved her answer. Laughing, he said, "That's right, Peg, not unless you get away from us, and that ain't about to happen." To Leethe he said, "Anyway, Counselor, I got my alibi all firmed up. Don't you have yours?"

"Not yet," Leethe said. He didn't look either happy or well.

"You'll be all right," Barney assured him, and turned back to Peg. "What's Freddie driving these days?"

"An orange Subaru station wagon. I bought it for him used."

Barney turned to Wheedabyx. "Chief, I need a phone for the lady, and an extension for me." He grinned at Peg. "Not that I don't trust you," he said.

52

Freddie was moping around the house, was what he was doing. He didn't feel like swimming in the pool, he didn't feel like watching a movie on the VCR, he didn't feel like sitting in the sun or in the shade or indoors or outdoors. He didn't feel like much of anything.

He had got dressed this morning, putting on summer shorts and a T-shirt and espadrilles, because we do spend most of our lives in clothing, so he just felt more comfortable that way. But no long sleeves, and no gloves, and no latex head, because who for? Not for himself. In those rare instances when he caught his own reflection, that passing image of the self-animated pale blue T-shirt and maroon shorts, in a mirror or a window or the face of the microwave, it just amused him. He kind of liked the look of himself in clothes; he thought it suggested something interestingly quirky about his personality.

When the phone rang, he was just about to put his gloves on, however reluctantly, so he could make a lonely sandwich just to keep his strength up. Then the phone rang, and he decided it was probably a wrong number or somebody trying to sell him something, so why answer. Peg wouldn't call in the middle of the day, she'd wait till this evening. In fact, as he remembered it, she planned to spend today probably getting her old job back, so she could look again into the mouths of people who had mouths you could look into.

(I hope I never have to have dentistry, he told himself, while the phone rang. Or surgery, come to think of it. Important life-threatening surgery. "Nurse, we must remove this spleen at once!" "What spleen is that, doctor?")

Four rings, and the answering machine kicked in, Peg's voice saying we're out, leave a message, see what good it does you; no, not the last part, that was implicit. Freddie took cold cuts and mayo and mustard from the refrigerator, noticing again how rapidly his hands got hot in these gloves, even when he was reaching into the refrigerator, and Peg's voice stopped on the answering machine, and then Peg's voice started again, saying, "Freddie, aren't you there? Oh, hell, if he's up at the pool, I don't know what to do. Jesus. Can I leave this number, he could call back?"

By that time, Freddie had the refrigerator door closed, the gloves off, and the phone in his hand, floating in space. "Peg?"

"I mean, he doesn't know where the number is, if I tell him this number."

"Peg?"

"What? Freddie, is that you? Are you there?"

"Hi, Peg," he said, smiling, happy to hear her voice, only faintly snagged by the realization she'd been talking to somebody else for a few seconds there. "I didn't think you'd call so early," he explained, "so I wasn't gonna answer."

"Well, this isn't a regular call," Peg said.

Then he heard the strain in her voice, and paid more attention to that memory of her speaking to somebody else wherever she was — not home, that was for sure — and he let the silence go by for a few seconds, during which time he heard breathing on the line that wasn't Peg — heavier, raspier.

"Freddie? Are you there?"

"Oh, I'm here, Peg. Where are you?"

"I'm at the chief's house."

Chief? What chief? Freddie's invisible brow furrowed; he could feel it. He said, neutrally, "Oh, yeah?"

"You remember. The guy with all the hats."

Then he did; the police chief, in Dudley, the guy they were going to keep clear of from now on. Feeling sudden concern for her, "Peg!" he said. "Did he nab you?"

"No, not him. In fact, he's nabbed, too. Remember that cop, moonlighting, followed me north that time?"

Oh, Freddie thought, so that's it. He said, "Is that him, listening on the line?"

"Yeah." Then, away from the phone, she said, "Why not? Am I supposed to pretend we're all stupid?" Back to Freddie, she said, fatalistically, "Yeah, it's him again."

"He gotcha at the apartment, right?"

"Right."

"Said lead me to Freddie, you led him to the chief instead, right?"

"Yeah, Freddie, right."

"That's pretty funny," Freddie said, grinning.

"Nobody here sees the humor, Freddie," she said.

"Ahhhh, yeah. I guess not."

"What this Barney wanted to do, Freddie, that's his name, he wanted to cut my finger off and mail it to you, with a phone number where you could call him and talk it over."

Barney is listening, Freddie reminded himself. Handle this situation. "Pretty drastic, Peg," he said, wondering was this Barney bluffing or was this Barney a maniac.

"There's other guys with—" Off, she shouted, "I'm telling him the situation, isn't that what you want?"

Freddie said, "Peg? Peg, never mind him, cut to the car crash."

"This is the car crash, Freddie."

"Okay. What do they want?"

"They want to talk to you."

"Then how come you're talking to me?"

A heavy male voice — this must be the maniac moonlighting cop, Barney — said, "We want you to understand, Freddie, what's goin on here."

"You're threatening a woman with a knife," Freddie said. "I think I got it."

"No no no, Freddie," said Barney's croaky wisenheimer voice, "that isn't the topic. You're the topic."

"Uh-huh."

"You're a valuable guy, Freddie, to whoever's got a handle on you. And what we think we got here, with Peg, we think we got the handle."

"They want you to get in the Subaru," Peg said, "and drive over—"

"I'll do the talking now, Peg," Barney said. "Hang up."

Click. Subaru: double-click.

Freddie said, "What do you want, Barney?"

"You, Freddie, workin for me and workin for some friends of mine. Light work, very easy, a little excitement every now and then. Good pay."

"I don't like to be an employee, that's always been a problem I had."

"That's too bad, Freddie, time you got over it. We got the idea you place a certain value on Peg here, and we got Peg, and we're gonna keep Peg, so that makes you an employee. So you'll get used to it."

"And what if I just say the hell with everything, and go someplace else? California, maybe."

"Gimme an address, to send the fingers."

"You can always shove them up your ass."

"Don't be silly, Freddie," Barney said, almost fondly. "You don't talk tough to me. And you don't leave Peg on her own, either, that's one of the nicest qualities about you." Off, he said, "Isn't it, Peg?" Back, he said, "She agrees with me. She's kinda counting on you, Freddie. So you come here, you come now, and you wear something so we can see you, and we give you the details of the situation."

Hogtie me, you mean. Other guys there, Peg said so, Barney didn't like her telling me that. Lean on me because they'll want me to do stuff I really and truly won't want to do. Peg's the hostage, and I'm the patsy, world without end. Don't even get to be visible again someday, so I could retire.

Well, screw that.

Aloud, Freddie said, "I want Peg sitting on the front porch, so I can see she's okay. All by herself."

"You know what'll happen, she decides to run."

"Yeah, we all know. If she's there, and she's okay, I'll come in."

"She'll come in with you."

"Okay, fine. After I see she's okay. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Peg tells me you're ten minutes away."

Oh, hell, Peg, what'd you say that for? Freddie said, "Did you ever know a woman with any sense of time?" Forgive me, Peg. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Fifteen. If you aren't here, she loses a finger."

"Then make it the pinky on her left hand, she never uses that. I'll be there in twenty minutes," Freddie said. "And the first thing I'll do when I get there is count Peg's fingers."

And he hung up and ran.

53

Peg and Barney and one of the thugs had been in the chief's office for the phone call, there being two phones on the same line in that room, one of them cordless. Barney, using that one, had paced back and forth like a fat Napoleon all through the conversation, and when it ended he thumbed the phone off, slapped it onto the desk, and said to Peg, "Up."

She'd been seated at the desk, talking on the other phone there, and now she obediently got to her feet. She'd done what she could to help Freddie, so now it was up to him. If only Barney were less mean, less quick, and less maniacal. But he wasn't, so there you are.

Barney called, "Bring in the chief," and then started opening cabinets and closets, making small sounds in his throat that would have been humming if they weren't all on the same note. By the time Chief Wheedabyx came in, with a second thug, Barney had found a whole cache of handcuffs. They clacked like castanets as he motioned with them at the desk chair, saying, "Take a load off, Chief. Things are gonna slow down and get peaceful now."

The chief said, "This is going to end badly for you, you know."

"No, I don't know, Chief," Barney said. "But if you don't put the ass in the chair right now—"

"Language," the chief said, and sat in the desk chair.

Barney stared at him. "Language? Chief, I hope you never meet up with any bad guys." Picking out two sets of cuffs, handing them to the thug who'd been appointed the chief's monitor, he said, "One wrist to each chair arm. If he gets a call, you hold the phone up to his head for him. If he says anything you don't like, hang up and shoot him in the head. Then come tell me about it."

"Got it."

Turning to the first thug, who'd been with them during the phone call, Barney said, "Grab down those rolls of twine from the closet there, bring 'em along."

"Uh-huh."

"Come on, Peg."

She followed Barney out of the office, the thug with an armload of rolls of twine following her, as the chief was cuffed to his own office chair. He looked grim and heroic still, like Mount Rushmore.

In the hall, they met the third thug and the attorney, Leethe. Barney said, "We're moving."

Leethe said, "What's happening?"

"He's on his way. Look in the tall cabinet in there, second shelf, you'll see boxes and boxes of thumbtacks and pushpins. I want 'em on the ground all around the property, and in the doorways, and on the windowsills. You and Bosco do that." Meaning the third thug.

Leethe looked surprised and displeased. "Barney," he said, "do you think I'm one of your henchmen?"

"No, I think you're one of NAABOR's henchmen, same as ever. We got no time to stroke egos, Counselor. Freddie's on his way."

Leethe made a bad mouth, but he went away to do Barney's bidding, followed by the thug now christened Bosco, while Barney led Peg and the remaining thug out to the porch, where they found the usual country assortment of wood and wicker furniture. The sturdiest of these was a straight-backed wooden armchair, long ago painted dark green, which Barney now dragged across the gray-painted porch floor closer to the door. "Park it," he told Peg, and as she sat he turned to the thug with the armload of twine. "Give me one roll," he said, taking it, "and go out there and string me trip wires all around the property, tree to tree."

"Right."

The thug left the porch and crossed the lawn over to a big maple, where he went to work. Barney opened the roll of twine, knelt beside Peg, and tied her right ankle to one chair leg and her left ankle to the other. "Slip knots," he told her, using the porch rail to help lever his bulk back up onto his feet. "If you bend down to touch the cord, I'll give you a warning shot in the shoulder. When Freddie gets here, ask him to untie you."

Leethe and Bosco came out, hands and pockets full of little boxes of thumbtacks and pushpins. They walked around like Johnny Appleseed, sprinkling shiny sharp things on path and lawn, so that when Freddie got here he'd have to move very slowly, clearing all the tacks and pins out of the way of his bare feet, if he was barefoot, or have to wear shoes. In either case, Barney and the others would see him coming.

Barney went back into the house. Peg sat in the chair and watched the preparations continue, Leethe moving around the house to the left, Bosco and the trip-wiring thug to the right. From time to time, a car or pickup truck went by on Market Street, and there were some curious stares, but not many. There was always some sort of construction work going on in town.

Bart Simpson drove by, in a green Hornet.

Barney had his crew add coffee cups and silverware and other noisemaking things to his trip wires, and make sure every door and window except the wide-open front entrance was locked and blocked and defended by thumbtacks. Then they stripped blankets and bedspreads from the beds upstairs and waited just inside the open front doorway. The idea was, when Freddie stooped or knelt to untie the twine around Peg's ankles, they'd leap out and wrap him in bedding and tie him up and then talk to him.

Maybe it won't be so bad, Peg thought, Freddie working for Barney and the lawyer. Steady employment, low risk. Probably no health benefits, though.

It's hard to look on the sunny side when you're in a shit-storm.

54

Freddie walked back to the house. He'd seen the preparations as he'd driven by, and now he took a closer look. Trip wires to make jangly noises. Sharp things on the ground for his bare feet. No windows open, on this nice sunny day, so probably everything locked up except that invitingly open doorway beside Peg, sitting there on the front porch. Was that some kind of cord or twine around her ankles? Very nice.

Freddie made a complete circuit of the house. It wasn't completely surrounded by trees, but there were enough large old maples spaced here and there to give comfortable summer shade. Also, at the moment, they made handy posts for the trip wires.

A big maple on the right side had branches going right up above the roof. Its lowest thick branch was a little more than seven feet from the ground, extending outward away from the house and trip wire. On his second jump, Freddie grabbed that branch and managed to pull himself aboard.

For a naked man, shimmying up a tree is even trickier than riding a bicycle.

Freddie didn't know it, of course, but the route he was taking now had been Geoff Wheedabyx's favorite path in and out of his house when he was between the ages of ten and twelve, sometimes traveling that way because his parents didn't want him out so late at night, sometimes going by tree merely because it was fun.

The thick branch Freddie inched out on, when he had ascended high enough, bowed and swayed with his weight; fortunately, nobody was looking up. It led him to the porch roof, which his bare feet touched so gently that even Peg didn't hear it down below, but kept on looking out at the street, wondering when something would happen.

The upstairs windows were open (good) but screened (bad). Freddie hadn't brought any tools with him. The screens were the old-fashioned wooden-frame sort, with small slitted metal bars at the top corners. These hung on metal tongues attached to the window frame. In the winter, no doubt, the chief came up here and took down these screens to put up old-fashioned storm windows on the same hardware.

First unhooking the screens, of course. Yes, each screen was hooked closed on the inside. The wooden screen frame was flush with the wooden window frame: nothing to get a grip on. And bare hands do not punch through well-made screens like this, not without harming the hands and alerting the already alert people just below.

This is very irritating, Freddie thought. Through one of the open windows, he could hear Barney and the others talking together downstairs. So near, and yet so far.

He walked over to the right corner of the porch roof, and from there, on tiptoe, he could just see the steep slope of the main roof. No trapdoor on this side; no, and there wouldn't be one on the other side, either, or it would be locked. There was a chimney over there, which he would not crawl down.

In trying to see the roof, he'd held on to the drainpipe that went down this corner of the house. Now he considered the drainpipe, shook it experimentally, and it was quite solid. New, or not very old. The chief was also a construction guy, so maybe he put his crew to work on his own house sometimes, when business got slow.

Freddie looked over the edge. The porch railing looked very far away, straight down. If he fell, of course, he'd just land on grass down there — no thumbtacks; they were all farther out — but he wouldn't land quietly, and then they'd know he was here.

Still, what choice did he have? He was on the house, and he had to get in the house. There was no silent way to get through those screens. There was no point going back down the tree. Time to do a little more Tom Sawyer.

Which meant, first, extending his right foot down so he could press his toes against the metal collar that held the drainpipe just below the porch ceiling. That metal collar was unexpectedly sharp and painful to his flesh, but there still wasn't any choice, so he gripped the drainpipe, shifted his weight to his extremely pained toes, lowered his right hand to a new grip, bent the right knee, pawed with his dangling left foot for the porch rail, lowered his left hand to a new grip, bent the knee a lot more, pawed a lot more, stubbed his toe on the rail, touched his toe to the rail, bent the knee more than he thought he could, shifted his weight to his left foot, pushed away from the drainpipe while still holding on to it, removed his extremely pained right foot from the sharp metal collar, went on holding to the drainpipe, turned on the railing, and saw Peg in profile, seated in that chair, arms on the chair arms, legs tied to the chair legs.

Freddie climbed down to the porch floor, braced himself against the wall of the house, and felt the bottom of the toes on his right foot. He was amazed to find that he wasn't cut or bleeding. He massaged the toes until they felt a little better, and then he moved.

He was sorry he couldn't whisper a word of encouragement to Peg on the way by, but he didn't want to risk her giving some sort of startled response that would alert the guys inside. So he just eased on by behind her, then went through the open doorway, and here was the cop, hunkered over next to the wall, gripping a blanket in both hands like the child-eating ogre in a fairy tale.

With the cop was the guy who had been with him that day in Bay Ridge, the guy Peg later had told him was a lawyer, though he didn't look or act much like a lawyer at the moment. He had a nice old antique quilt bunched in his fists and hanging down his front, and he looked like the evil brother in a fourth-rate touring company of Arsenic and Old Lace. And also present, also holding blankets at the ready, either to douse a fire or capture an invisible man, were two plug-uglies in suits and white shirts and neckties. They looked like pit bulls that had been made to wear fancy collars.

As Freddie walked in to study this diorama, the lawyer said, "How long?"

The cop looked at his wrist. "Fifteen minutes. We'll give him the twenty he asked for."

Thanks, Freddie thought.

The lawyer said, "What if he doesn't show?"

"Then it's Plan B."

"Barney, I don't—"

Sounding almost sorry about it, but not really sorry, the cop said, "Mr. Leethe, we got no choice. If we say we're gonna take her finger, and then we don't take the finger, we lose all credibility. Freddie wouldn't have any reason ever to believe us again. And I want Freddie to believe, to really know and believe, that when I tell him something is going to happen, that's what's gonna happen."

Uh-huh. Freddie left them to their plans and stratagems, and went exploring, and the first thing he found was the chief, handcuffed to his own chair in his own office, with a third plug-ugly in suit and tie in another chair nearby, watching over him. The chief looked bitter, and the plug-ugly looked bored.

Freddie explored on. He found nobody else on the ground floor, and didn't expect there'd be anybody upstairs, so didn't look. He was going through the kitchen when he heard voices, arguing together, and in a minute realized there were some people in the basement and the basement door was locked.

Okay. Those are good guys, apparently, the chief's friends. For the moment, we'll leave them out of play.

Freddie went back to the chief's office, and nothing had happened, nobody had moved. He went over to the wall behind the plug-ugly, where all the hats were hung, and under the hats he found a lot of the chief's equipment. There was a very nice fire ax, but that seemed extreme. Oh, here was a nightstick.

Freddie picked up the nightstick, and the chief jumped a mile. Or he would have jumped a mile, if it hadn't been for the cuffs holding him to the chair.

The plug-ugly frowned at him. "What's with you?"

"Mosquito," the chief said. "Could you wave a magazine around my head or something?"

"Don't worry," the plug-ugly said. "You won't itch for long. Just sit there and—"

The chief winced.

Freddie held the plug-ugly so he wouldn't crash to the floor, adjusted him in the chair, then went over behind the desk and whispered in the chief's ear, "Key. Whisper."

The chief was quite wide-eyed. "Hook," he whispered, and pointed with his nose and chin at a small board of hooks, most containing keys, on the opposite wall.

Freddie crossed the room, and the keys all had neatly lettered little cardboard tags attached to them with white string. He started to read the tags.

"He says the time is — hey!"

Freddie spun around, to see another of the plug-uglies in the doorway, staring at his unconscious friend. Hell and damn.

The guy turned and left the doorway at the run, yelling, "He's here! He's here!"

"Later," Freddie told the chief. Dropping the nightstick, he ran from the office before he could be trapped inside it, and got out just as the doorway filled with the whole crowd of them.

The cop was a fast thinker. "Bosco!" he cried at one of the plug-uglies. "Keep an eye on the broad! The rest of us, let's see if he's still in here. Freddie?"

They moved forward into the room, the three men, spreading out, holding hands. "You here, Freddie?"

Freddie was not there. Freddie was approaching the guy who'd been left to watch the broad.

In the old days, when people knew what they were doing, plug-uglies did not wear neckties. Plug-uglies wore turtleneck sweaters, as you can see from looking at all the old photographs, and plug-uglies knew why they wore turtleneck sweaters. It was because turtleneck sweaters have nothing on them an enemy can hold on to.

A necktie is a handle. Freddie grabbed this clown by the handle, ran him full speed across the front hall, and drove his forehead into the stairway newel post with such force the wood cracked.

The clown kissed the carpet.

Immediately the cop was in the office doorway, looking up from the guy on the floor, glaring around the hall, saying, "Freddie, Freddie, why be so unfriendly? Do you want the law to get you? Would you rather explain your life of crime to the chief in there?"

Too late, Freddie realized the cop wasn't just talking, he was also moving; suddenly he made a dash for the front door, Freddie scampering after him.

Too late. When Freddie got to the porch, the cop was crouched over Peg, and a long knife was pressed to Peg's throat, and Peg was looking very worried. "Listen to me, Freddie," the cop said, staring at the doorway. "If I feel one thing, one touch, she's dead."

"Then so are you," Freddie said.

The cop swung his eyes to where Freddie had just left. "Maybe," he said. "Second. But she goes first. Are you ready to talk?"

Why wouldn't somebody passing by see a man on a porch holding a knife to a woman's throat? Why weren't people more observant?

The cop was saying, "Peg, untie those knots now, they're real easy, just pull the loops. Move slow, Peg, then we're all going back inside."

Freddie was already back inside, where the lawyer and the last plug-ugly were standing around in the hall, blinking a lot. Freddie went around them and back into the office, and this time he found the right damn key and used it to undo the chief's right cuff. Pressing the key into the chief's hand, he whispered, "Do something, okay?"

The chief nodded, and Freddie turned, and the lawyer was in the doorway. "He's in the office, Barney!"

"That's it," Freddie said, crossing the room toward the row of hats. "I've had enough of you, pal." He picked up the fire ax and headed for the lawyer.

Who screamed, and flung his hands in the air, and ran from the room. Freddie followed, the fire ax out in front of him, and in the front hall were the cop and Peg, he behind her, one arm around her waist, the other hand still holding the knife to her throat as he backed them both into the parlor.

"Leethe!" the cop yelled, forgetting to say "mister," as the lawyer ran right by him and out the front door and off the porch and down the walk and away, his shoes apparently having thick enough soles so the thumbtacks and pushpins didn't bother him. Or maybe they bothered him but he was too busy running away to be bothered by something bothering him — that was also possible.

"Leethe!" the cop yelled. "Come back!"

But Leethe was long gone, and Peg was staring in shock at the ax in midair, and then she shouted, "Freddie! Look out!"

A heavy weight tackled him from behind. The ax went flying, and Freddie was driven face first into the carpet, very near the unconscious plug-ugly.

He'd forgotten the third one, dammit, and the guy had snuck up behind him, guided by the ax. Of course, he couldn't see Freddie, but now he could sure feel him, and had him in a bearhug on the floor.

The cop was still backing away into the parlor with Peg, and he called, "Bring him in here! Hold on to him, and bring him in here! Alive!"

Freddie writhed and twisted, and got his left arm free, and swung it up and back, and his elbow connected with something or other. He did it again, and hit the same something, so he did it again. On the fourth whack, the weight above him shifted, and he managed to twist around, and now he was faceup, with this bulky monster straddling him, trying to hold on to him with both hands.

Freddie punched the guy in the face. The guy responded by taking a swing where Freddie's head should be, and getting it absolutely right. Freddie's head spun. He reached up, blindly, and his hand found the guy's necktie, and he grabbed it in his fist and turned his fist over, tucking the fist in under the guy's chin, then grabbing that fist with his other hand to make a bigger mass that he was pressing into the guy's Adam's apple while the necktie pinned him there, and now he was strangling the son of a bitch.

Who reached down, pawed his fingers over Freddie's face, found his neck, and now the son of a bitch was strangling Freddie. Neither would let go, and Freddie had no confidence that he would win this contest, but then all at once the son of a bitch said, "Ah," and fell facedown on top of Freddie, and over his unconscious shoulder Freddie saw the chief, with the nightstick.

"Ah-hah," Freddie said. "You are good for something. Get this guy off me, will you?"

The chief pulled, and Freddie crawled out from under, and looked over toward the parlor, and in the doorway were the cop and Peg, same as ever.

"I'll call the state boys," the chief said, backing away toward his office.

"Wait!" Freddie said, staggering to his feet. "Not yet."

The cop gave a sour laugh. "You don't want more law, Freddie," he said, "any more than I do."

"Chief," Freddie said, "why don't you handcuff those guys, before they wake up. And the one in the office, too."

"Good idea."

Moving toward the cop and Peg, as the chief went into his office for handcuffs, Freddie said, low and fast, "You're screwed here, cop, it isn't working. Let Peg go and I'll get you out of here. Otherwise it's a standoff until the state cops come, and then what? We're all screwed. I don't want law all over me and you don't want law all over you."

The chief came back out to the hall and went to one knee, to handcuff the sleeping palookas. The cop stared at the chief while he tried to think out his alternatives, and of course, one of his alternatives was simply to use the knife on Peg, who'd caused all this trouble by bringing him here to the police chief; then maybe he could make a run for it in the confusion.

Freddie didn't want the cop to give serious consideration to that option, so he pressed a little, saying, "You don't have weeks to make up your mind here. You let Peg go, she goes out and starts the van, and then we follow."

The chief was done with the handcuffs. Getting to his feet, he said, "I'll let the fellas out of the basement, then call the state boys."

"Not yet, Chief, okay?"

The chief looked toward Freddie's voice, bewildered. "Why not?"

"I'll explain," Freddie promised. "Just go along with me for a minute, will you do that?" To the cop, he said, "I know you're just gonna keep after me, so when we get outta here we'll talk it over, we'll make a deal. Let her go, let's get out of this place."

The cop glared into the air. "I wish I could see your face," he said.

"So do I, pal."

The cop made his decision. Lowering the knife, stepping back one pace, he pushed Peg forward and said, "Go start the van."

"Put the knife away," Freddie said, as Peg ran out of the house. "You don't need it."

The chief said, "What's going on here?"

"In a minute, Chief," Freddie said, while the cop, still suspicious, closed up his knife and put it away. Freddie said to him, "You know I'm a thief, right?"

"It's what I like about you," the cop said. "So far, the only thing I do like about you."

"Well, there's another thing about me you oughta know," Freddie said.

"What's that?"

"I'm also a liar," Freddie said, and punched him in the face.

55

It was the damnedest thing Geoff Wheedabyx had ever seen. For about three minutes, the fat bad guy called Barney apparently beat himself severely with parts of Geoff's house, throwing himself on the floor, dragging himself backwards into the hall, flinging himself madly against the walls, knocking himself down repeatedly and repeatedly jerking himself back upright again, while making a lot of sounds like oof! and uh! and aak! Then, after having done a final tattoo of the back of his head against the office-door frame, Barney collapsed on the floor without a sound and stopped moving, a marionette when the show's over.

Geoff was still staring at this battered unconscious man when the voice of Freddie sounded over by the open front door, yelling, "Peg! Go home!" Then the door slammed itself.

As if that weren't enough, something grasped Geoff's elbow and propelled him back into his office, while Freddie's voice, now very close to him, said, "Chief, we gotta talk."

"What I've got to do," Geoff said, "is let my crew out of that basement, doggone it. They've got toilets to install."

"In a minute, Chief. Do you know what happened here today?"

"I'll be damned if I do," Geoff said. "But after a couple weeks' intense interrogation, I believe I'll begin to get some idea of it."

"That bunch of guys came to this town to rob the bank."

Geoff wished he could give this fellow Freddie the look of scornful disbelief that remark deserved; it wasn't anywhere near as satisfactory to give the opposite wall a look of scornful disbelief. "They never did," he said.

"And there's no invisible man here," the invisible man said.

"I'm talking to myself, I guess." But Geoff was too straightforward a guy to make sarcasm really work.

"No, you're not talking at all, you're listening. And I'm telling you those guys came here to rob the bank, and they figured to neutralize the local law first, which is you, so they came over here and captured you and your construction crew—"

"And my deputy, he's down there, too."

"Your deputy, that's good. But then you turned the tables on them, all by yourself."

"I can't say a thing like that," Geoff said, "even if there was a reason for it, and what's the reason?"

"I probably saved your life, Chief, how's that for a start?"

"I was thinking about that," Geoff admitted, "while I was handcuffed to the chair there, and they sure didn't act like they planned on leaving any witnesses."

"I just found out I'm gonna be invisible the rest of my life," Freddie said. "Found out from the doctors who did it to me. So I could stick around here with you and tell the invisible man story and be a freak in a cage the rest of my life, doctors poking at me. Or I can take off and really disappear, you'll never hear from me again, and Peg and me'll have a quiet life somewhere."

"I sympathize with you," Geoff admitted, and added, "Freddie, I do. But I can't claim I beat up and knocked out and captured four tough guys all by myself."

Freddie, or the air around him, sighed. He said, "You don't lie, is that right?"

"That's right, that's the problem, I'm just no good at it."

"Chief, did you ever lie to your mom, when you were a kid?"

Geoff felt his face turning red. He stammered, "Well . . . I suppose . . . you know . . . kids . . ."

"With the construction company, ever lie to a customer?"

"Well, you know, there's things people don't entirely understand, in a business like, you got your scheduling and your parts delivery, and, uh . . ."

"Ever lie to a woman?"

Two days ago, most recently. Geoff shook his head. "You want me to lie," he said.

"You bet I do."

Geoff thought about it. "I just can't see it," he said, "that I can look one of the state boys in the eye and tell him I did all this by myself."

"Just keep telling the same story, you'll be all right."

"And what about the story these fellas tell?"

"You mean, how they came up here to kidnap an invisible man? You think they're gonna say that?"

"They gotta say something," Geoff pointed out.

"They'll claim misunderstanding, innocent victims, and they won't get away with it. Chief, I bet you not one of them says a word about any invisible man. And if they do, they'll be talking to nothing but psychiatrists the next twenty years."

"All right," Geoff said, having thought it over. "I tell you what maybe I could do. I'll explain things — I'll explain some of the things — to the fellas in the basement. And then I can say I managed to unlock the door and free them, and that's three, plus one, plus me, the five of us overpowered these fellas."

"Will they keep their mouths shut for you?"

"We pretty much take care of one another," Geoff said.

"Fine." The voice trailing away toward the door, Freddie said, "I'll get out of the way now."

Geoff went out to the hall, where the fat man was stirring, half sitting up. "Barney's coming around," he commented.

Whap! "No, he isn't. So long, Chief. And thanks."

The front door opened and closed. Geoff went back into his office to get handcuffs for Barney before talking to the guys in the basement, but then he heard a sudden shout from outside. So he went back to the hall, and the front door opened, and Freddie's pained voice said, "Could I borrow a broom, Chief? I forgot about those damn tacks."

"Better let me do the sweeping," Geoff said. "I wouldn't want the neighbors to think I'm doing The Sorcerer's Apprentice over here."

Geoff was just bringing the broom back into the house, where the tough guys were now conscious and rolling around on the floor, helpless because their hands were cuffed behind their backs, and here came Cliff and the construction crew, boiling in from the kitchen. "Where are they? Geoff, what's happening? What's the story here?"

Geoff said, "You got out! That's great!"

The crew looked a little sheepish. One of them said, "We kinda had to go through the wall beside the door. Kinda demolition, you know."

Another one said, "We did it as neat as we could."

The third one said, "We can patch it up, Geoff, no problem."

"Well," Geoff said, "this makes it a lot easier. Come on in the parlor and sit down, guys, let me tell you a little story before I call the state boys."

56

When Mordon awoke, he watched the oval spot of sunlight rise slowly to the teak cabin wall, then sink slowly to touch the mounds of his feet beneath the creamy blanket, then rise again; and so did Mordon, shaking, pale, staggering as he went into the bathroom.

It wasn't the gentle slow roll of the yacht that had so unmanned him, nor drink (though last night he had taken onboard much drink), but fear. His fear of the floating ax, when yesterday he had run pell-mell from Chief Wheedabyx's house and all the way out of the town of Dudley, had soon been replaced by the even stronger fears of exposure, ruin, and prison. His fears had been so powerful that his flight took place in a terrified daze, so that he barely remembered the pickup truck that had given him the lift, the diner in which he'd made the phone call to the car service in New York, the hours spent quivering over undrunk coffee in a rear booth of that diner, the hours spent quivering in the back of the town car that returned him to New York, the hours spent quivering in his office while he waited for Merrill Fullerton to respond to his call.

But then Merrill did, at last, and agreed that Mordon should come to see him, not in the NAABOR offices in the World Trade Center, since Merrill had not yet consolidated his power there, but in Merrill's apartment atop Trump Tower. When Mordon, in abject despair, related the events of the day to Merrill, fully expecting to be thrown into the street, his heart to be eaten by dogs, Merrill had instead leaped magnificently to his defense, saying, "Beuler will betray you, we know that much. Leave it to me."

And an hour later Mordon and Merrill and a dozen other people were sailing past Miss Liberty, out of New York Harbor, into the choppy Atlantic on the good ship Nicotiana, where all aboard were prepared to swear they had been disporting themselves for the last twenty-four hours, with distinguished attorney Mordon Leethe prominent in their midst.

Would it work? Could it work? Could even Merrill Fullerton rescue Mordon from this far down in the deep pit of ignominy? His sleep last night had been tortured, and so were his bathroom experiences this morning.

When at last he staggered back out to the bright cabin, with its roving spotlight of sun, as though the gods of rectitude were looking for him to wreak their own vengeance, there was a discreet tapping to be heard from the cabin door. "Come in," he choked, but no one could have heard that croaking, so he went over to open the door and found standing there a white-suited member of the ship's crew, who actually touched a fingertip to a temple in what looked rather like a salute as he said, "Mr. Fullerton's compliments. He awaits you on the fantail, sir. Whenever you're ready."

"Fan — ?"

"Aft, sir. Stern. Back of the ship. That way, and up." He pointed.

"Thank you."

Mordon would never truly be ready, not fully ready, but in ten minutes he was sufficiently together to go in search of the fantail and his benefactor, who stood beside a groaning board of breakfast, a huge buffet table. No one else was around. "Good morning," Merrill said, and gestured at the many foods. "Breakfast?"

"Perhaps . . . later."

The fantail was outdoors, but shielded by a canvas roof, striped blue and white. The sea was huge, and everywhere, and nowhere flat. The day was sharply lit, with acute edges.

"Probably," Merrill said, with a smile, "you'd like to know what's going on ashore."

"Yes."

"Sit down, Mordon, sit down."

They sat near each other and the white rail, on large and comfortable leather and chrome chairs. Mordon didn't so much want to sleep as merely to lose consciousness, but he forced himself to remain alert, alert enough to listen.

Merrill said, "I've been on the phone to New York a lot this morning. You were right about Detective Beuler, he did implicate you, and me, and poor old Jack the Fourth, and the doctors, and everyone else he could think of. However, we were lucky enough to get our people to Beuler's home on Long Island before the police got there, and what a lot of evidence he'd built up against you, Mordon!" Merrill beamed at the thought of it.

"He needed," Mordon said, "to protect himself from everybody."

"The other way around, I should say," Merrill commented, and added, "But not to worry. All of those tapes, all of that evidence that, I must say, could have disbarred you and probably put you behind bars for the rest of your life, is in my hands now, so you have nothing to worry about."

"You'll destroy it all, won't you? Or give it to me, so I can."

"Oh, there's no need for that," Merrill said. "It's safe with me. And so are you, Mordon. The upstate activities of yesterday are being treated as a simple failed bank robbery, Beuler's smearing of so many of his betters is being quite properly ignored, and we are all of us home and dry. Now let us talk about the invisible man."

Mordon slightly lifted his head. "Did he get away again?"

"For good this time, I think." Merrill's smile seemed quite savage for a moment. "It seems, those two blithering-idiot researchers managed not only to find the fellow and chat with him but, before they lost him again, they let him know there's no hope of his ever returning to his former self. He has no more reason to contact them, nor can any of us contact him. So he's gone."

"Too bad," Mordon said.

"Agreed. Also, after that one experiment, it would seem we can't replace him, either."

"Apparently not."

"So we must lean on our doctors more firmly than I had at first intended, Mordon, you and I."

Mordon squinted at his benefactor in the harsh bright air. "Me?"

"Think of that as your assignment from now on, Mordon," Merrill said. "Project director, we'll call it. The Human Genome Project. You will see to it the doctors don't dawdle or stall or waste their time on that ridiculous research they were doing. You will see to it that they concentrate on the genome project, that they make it their business to meet and grow friendly with the researchers in the field, that they themselves become an official part of the project within, oh, I know we can't rush these things, say eighteen months."

"Eighteen months."

"Do you think I'm being too generous? Well, if they can do it more quickly, more power to them. And to you." Merrill's mad eyes glittered in all that light reflecting from the sea. "What a future we're going to have, Mordon, what a future, you and I."

57

Elizabeth Louise Noon had lived in this little house in Ozone Park, under the flight path for the big jets coming in from Europe or heading out for anywhere, all of her married life. Long ago she'd stopped hearing the thunder of the jets as they slid down their invisible chute over her house toward JFK or climbed the invisible ramp from JFK to the world. Long ago she'd stopped noticing the dark shadows of the wide bodies cross her lawn and house and yard.

Betty she was called by most people, but Louise by her husband, Norm, who in the first flush of their romance had wanted a private name for her and couldn't think of anything else. In her own mind, unknown to anybody, she was always Elizabeth Louise. She and Norm, a sanitation worker with the City of New York, had raised nine kids in this little house, all of them grown now, all of them living elsewhere, but most of them would come back from time to time to shout their hellos under the passing jets.

When you've got nine kids, you're going to have variety. Elizabeth Louise didn't believe she had any bad kids, not mean or nasty, but she did admit to having a few scamps in the mix. She also had proper kids who'd grown up to be proper citizens, one nurse, one bus driver, one third-grade teacher, one Wal-Mart stock clerk.

She liked it when the kids came by, and she missed the ones who didn't, fretted over them in a small way, not making a big deal of it. Lately, the one she'd been fretting about most was Freddie, who was maybe the worst scamp in the bunch. He'd already been in jail, and she suspected he'd done drugs at one point in his life, and she was pretty sure he didn't have any regular job. Then, last month, that fake official letter had come, claiming the state of New York owed Freddie money for some cockamamie reason, and she could see that meant somebody was trying to find Freddie for no good reason — not good for Freddie, that is — so she lit a few candles for him, and hoped that if she ever did hear from him again, at least it wouldn't be bad news.

When the doorbell rang, Tuesday, the eleventh of July, around three in the afternoon, it wasn't Freddie who Elizabeth Louise was thinking about at all. She had a pregnant daughter-in-law, and that was who was on her mind as she walked through the house, unaware of the vibration as another big jet went over, and opened the front door.

A pretty girl was on the stoop. I hope she isn't a Jehovah's Witness, Elizabeth Louise thought, and said, "Yes?"

"Hi, Mrs. Noon," the girl said. "I'm Peg Briscoe. I've been living with your son Freddie for a while."

Elizabeth Louise had heard the name, from Freddie and from his brother Jimmy (another scamp), and Peg Briscoe seemed calm and cheerful here on the stoop, but nevertheless Elizabeth Louise's first thought was that Freddie was in trouble again. "What is it?" she said. "Does he need bail money?"

"No, no, nothing like that," the girl said, laughing. "Freddie's fine."

"That's a relief. Come in, come in."

So she came in, leaning against the open door for a second as though she'd lost her balance, but then righting herself and moving out of the way so Elizabeth Louise could shut the door.

"Iced tea?"

"That'd be nice," Peg Briscoe said, and uninvited she walked back to the kitchen with Elizabeth Louise, saying, "What a nice house. Freddie's told me about it."

"Has he?" Pouring iced tea for them both, she said, "Where is Freddie these days? Keeping himself out of trouble?"

Peg laughed again; she was clearly an easygoing girl, the right type for Freddie. "Keeping himself out of sight, anyway," she said.

"Probably the best we can hope for. Let's sit in the living room."

They sat in the living room, and sipped their iced tea, and the shadows went over the house, and Peg said, "Freddie wanted to come see you, but he's in a complicated situation now—"

"Trouble?"

"No, not at all. That's what he wanted me to come tell you. The situation he's in is really awfully difficult to explain."

"Is he sick?"

"No. He isn't sick, and he isn't in jail, and he isn't wanted for any crime, he's just in a . . . a complicated situation. So that he has to go away and he has to be kind of alone. Mostly alone."

"You mean, a quarantine?" Elizabeth Louise was getting scared.

"No, honest," the girl said. "He's not sick. It's kind of a problem, but it isn't terrible. It took me a while to adjust, but it's gonna be okay now. He came and helped me when I was in trouble, and he didn't have to, and I realize we need each other, we've got to be together. So I want you to know I'm gonna stick with him, he can count on me."

She'd said that with such assurance and sincerity that it was as though she were saying it to Freddie himself. Elizabeth Louise found herself feeling reassured, even though everything Peg Briscoe had said so far was so vague and incomprehensible that she shouldn't be feeling reassured at all. She said, "Where's Freddie now?"

"Waiting for me, not far from here." A jet went over, and when it was gone Peg gestured upward and said, "We're gonna take a plane. Haven't decided where yet."

"He's on the run?"

"No, Mrs. Noon," Peg said, and laughed at her. "You keep thinking Freddie's in trouble."

"He usually is."

"Not this time. Not ever again." Peg got to her feet. "I'd better go. He's waiting for me, he just wanted me to tell you not to worry, even though you won't be seeing him anymore. And please tell the same to his brothers and sisters, especially Jimmy."

Elizabeth Louise also rose. "Well, give him my love," she said. "And I hope things work out for him. And if he gets the chance, he should come say hello himself."

"When we get where we're going," Peg said, "I'll make him write you a letter. Or at least a postcard."

They walked back to the front door, and as Elizabeth Louise opened it she felt something, some movement of air, some aura, some weird experience that frightened her all over again, and she said to Peg Briscoe, in the open doorway, "He isn't dead, is he?"

"I'm alive, Ma."

Peg Briscoe smiled a slightly nervous smile, said, "He's fine. 'Bye," and pulled the door shut.

Did I hear that? What was it?

Elizabeth Louise opened the door and watched Peg Briscoe cross the sidewalk to a little old green car. As Peg opened the driver's door, the passenger door opened by itself. She got in and shut the driver's door and the passenger door shut by itself. She waved and smiled, and drove away, and another wide-body jet's shadow crossed over Elizabeth Louise and the house.

This one she noticed. She looked up, as the shadow went by. One of those would be Freddie, with his nice girlfriend. From now on, it could be any one of them, going over. One of those shadows is Freddie.

PRAISE FOR

DONALD E. WESTLAKE AND S M O K E

"Explaining what happens in a Donald Westlake novel is like reading a recipe for meringue instead of eating the results. . . . I strongly suggest you buy a copy now and squirrel it away for emergency use the next time you find yourself stuck in an airport lounge with a departure time of maybe. The bartender may resent the fact that you're too busy laughing to order another drink, but you'll definitely feel better in the morning."

— New York Times Book Review

"Westlake is a consummate pro. . . . SMOKE is one of his best books in years."

— Washington Post Book World

"This is one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. The dialogue is outrageous, the situations implausible, the humor nonstop. Freddie is the most likable fictional scamp you're likely to ever encounter."

— San Francisco Examiner

"More effective than a nicotine patch, and much funnier."

— San Jose Mercury News

"Glorious Westlake comedy. . . . Full of hilarious characters, crackpot conversations and narrative sleight of hand."

— Publishers Weekly

"A funny mystery writer. . . . Only Westlake could have come up with this one."

— Larry King, USA Today

"No one's touch is as quixotically cockeyed as Westlake's, no one can keep you chuckling as continuously."

— Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Rousing . . . full of fun. . . . The anti-tobacco satire hits square on the mark."

— Kirkus Reviews

"Westlake's delightful and absurd new novel . . . delivers the laughs. No one can turn a phrase or pen a comedy caper like Westlake."

— Detroit News and Free Press

"Full of chuckles . . . SMOKE is deft entertainment."

— Booklist

"Donald Westlake is very funny and weirdly enlightening."

— Newsweek

"Westlake [is] establishing himself as one of the hippest, coolest, funniest mystery writers out there."

— New York magazine

"Mystery connoisseurs will feel driven to rush to their nearest bookstore for a copy of SMOKE."

— Mostly Murder

"Donald E. Westlake [is] the Noel Coward of crime. . . . He displays an excellent ear for bitter-salty urban humor, composed of equal parts of raunch and cynicism."

— Chicago Sun-Times

"Donald Westlake keeps showing me people I'd like to meet."

— Rex Stout

"Westlake tosses the sand of petty frustrations and human fallibility into the well-oiled machine of the thriller."

— TIME

"Westlake is among the smoothest, most engaging writers on the planet."

— San Diego Tribune

"A glorious Westlake comedy."

— Hackensack Record

"There is never a dull moment in this tale . . . a merry romp that is clever and memorable."

— Rainbo Electronic Reviews

"If you like humor in your mysteries, you'll love this one."

— Abilene Reporter-News

"Suspend disbelief, get a few hankies for those tears of mirth, and spend an evening with this book. It's fun."

— Baton Rouge Advocate

Also By Donald E. Westlake

NOVELS

Humans

Sacred Monster

A Likely Story

Kahawa

Brothers Keepers

I Gave at the Office

Adios, Scheherazade

Up Your Banners

COMIC CRIME NOVELS

Trust Me on This

High Adventure

Castle in the Air

Enough

Dancing Aztecs

Two Much

Help I Am Being Held Prisoner

Cops and Robbers

Somebody Owes Me Money

Who Stole Sassi Manoon?

God Save the Mark

The Spy in the Ointment

The Busy Body

The Fugitive Pigeon

Smoke

THE DORTMUNDER SERIES

Don't Ask

Drowned Hopes

Good Behavior

Why Me

Nobody's Perfect

Jimmy the Kid

Bank Shot

The Hot Rock

CRIME NOVELS

Pity Him Afterwards

Killy

361

Killing Time

The Mercenaries

JUVENILE

Philip

WESTERN

Gangway (with Brian Garfield)

REPORTAGE

Under an English Heaven

SHORT STORIES

Tomorrow's Crimes

Levine

The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution and Other Fictions

ANTHOLOGY

Once Against the Law (coedited by William Tenn)