Whispers

"Or theater."

"What you really want to talk about is what happened to you today."

"No. That's the last thing."

"You need to talk about it, even if you don't want to."

"What I need to do is forget all about it, wipe it out of my mind."

"So you're playing turtle," she said. "You think you can pull your head under your shell and close up tight."

"Exactly," he said.

"Last week, when I wanted to hide from the whole world, when you wanted me to go out with you instead, you said it wasn't healthy for a person to withdraw into himself after an upsetting experience. You said it was best to share your feelings with other people."

"I was wrong," he said.

"You were right."

He closed his eyes, said nothing.

"Do you want me to leave?" she asked.

"No."

"I will if you want me to. No hard feelings."

"Please stay," he said.

"All right. What shall we talk about?"

"Beethoven and bourbon."

"I can take a hint," she said.

They sat silently side by side on the sofa, eyes closed, heads back, listening to the music, sipping the bourbon, as the sunlight turned amber and then muddy orange beyond the large windows. Slowly, the room filled up with shadows.

***

Early Monday evening, Avril Tannerton discovered someone had broken into Forever View. He made that discovery when he went down to the cellar, where he had a lavishly equipped woodworking shop; he saw that one of the panes in a basement window had been carefully covered with masking tape and then broken to allow the intruder to reach the latch. It was a much smaller-than-average window, hinged at the top, but even a fairly large man could wriggle through it if he was determined.

Avril was certain there was no stranger in the house at the moment. Furthermore, he knew the window hadn't been broken Friday night, for he would have noticed it when he spent an hour in his workshop, doing fine sanding on his latest project--a cabinet for his three hunting rifles and two shotguns. He didn't believe anyone would have the nerve to smash the window in broad daylight or when he, Tannerton, was at home, as he had been the previous night, Sunday; therefore, he concluded that the break-in must have occurred Saturday night, while he was at Helen Virtillion's place in Santa Rosa. Except for the body of Bruno Frye, Forever View had been deserted on Saturday. Evidently, the burglar had known the house was unguarded and had taken advantage of the opportunity.

Burglar.

Did that make sense?

A burglar?

He didn't think anything had been stolen from the public rooms on the first floor or from his private quarters on the second level. He was positive he would have noticed evidence of a theft almost immediately upon his return Sunday morning.

Besides, his guns were still in the den, and so was his extensive coin collection; certainly, those things would be prime targets for a thief.

In his woodworking shop, to the right of the broken cellar window, there were a couple of thousand dollars' worth of high-quality hand and power tools. Some of them were hanging neatly from a pegboard wall, and others were nestled in custom racks he had designed and built for them. He could tell at a glance that nothing was missing.

Nothing stolen.

Nothing vandalized.

What sort of burglar broke into a house just to have a look at things?

Avril stared at the pieces of glass and masking tape on the floor, then up at the violated window, then around the cellar, pondering the situation, until suddenly he realized that, indeed, something had been taken. Three fifty-pound bags of dry mortar mix were gone. Last spring, he and Gary Olmstead had torn out the old wooden porch in front of the funeral home; they'd built up the ground with a couple truckloads of topsoil, had terraced it quite professionally, and had put down a new brick veranda. They had also torn up the cracked and canted concrete sidewalks and had replaced them with brick. At the end of the five-week-long chore, they found themselves with three extra bags of mortar mix, but they didn't return them for a refund because Avril intended to construct a large patio behind the house next summer. Now those three bags of mix were gone.

That discovery, far from answering his questions, only contributed to the mystery. Amazed and perplexed, he stared at the spot where the bags had been stacked.

Why would a burglar ignore expensive rifles, valuable coins, and other worthwhile loot in favor of three relatively inexpensive bags of dry mortar mix?

Tannerton scratched his head. "Strange," he said.

***

After sitting quietly beside Hilary in the gathering darkness for fifteen minutes, after listening to Beethoven, after sipping two or three ounces of bourbon, and after Hilary replenished their drinks, Tony found himself talking about Frank Howard. He didn't realize he was going to open up to her until he had already begun speaking; he seemed to hear himself suddenly in mid-sentence, and then the words poured out. For half an hour, he spoke continuously, pausing only for an occasional sip of bourbon, recalling his first impression of Frank, the initial friction between them, the tense and the humorous incidents on the job, that boozy evening at The Bolt Hole, the blind date with Janet Yamada, and the recent understanding and affection that he and Frank had found for each other. Finally, when he began to recount the events in Bobby Valdez's apartment, he spoke hesitantly, softly. When he closed his eyes he could see that garbage- and blood-spattered kitchen as vividly as he could see his own living room when his eyes were open. As he tried to tell Hilary what it had been like to hold a dying friend in his arms, he began to tremble. He was terribly cold, frigid in his flesh and bones, icy in his heart. His teeth chattered. Slouched on the sofa, deep in purple shadow, he shed his first tears for Frank Howard, and they felt scalding hot on his chilled skin.

As he wept, Hilary took his hand; then she held him in much the same way that he had held Frank. She used her small cocktail napkin to dry his face. She kissed his cheeks, his eyes.

At first, she offered only consolation, and that was all he sought; but without either of them consciously striving to alter the embrace, the quality of it began to change. He put his arms around her, and it was no longer entirely clear who was holding and comforting whom. His hands moved up and down her sleek back, up and down, and he marveled at the exquisite contours; he was excited by the firmness and strength and suppleness of her body beneath the blouse. Her hands roamed over him, too, stroking and squeezing and admiring his hard muscles. She kissed the corners of his mouth, and he eagerly returned those kisses full on her lips. Their quick tongues met, and the kiss became hot, fiercely hot and liquid; it left them breathing harder than they had been when their lips first touched.

Simultaneously, they realized what was happening, and they froze, uncomfortably reminded of the dead friend for whom mourning had just begun. If they gave each other what they so badly needed and wanted, it might be like giggling at a funeral. For a moment, they felt that they were on the verge of committing a thoughtless and thoroughly blasphemous act.

But their desire was so strong that it overcame their doubts about the propriety of making love on this night of all nights. They kissed tentatively, then hungrily, and it was as sweet as ever. Her hands moved demandingly over him, and he responded to her touch, then she to his. He realized it was good and right for them to seek joy together. Making love now was not an act of disrespect toward the dead; it was a reaction to the unfairness of death itself. Their unquenchable desire was the result of many things, one of which was a profound animal need to prove that they were alive, fully and unquestionably and exuberantly alive.

By unspoken agreement, they got up from the couch and went to the bedroom.

Tony switched on a lamp in the living room as they walked out; that light spilled through the open doorway and was the only thing that illuminated the bed. Soft penumbral light. Warm and golden light. The light seemed to love Hilary, for it didn't merely fall dispassionately upon her as it did upon the bed and upon Tony; it caressed her, lovingly accented the milky bronze shade of her flawless skin, added luster to her raven-black hair, and sparkled in her big eyes.

They stood beside the bed, embracing, kissing, and then he began to undress her. He unbuttoned her blouse, slipped it off. He unhooked her bra; she shrugged out of it and let it fall to the floor. Her breasts were beautiful--round and full and upswept. The nipples were large and erect; he bent to them, kissed them. She took his head in her hands, lifted his face to hers, found his mouth with hers. She sighed. His hands trembled with excitement as he unbuckled her belt, unsnapped and unzipped her jeans. They slid down her long legs, and she stepped out of them, already having stepped out of her shoes.

Tony went to his knees before her, intending to pull off her panties, and he saw a four-inch-long welt of scar tissue along her left side. It began at the edge of her flat belly and curved around to her back. It was not the result of surgery; it wasn't the thin line that even a moderately neat doctor would leave. Tony had seen old, well healed bullet and knife wounds before, and even though the light was not bright, he was sure that this mark had been caused by either a gun or a blade. A long time ago, she had been hurt badly. The thought of her enduring so much pain stirred in him a desire to protect and shelter her. He had a hundred questions about the scar, but this wasn't the right time to ask them. He tenderly kissed the welt of puckered skin, and he felt her stiffen. He sensed that the scar embarrassed her. He wanted to tell her it didn't detract from her beauty or desirability, and that, in fact, this single minor flaw only emphasized her otherwise incredible physical perfection.

The way to reassure her was with actions, not words. He pulled down her panties, and she stepped out of them. Slowly, slowly, he moved his hands up her gorgeous legs, over the lovely curves of her calves, over the smooth thighs. He kissed her glossy black pubic bush, and the hairs bristled crisply against his face. As he stood, he cupped her firm buttocks in both hands, gently kneaded the taut flesh, and she moved against him, and their lips met again. The kiss lasted either a few seconds or a few minutes, and when it ended, Hilary said, "Hurry."

As she pulled back the covers and got into bed, Tony stripped off his own clothes. Nude, he stretched out beside her and took her in his arms.

They explored each other with their hands, endlessly fascinated by textures and shapes and angles and sizes and degrees of resiliency, and his erection throbbed as she fondled it.

After a while, but long before he actually entered her, he felt strangely as if he were melting into her, as if they were becoming one creature, not physically or sexually so much as spiritually, blending together through some sort of truly miraculous psychic osmosis. Overwhelmed by the warmth of her, excited by the promise of her magnificent body, but most deeply affected by the unique murmurs and movements and actions and reactions that made her Hilary and nobody but Hilary, Tony felt as if he had taken some new and exotic drug. His perceptions seemed to extend beyond the range of his own senses, so that he felt almost as if he were seeing through Hilary's eyes as well as through his own, feeling with his hands and her hands, tasting her mouth with his but also tasting his mouth with hers. Two minds, meshed. Two hearts, synchronized.

Her hot kisses made him want to taste every part of her, every delicious inch, and he did, arriving, at long last, at the warm juncture of her thighs. He spread her elegant legs and licked the moist center of her, opened those secret folds of flesh with his tongue, found the hidden nubble that, when softly flicked, caused her to gasp with pleasure.

She began to moan and writhe under the loving lash.

"Tony!"

He made love to her with his tongue and teeth and lips.

She arched her back, clutched the sheets with both hands, thrashed ecstatically.

As she raised herself, he slipped his hands under her, grabbed her rump, held her to him.

"Oh, Tony! Yes, yes!"

She was breathing deeply, rapidly. She tried to pull away from him when the pleasure became too intense, but then a moment later she thrust herself at him, begging for more. Eventually, she began to quiver all over, and those shallow tremors swiftly grew into wonderful wrenching shudders of pure delight. She gasped for breath and tossed her head and cried out deliriously, rode the wave within her, came and came again, lithe muscles contracting, relaxing, contracting, relaxing, until finally she was exhausted. She collapsed, and sighed.

He raised his head, kissed her fluttering belly, then moved up to tease her nipples with his tongue.

She reached down between them and gripped the iron hardness of him. Suddenly, as she anticipated this final joining, this complete union, she was filled with a new erotic tension.

He opened her with his fingers, and she released him from her hand, and he guided himself into her.

"Yes, yes, yes," she said as he filled her up. "My lovely Tony. Lovely, lovely, lovely Tony."

"You're beautiful."

It had never been sweeter for him. He braced himself above her on his fully-extended arms, looked down at her exquisite face. Their eyes locked, and after a moment it seemed that he was no longer merely staring at her, but into her, through her eyes, into the essence of Hilary Thomas, into her soul. She closed her eyes, and a moment later he closed his, and he discovered that the extraordinary bond was not destroyed when the gaze was broken.

Tony had made love to other women, but he had never been as close to any of them as he was to Hilary Thomas. Because this coupling was so special, he wanted to make it last a long time, wanted to bring her to the edge with him, wanted to take the plunge together. But this time he did not have the kind of control that usually marked his love-making. He was rushing toward the brink and could do nothing to stop himself. It was not just that she was tighter and slicker and hotter than other women he had known; it was not merely some trick of well-trained vaginal muscles; it was not that her perfect breasts drove him wild or that her silken skin was far silkier than that of any other women in his experience. All of those things were true, but it was the fact that she was special to him, extraordinarily special in a way that he had not yet even fully defined, that made being with her unbearably exciting.

She sensed his onrushing orgasm, and she put her hands on his back, pulled him down. He didn't want to burden her with his full weight, but she seemed unaware of it. Her breasts squashed against his chest as he settled onto her. She lifted her hips and ground her pelvis against him, and he thrust harder and faster. Incredibly, she started to come again just as he began to spurt uncontrollably. She held him close, held him tight, repeatedly whispering his name as he erupted and erupted within her, thickly and forcefully and endlessly within her, in the deepest and darkest reaches of her. As he emptied himself, a tremendous tide of tenderness and affection and aching need swept through him, and he knew that he would never be able to let her go.

***

Afterwards, they lay side by side on the bed, holding hands, heartbeats gradually easing.

Hilary was physically and emotionally wrung out by the experience. The number and startling power of her climaxes had shaken her. She'd never felt anything quite like it. Each orgasm had been a bolt of lightning, striking to the core of her, jolting through every fiber, an indescribably thrilling current. But Tony had given her a great deal more than sexual pleasure, she had felt something else, something new to her, something splendid and powerful that was beyond words.

She was aware that some people would say the word "love" perfectly described her feelings, but she wasn't ready to accept that disturbing definition. For a long, long time, since her childhood, the words "love" and "pain" had been inextricably linked in Hilary's mind. She couldn't believe that she was in love with Tony Clemenza (or he with her), dared not believe it, for if she were to do so, she would make herself vulnerable, leave herself defenseless.

On the other hand, she had difficulty believing that Tony would knowingly hurt her. He wasn't like Earl, her father. He wasn't like anyone she had ever known before. There was a tenderness about him, a quality of mercy, that made her feel that she would be perfectly safe in his hands. Perhaps she ought to take a chance with him. Maybe he was the one man who was worth the risk.

But then she realized how she would feel if their luck together went sour after she had put everything on the line for him. That would be a hard blow. She didn't know if she would bounce back from that one.

A problem.

No easy solution.

She didn't want to think about it right now. She just wanted to lay beside him, basking in the glow that they had created together.

She began to remember their lovemaking, the erotic sensations that had left her weak, some of which still lingered warmly in her flesh.

Tony rolled onto his side and faced her. He kissed her throat, her cheek. "A penny for your thoughts."

"They're worth more than that," she said.

"A dollar."

"More than that."

"A hundred dollars?"

"Maybe a hundred thousand."

"Expensive thoughts."

"Not thoughts, really. Memories."

"Hundred-thousand-dollar memories?"

"Mmmmmm."

"Of what?"

"Of what we did a few minutes ago."

"You know," he said, "you surprised me. You seem so proper and pure--almost angelic--but you've got a wonderfully bawdy streak in you."

"I can be bawdy," she admitted. "Very bawdy."

"You like my body?"

"It's a beautiful body."

For a while, they talked mostly nonsense, lovers' talk, murmuring dreamily. They were so mellow that everything seemed amusing to them.

Then, still speaking softly, but with a more serious note in his voice, Tony said, "You know, of course, I'm not ever going to let go of you."

She sensed that he was prepared to make a commitment if he could determine that she was ready to do likewise. But that was the problem. She wasn't ready. She didn't know if she would ever be ready. She wanted him. Oh, Jesus, how she wanted him! She couldn't think of anything more exciting or rewarding than the two of them living together, enriching each other's lives with their separate talents and interests. But she dreaded the disappointment and pain that would come if he ever stopped wanting her. She had put all of those terrible years in Chicago with Earl and Emma behind her, but she could not so easily disregard the lessons she had learned in that tenement apartment so long ago. She was afraid of commitment.

Looking for a way to avoid the implied question in his statement, hoping to keep the conversation frivolous, she said, "You're never going to let go of me?"

"Never."

"Won't it be awkward for you, trying to do police work with me in hand?"

He looked into her eyes, trying to determine if she understood what he had said.

Nervously, she said, "Don't hurry me, Tony. I need time. Just a little time."

"Take all the time you want."

"Right now I'm so happy that I just want to be silly. It's not the right time to be serious."

"So I'll try to be silly." he said.

"What shall we talk about?"

"I want to know all about you."

"That sounds serious, not silly."

"Tell you what. You be half-serious, and I'll be half-silly. We'll take turns at it."

"All right. First question."

"What's your favorite breakfast food?"

"Cornflakes," she said.

"Your favorite lunch?"

"Cornflakes."

"Your favorite dinner?"

"Cornflakes."

"Wait a minute," he said.

"What's wrong?"

"I figure you were serious about breakfast. But then you slipped in two silly responses in a row."

"I love cornflakes."

"Now you owe me two serious answers."

"Shoot."

"Where were you born?"

"Chicago."

"Raised there?"

"Yes."

"Parents?"

"I don't know who my parents are. I was hatched from an egg. A duck egg. It was a miracle. You must have read all about it. There's even a Catholic church in Chicago named after the event. Our Lady of the Duck Egg."

"Very silly indeed."

"Thank you."

"Parents?" he asked again.

"That's not fair," she said. "You can't ask the same thing twice."

"Who says?"

"I say."

"Is it that horrible?"

"What?"

"Whatever your parents did."

She tried to deflect the question. "Where'd you get the idea they did something horrible?"

"I've asked you about them before. I've asked you about your childhood, too. You've always avoided those questions. You were very smooth, very clever about changing the subject. You thought I didn't notice, but I did."

He had the most penetrating stare she'd ever encountered. It was almost frightening.

She closed her eyes so that he couldn't see into her.

"Tell me," he said.

"They were alcoholics."

"Both of them?"

"Yeah."

"Bad?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Violent?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"And I don't want to talk about it now."

"It might be good for you."

"No. Please, Tony. I'm happy. If you make me talk about them ... then I won't be happy any more. It's been a beautiful evening so far. Don't spoil it."

"Sooner or later, I want to hear about it."

"Okay," she said. "But not tonight."

He sighed. "All right. Let's see.... Who's your favorite television personality?"

"Kermit the Frog."

"Who's your favorite human television personality?"

"Kermit the Frog," she said.

"I said human this time."

"To me, he seems more human than anyone else on TV."

"Good point. What about the scar?"

"Does Kermit have a scar?"

"I mean your scar."

"Does it turn you off?" she asked, again trying to deflect the question.

"No," he said. "It just makes you more beautiful."

"Does it?"

"It does."

"Mind if I check you out on my lie detector?"

"You have a lie detector here?"

"Oh, sure," she said. She reached down and took his flaccid prick in her hand. "My lie detector works quite simply. There's no chance of getting an inaccurate reading. We just take the main plug"--she squeezed his organ--"and we insert it in socket B."

"Socket B?"

She slid down on the bed and took him into her mouth. In seconds, he swelled into pulsing, rigid readiness. In a few minutes, he was barely able to restrain himself.

She looked up and grinned. "You weren't lying."

"I'll say it again. You're a surprisingly bawdy wench."

"You want my body again?"

"I want your body again."

"What about my mind?"

"Isn't that part of the package?"

She took the top this time, settled onto him, moved back and forth, side to side, up and down. She smiled at him as he reached for her jiggling breasts, and after that she was not aware of single movements or individual strokes; everything blurred into a continuous, fluid, superheated motion that had no beginning and no end.

At midnight, they went to the kitchen and prepared a very late dinner, a cold meal of cheese and leftover chicken and fruit and chilled white wine. They brought everything back to the bedroom and ate a little, fed each other a little, then lost interest in the food before they'd eaten much of anything.

They were like a couple of teenagers, obsessed with their bodies and blessed with apparently limitless stamina. As they rocked in rhythmic ecstasy, Hilary was acutely aware that this was not merely a series of sex acts in which they were engaged; this was an important ritual, a profound ceremony that was cleansing her of long-nurtured fears. She was entrusting herself to another human being in a way she would have thought impossible only a week ago, for she was putting her pride out of the way, prostrating herself, offering herself up to him, risking rejection and humiliation and degradation, with the fragile hope that he would not misuse her. And he did not. A lot of the things they did might have been degrading with the wrong partner, but with Tony each act was exhalting, uplifting, glorious. She was not yet able to tell him that she loved him, not with words, but she was saying the same thing when, in bed, she begged him to do whatever he wanted with her, leaving herself no protection, opening herself completely, until, finally, kneeling before him, she used her lips and tongue to draw one last ounce of sweetness from his loins.

Her hatred for Earl and Emma was as strong now as it had been when they were alive, for it was their influence that made her unable to express her feelings to Tony. She wondered what she would have to do to break the chains that they had put on her.

For a while, she and Tony lay in bed, holding each other, saying nothing because nothing needed to be said.

Ten minutes later, at four-thirty in the morning, she said, "I should be getting home."

"Stay."

"Are you capable of doing more?"

"God, no! I'm wiped out. I just want to hold you. Sleep here." he said.

"If I stay, we won't sleep."

"Are you capable of doing more?"

"Unfortunately, dear man, I'm not. But I've got things to do tomorrow, and so have you. And we're much too excited and too full of each other to get any rest so long as we're sharing a bed. We'll keep touching like this, talking like this, resisting sleep like this."

"Well," he said, "we've got to learn to spend the night together. I mean, we're going to be spending a lot of them in the same bed, don't you think?"

"Many, many," she said. "The first night's the worst. We'll adjust when the novelty wears off. I'll start wearing curlers and cold cream to bed."

"And I'll start smoking cigars and watching Johnny Carson."

"Such a shame," she said.

"Of course, it'll take a bit of time for the freshness to wear off."

"A bit," she agreed.

"Like fifty years."

"Or sixty."

They delayed her leaving for another fifteen minutes, but finally she got up and dresssed. Tony pulled on a pair of jeans. In the living room, as they walked toward the door, she stopped and stared at one of his paintings and said, "I want to take six of your best pieces to Wyant Stevens in Beverly Hills and see if he'll handle you."

"He won't."

"I want to try."

"That's one of the best galleries."

"Why start at the bottom?"

He stared at her, but he seemed to be seeing someone else. At last, he said, "Maybe I should jump."

"Jump?"

He told her about the impassioned advice he had received from Eugene Tucker, the black ex-convict who was now designing dresses.

"Tucker is right," she said. "And this isn't even a jump. It's only a little hop. You're not quitting your job with the police department or anything. You're just testing the waters."

Tony shrugged. "Wyant Stevens will turn me down cold, but I guess I don't lose anything by giving him the chance to do it."

"He won't turn you down," she said. "Pick out half a dozen paintings you feel are most representative of your work. I'll try to get us an appointment with Wyant either later today or tomorrow."

"You pick them out right now," he said. "Take them with you. When you get a chance to see Stevens, show them to him."

"But I'm sure he'll want to meet you."

"If he likes what he sees, then he'll want to meet me. And if he does like it, I'll be happy to go see him."

"Tony, really--"

"I just don't want to be there when he tells you it's good work but only that of a gifted amateur."

"You're impossible."

"Cautious."

"Such a pessimist."

"Realist."

She didn't have time to look at all of the sixty canvases that were stacked in the living room. She was surprised to learn that he had more than fifty others stored in closets, as well as a hundred pen and ink drawings, nearly as many watercolors, and countless preliminary pencil sketches. She wanted to see all of them, but only when she was well-rested and fully able to enjoy them. She chose six of the twelve pieces that hung on the living room walls. To protect the paintings, they carefully wrapped them in lengths of an old sheet, which Tony tore apart for that purpose.

He put on a shirt and shoes, helped her carry the bundles to her car, where they stashed them in the trunk.

She closed and locked the trunk, and they looked at each other, neither of them wanting to say goodbye.

They were standing at the edge of a pool of light cast by a twenty-foot-high sodium-vapor lamp. He kissed her chastely.

The night was chilly and silent. There were stars.

"It'll be dawn before long," he said.

"Want to sing 'Two Sleepy People' with me?"

"I'm a lousy singer," he said.

"I doubt it." She leaned against him. "Judging from my experience, you're excellent at everything you do."

"Bawdy."

"I try to be."

They kissed again, and then he opened the driver's door for her.

"You're not going to work today?" she asked.

"No. Not after ... Frank. I have to go in and write up a report, but that'll take only an hour or so. I'm taking a few days. I've got a lot of time coming to me."

"I'll call you this afternoon."

"I'll be waiting," he said.

She drove away from there on empty early-morning streets. After she had gone a few blocks, her stomach began to growl with hunger, and she remembered that she didn't have the fixings for breakfast at home. She'd intended to do her grocery shopping after the man from the telephone company had gone, but then she'd heard from Michael Savatino and had rushed to Tony's place. She turned left at the next corner and went to an all-night market to pick up eggs and milk.

***

Tony figured Hilary wouldn't need any more than ten minutes to get home on the deserted streets, but he waited fifteen minutes before he called to find out if she had made the trip safely. Her phone didn't ring. All he got was a series of computer sounds--the beeps and buzzes that comprised the language of smart machines--then a few clicks and snaps and pops, then the hollow ghostly hissing of a missed connection. He hung up, dialed once more, being careful to get every digit right, but again the phone would not ring.

He was certain that the new unlisted number he had for her was correct. When she had given it to him, he had double-checked to be sure he'd gotten it right. And she read it off a carbon copy of the telephone company work order, which she had in her purse, so there wasn't any chance she was mistaken about it.

He dialed the operator and told her his problem. She tried to ring the number for him, but she couldn't get through, either.

"Is it off the hook?" he asked.

"It doesn't seem to be."

"What can you do?"

"I'll report the number out of order," she said. "Our service department will take care of it."

"When?"

"Does this number belong to either an elderly person or an invalid?"

"No," he said.

"Then it falls under normal service procedures," she said. "One of our servicemen will look into it sometime after eight o'clock this morning."

"Thank you."

He put down the receiver. He was sitting on the edge of the bed. He stared pensively at the rumpled sheets where Hilary had lain, looked at the slip of paper on which her new number was written.

Out of order?

He supposed it was possible that the serviceman had made a mistake when he'd switched Hilary's phones yesterday afternoon. Possible. But not probable. Not very likely at all.

Suddenly, he thought of the anonymous caller who had been bothering her. A man who did that sort of thing was usually weak, ineffectual, sexually stunted; almost without exception, he was incapable of having a normal relationship with a woman, and he was generally too introverted and frightened to attempt rape. Usually. Almost without exception. Generally. But was it conceivable that this crank was the one out of a thousand who was dangerous?

Tony put one hand on his stomach. He was beginning to feel queasy.

If bookmakers in Las Vegas had been taking bets on the likelihood of Hilary Thomas becoming the target of two unconnected homicidal maniacs in less than a week, the odds against would have been astronomical. On the other hand, during his years with the Los Angeles Police Department, Tony had seen the improbable happen again and again; and long ago he had learned to expect the unexpected.

He thought of Bobby Valdez. Naked. Crawling out of that small kitchen cabinet. Eyes wild. The pistol in his hand.

Outside the bedroom window, even though first light still had not touched the eastern sky, a bird cried. It was a shrill cry, rising and falling and rising again as the bird swooped from tree to tree in the courtyard; it sounded as if it was being pursued by something very fast and very hungry and relentless.

Sweat broke out on Tony's brow.

He got up from the bed.

Something was happening at Hilary's place. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

***

Because she stopped at the all-night market to buy milk, eggs, butter, and a few other items, Hilary didn't get home until more than half an hour after she left Tony's apartment. She was hungry and pleasantly weary. She was looking forward to a cheese omelet with a lot of finely chopped parsley--and then at least six uninterrupted hours of deep, deep sleep. She was far too tired to bother putting the Mercedes in the garage: she parked in the circular driveway.

The automatic lawn sprinklers sprayed water over the dark grass, making a cool hissing-whistling sound. A breeze rustled the palm fronds overhead.

She let herself into the house by the front entrance. The living room was pitch-black. But having anticipated a late return, she had left the foyer light burning when she'd gone out. Inside, she held the bag of groceries in one arm, closed and double-locked the door.

She switched on the living room ceiling light and took two steps out of the foyer before she realized that the place had been destroyed. Two table lamps were smashed, the shades torn to shreds. A glass display case lay in thousands of sharp pieces on the carpet; and the expensive limited-edition porcelains that had been in it were ruined: they were reduced to worthless fragments, thrown down on the stone hearth and ground underfoot. The sofa and armchairs were ripped open; chunks of foam and wads of cotton padding material were scattered all over the floor. Two wooden chairs, which apparently had been smashed repeatedly against one wall, were now only piles of kindling, and the wall was scarred. The legs were broken off the lovely little antique corner desk; all of the drawers were pulled from it and the bottoms knocked out of them. Every painting was still where she'd put it, but each hung in unrepairable ribbons. Ashes had been scooped out of the fireplace and smeared over the beautiful Edward Fields carpet. Not a single piece of furniture or decoration had been overlooked; even the fireplace screen had been kicked apart, and all of the plants had been jerked out of their pots and torn to bits.

Hilary was dazed at first, but then her shock gave way to anger at the vandals. "Son of a bitch," she said between clenched teeth.

She had passed many happy hours personally choosing every item in the room. She spent a small fortune on them, but it wasn't the cost of the wreckage that disturbed her; most of it was covered by insurance. However, there was sentimental value that could not be replaced, for these were the first really nice things that she had ever owned, and it hurt to lose them. Tears shimmered at the corners of her eyes.

Numb, disbelieving, she walked farther into the rubble before she realized that she might be in danger. She stopped, listened. The house was silent.

An icy shiver raced up her spine, and for one horrible instant she thought she felt someone's breath against the nape of her neck.

She whirled, looked behind her.

No one was there.

The foyer closet, which had been closed when she'd come into the house, was still closed. For a moment, she stared at it expectantly, afraid that it would open. But if anyone had been hiding in there, waiting for her to arrive, he would have come out by now.

This is absolutely crazy, she thought. It can't happen again. It just can't. That's preposterous. Isn't it?

There was a noise behind her.

With a soft cry of alarm, she turned and threw up her free arm to fend off the attacker.

But there was no attacker. She was still alone in the living room.

Nevertheless, she was convinced that what she had heard was not something so innocent as a naturally settling beam or floorboard. She knew she was not the only person in the house. She sensed another presence.

The noise again.

In the dining room.

A snapping. A tinkling. Like someone taking a step on broken glass or shattered china.

Then another step.

The dining room lay beyond an archway, twenty feet from Hilary. It was as black as a grave in there.

Another step: tinkle-snap.

She started to back up, cautiously retreating from the source of the noise, edging toward the front door, which now seemed a mile away. She wished she hadn't locked it.

A man moved out of the perfect darkness of the dining room, into the penumbral area beneath the archway, a big man, tall, and broad in the shoulders. He paused in the gloom for a second, then stepped into the brightly lit living room.

"No!" Hilary said.

Stunned, she stopped backing toward the door. Her heart leapt, and her mouth went dry, and she shook her head back and forth, back and forth: no, no, no.

He was holding a large and wickedly sharp knife. He grinned at her. It was Bruno Frye.

***

Tony was thankful that the streets were empty, for he couldn't have tolerated any delay. He was afraid he was already too late.

He drove hard and fast, north on Santa Monica, then west on Wilshire, putting the Jeep up to seventy miles an hour by the time he reached the first downslope just outside the Beverly Hills city limits, engine screaming, windows and loose dashboard knobs vibrating tinnily. At the bottom of the hill, the traffic light was red. He didn't brake. He pressed the horn in warning and flew through the intersection. He slammed across a shallow drainage channel in the street, a broad depression that was almost unnoticeable at thirty-five miles an hour, but at his speed it felt like a yawning ditch beneath him; for a fraction of a second he actually was airborne, thumping his head into the roof in spite of the restraining harness that he wore. The Jeep came back to the pavement with a bang, a many-voiced chorus of rattles and clanks, and a sharp bark of tortured rubber. It began to slue to the left, its rear end sliding around with a blood-chilling screech, smoke curling up from the protesting tires. For an electrifying instant, he thought he was going to lose control, but then abruptly the wheel was his again, and he was more than halfway up the next hill without realizing how he'd gotten there.

His speed was down to forty miles an hour, and he got it back up to sixty. He decided not to push it beyond that. He only had a short distance to go. If he wrapped the Jeep around a streetlamp or rolled it over and killed himself, he wouldn't be able to do Hilary any good.

He was still not obeying the rules of the road. He went much too fast and wide on what few turns there were, swinging out into the east-bound lanes, again thankful that there were no oncoming cars. The traffic signals were all against him, a perverse twist of fate, but he ignored every one of them. He wasn't worried about getting a ticket for speeding or reckless driving. If stopped, he would flash his badge and take the uniformed officers along with him to Hilary's place. But he hoped to God he wasn't given a chance to pick up those reinforcements, for it would mean stopping, identifying himself, and explaining the emergency. If they pulled him over, he would lose at least a minute.

He had a hunch that a minute might be the difference between life and death for Hilary.

***

As she watched Bruno Frye coming through the archway, Hilary thought she must be losing her mind. The man was dead. Dead! She had stabbed him twice, had seen his blood. She had seen him in the morgue, too, cold and yellow-gray and lifeless. An autopsy had been performed. A death certificate had been signed. Dead men don't walk. Nevertheless, he was back from the grave, walking out of the dark dining room, the ultimate uninvited guest, a large knife in one gloved hand, eager to finish what he had started last week; and it simply was not possible that he could be there.

Hilary closed her eyes and willed him to be gone. But a second later, when she forced herself to look again, he was still there.

She was unable to move. She wanted to run, but all of her joints--hips, knees, ankles--were rigid, locked, and she didn't have the strength to make them move. She felt weak, as frail as an old, old woman; she was sure that, if she somehow managed to unlock her joints and take a step, she would collapse.

She couldn't speak, but, inside, she was screaming.

Frye stopped less than fifteen feet from her, one foot in a cotton snowdrift of stuffing that had been torn from one of the ruined armchairs. He was pasty-faced, shaking violently, obviously on the edge of hysteria.

Could a dead man be hysterical?

She had to be out of her mind. Had to be. Stark raving mad. But she knew she wasn't.

A ghost? But she didn't believe in ghosts. And besides, wasn't a spirit supposed to be insubstantial, transparent, or at least translucent? Could an apparition be as solid as this walking dead man, as convincingly and terrifyingly real as he was?

"Bitch," he said. "You stinking bitch!"

His hard, low-pitched, gravelly voice was unmistakable.

But, Hilary thought crazily, his vocal cords already should have started to rot. His throat should be blocked with putrescence.

She felt high-pitched laughter building in her, and she struggled to control it. If she began to laugh, she might never stop.

"You killed me," he said menacingly, still teetering on the brink of hysteria.

"No," she said. "Oh, no. No."

"You did!" he screamed, brandishing the knife. "You killed me! Don't lie about it. I know. Don't you think I know? Oh, Jesus! I feel so strange, so alone, all alone, so empty." There was genuine spiritual agony mixed up with his rage. "So empty and scared. And it's all because of you."

He slowly crossed the few yards that separated him from her, stepping carefully through the rubble.

Hilary could see that this dead man's eyes were not blank or filmed with milky cataracts. These eyes were blue-gray and very much alive--and brimming with cold, cold anger.

"This time you'll stay dead," Frye said as he approached. "You won't come back this time."

She tried to retreat from him, took one hesitant step, and her legs almost buckled. But she didn't fall. She had more strength left than she had thought.

"This time," Frye said, "I'm taking every precaution. I'm not giving you a chance to come back. I'm going to cut your fuckin' heart out."

She took another step, but it didn't matter; she could not escape. She wouldn't have time to reach the door and throw off both locks. If she tried that, he would be on her in a second, ramming the knife down between her shoulders.

"Pound a stake through your fuckin' heart."

If she ran for the stairs and tried to get to the pistol in her bedroom, she surely wouldn't be as lucky as she had been the last time. This time he would catch her before she made it to the second floor.

"I'll cut your goddamned head off."

He loomed over her, within arm's reach.

She had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

"Gonna cut out your tongue. Stuff your fuckin' mouth full of garlic. Stuff it full of garlic so you can't sweet-talk your way back from hell."

She could hear her own thunderous heartbeat. She couldn't breathe because of the intensity of her fear.

"Cut your fuckin' eyes out."

She froze again, unable to move an inch.

"Gonna cut your eyes out and crush them so you can't see your way back."

Frye raised the knife high above his head. "Cut your hands off so you can't feel your way back from hell."

The knife hung up there for an eternity as terror distorted Hilary's sense of time. The wicked point of the weapon drew her gaze, nearly hypnotizing her.

"No!"

Sharp slivers of light glinted on the cutting edge of the poised blade.

"Bitch."

And then the knife started down, straight at her face, light flashing off the steel, down and down and down in a long, smooth, murderous arc.

She was holding the bag of groceries in one arm. Now, without pausing to think about what she must do, in one quick and instinctive move, she grabbed the bag with both hands and thrust it out, up, in the way of the descending knife, trying desperately to block the killing blow.

The blade rammed through the groceries, puncturing a carton of milk.

Frye roared in fury.

The dripping bag was knocked out of Hilary's grasp. It fell to the floor, spilling milk and eggs and scallions and sticks of butter.

The knife had been torn from the dead man's hand. He stopped to retrieve it.

Hilary ran toward the stairs. She knew that she had only delayed the inevitable. She had gained two or three seconds, no more than that, not nearly enough time to save herself.

The doorbell rang.

Surprised, she stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked back.

Frye stood up with the knife in hand.

Their eyes met; Hilary could see a flicker of indecision in his.

Frye moved toward her, but with less confidence than he had exhibited before. He glanced nervously toward the foyer and the front door.

The bell rang again.

Holding on to the bannister, backing up the steps, Hilary yelled for help, screamed at the top of her voice.

Outside, a man shouted: "Police!"

It was Tony.

"Police! Open this door!"

Hilary couldn't imagine why he had come. She had never been so glad to hear anyone's voice as she was to hear his, now.

Frye stopped when he heard the word "police," looked up at Hilary, then at the door, then at her again, calculating his chances.

She kept screaming.

Glass exploded with a bang that caused Frye to jump in surprise, and sharp pieces rang discordantly on a tile floor. Although she couldn't see into the foyer from her position on the steps, Hilary knew that Tony had smashed the narrow window beside the front door.

"Police!"

Frye glared at her. She had never seen such hatred as that which twisted his face and gave his eyes a mad shine.

"Hilary!" Tony said.

"I'll be back," Frye told her.

The dead man turned away from her and ran across the living room, toward the dining room, apparently intending to slip out of the house by way of the kitchen.

Sobbing, Hilary dashed down the few steps she had climbed. She rushed to the front door, where Tony was calling her through the small broken windowpane.

***

Holstering his service revolver, Tony returned from the rear lawn, stepped into the brightly-lit kitchen.

Hilary was standing by the utility island in the center of the room. There was a knife on the counter, inches from her right hand.

As he closed the door he said, "There's no one in the rose garden."

"Lock it," she said.

"What?"

"The door. Lock it."

He locked it.

"You looked everywhere?" she asked.

"Every corner."

"Along both sides of the house?"

"Yes."

"In the shrubbery?"

"Every bush."

"Now what?" she asked.

"I'll call in to HQ, get a couple of uniforms out here to write up a report."

"It won't do any good," she said.

"You never can tell. A neighbor might have seen someone lurking here earlier. Or maybe somebody spotted him running away."

"Does a dead man have to run away? Can't a ghost just vanish when it wants to?"

"You don't believe in ghosts?"

"Maybe he wasn't a ghost," she said. "Maybe he was a walking corpse. Just your ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill walking corpse."

"You don't believe in zombies, either."

"Don't I?"

"You're too level-headed for that."

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I don't know what I believe any more."

Her voice contained a tremor that disturbed him. She was on the verge of a collapse.

"Hilary ... are you sure of what you saw?"

"It was him."

"But how could it be?"

"It was Frye," she insisted.

"You saw him in the morgue last Thursday."

"Was he dead then?"

"Of course he was dead."

"Who said?"

"The doctors. Pathologists."

"Doctors have been known to be wrong."

"About whether or not a person is dead?"

"You read about it in the papers every once in a while," she said. "They decide a man has kicked the bucket; they sign the death certificate; and then the deceased suddenly sits up on the undertaker's table. It happens. Not often. I admit it's not an everyday occurrence. I know it's pretty much a one in a million kind of thing."

"More like one in ten million."

"But it does happen."

"Not in this case."

"I saw him! Here. Right here. Tonight."

He went to her, kissed her on the cheek, took her hand, which was ice-cold. "Listen, Hilary, he's dead. Because of the stab wounds you inflicted, Frye lost half the blood in his body. They found him in a huge pool of it. He lost all that blood, and then he lay in the hot sun, unattended, for a few hours. He simply couldn't have lived through that."

"Maybe he could."

Tony lifted her hand to his lips, kissed her pale fingers. "No," he said quietly but firmly. "Frye would have had to die from such a blood loss."

Tony figured that she was suffering from mild shock, which was somehow responsible for a temporary short circuit of her senses, a brief confusion of memories. She just was getting this attack mixed up with the one last week. In a minute or two, when she regained control of herself, everything would clear up in her mind, and she would realize that the man who had been here tonight had not been Bruno Frye. All he had to do was stroke her a little bit, speak to her in a measured voice, and answer all her questions and wild suppositions as reasonably as possible, until she was her normal self again.

"Maybe Frye wasn't dead when they found him in that supermarket parking lot," she said. "Maybe he was just in a coma."

"The coroner would have discovered it when he did the autopsy."

"Maybe he didn't do the autopsy."

"If he didn't, another doctor on his staff did."

"Well," Hilary said, "maybe they were especially busy that day--a lot of bodies all at once or something like that--and they decided just to fill out a quick report without actually doing the work."

"Impossible," Tony said. "The medical examiner's office has the highest professional standards imaginable."

"Can't we at least check on it?" she asked.

He nodded. "Sure. We can do that. But you're forgetting that Frye must have passed through the hands of at least one mortician. Probably two. What little blood was left in him must have been drained out and replaced with embalming fluid."

"Are you sure?"

"He had to be either embalmed or cremated to be shipped to St. Helena. It's the law."

She considered that for a moment, then said, "But what if this is one of those bizarre cases, the one in ten million? What if he was mistakenly pronounced dead? What if the coroner did fudge on the autopsy? And what if Frye sat up on the embalmer's table, just as the mortician was starting to work on him?"

"You're grasping at straws, Hilary. Surely you can see that if anything like that happened, we'd know about it. If a mortician found himself in possession of a dead body that turned out not to be dead after all, that turned out to be a virtually bloodless man urgently in need of medical attention, then that mortician would get him to the nearest hospital in one hell of a hurry. He'd also call the coroner's office. Or the hospital would call. We'd know about it immediately."

She thought about what he had said. She stared at the kitchen floor and chewed on her lower lip. Finally, she said, "What about Sheriff Laurenski up there in Napa County?"

"We haven't been able to get a response out of him yet."

"Why not?"

"He's dodging our inquiries. He won't take our calls or return them.

"Well, doesn't that tell you that there's more to this than meets the eye?" she asked. "There's some sort of conspiracy, and the Napa sheriff is part of it."

"What sort of conspiracy did you have in mind?"

"I ... don't know."

Still speaking softly and calmly, still certain that she would eventually respond to his gentle and reasonable arguments, Tony said, "A conspiracy between Frye and Laurenski and maybe even Satan himself? A conspiracy to cheat Death out of his due? An evil conspiracy to come back from the grave? A conspiracy to somehow live forever? None of that makes sense to me. Does it make sense to you?"

"No," she said irritably. "It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense."

"Good. I'm glad to hear that. If you said it did, I'd be worried about you."

"But, dammit, something highly unusual is happening here. Something extraordinary. And it seems to me that Sheriff Laurenski must be a part of it. After all, he protected Frye last week, actually lied for him. And now he's avoiding you because he doesn't have an acceptable explanation for his actions. Doesn't that seem like suspicious behavior to you? Doesn't he seem like a man who is up to his neck in some sort of conspiracy?"

"No," Tony said. "To me, he just seems like a very badly embarrassed policeman. For an officer of the law, he committed a damned serious error. He covered for a local big shot because he thought the man couldn't possibly be involved in rape and attempted murder. He couldn't get hold of Frye last Wednesday night, but he pretended that he had. He was totally convinced that Frye wasn't the man we wanted. But he was wrong. And now he's thoroughly ashamed of himself."

"Is that what you think?" she asked.

"That's what everyone at HQ thinks."

"Well, it's not what I think."

"Hilary--"

"I saw Bruno Frye tonight!"

Instead of gradually coming to her senses, as he had hoped she would do, she was getting worse, retreating further into this dark fantasy of walking dead men and strange conspiracies. He decided to get tough with her.

"Hilary, you didn't see Bruno Frye. He wasn't here. Not tonight. He's dead. Dead and buried. This was another man who came after you tonight. You're in mild shock. You're confused. That's perfectly understandable. However--"

She pulled her hand out of his and stepped back from him.

"I am not confused. Frye was here. And he said he'd be back."

"Just a minute ago. you admitted your story doesn't make any sense at all. Didn't you?"

Reluctantly, she said, "Yes. That's what I said. It doesn't make sense. But it happened!"

"Believe me, I've seen how a sudden shock can affect people," Tony said. "It distorts perceptions and memories and--"

"Are you going to help me or not?" she asked.

"Of course I'm going to help you."

"How? What will we do?"

"For starters, we'll report the break-in and the assault."

"Isn't that going to be terribly awkward'?" she asked sourly. "When I tell them that a dead man tried to kill me, don't you suppose they'll decide to commit me for a few days, until they can complete a psychiatric evaluation? You know me a hell of a lot better than anyone else, and even you think I'm crazy."

"I don't think you're crazy," he said, dismayed by her tone of voice. "I think you're distraught."

"Damn."

"It's understandable."

"Damn."

"Hilary, listen to me. When the responding officers get here, you won't say a word to them about Frye. You'll calm down, get a grip on yourself--"

"I've got a grip on myself!"

"--and you'll try to recall exactly what the assailant looked like. If you settle your nerves, if you give yourself half a chance, I'm sure you'll be surprised by what you'll remember. When you're calm, collected, more rational about this, you'll realize that he wasn't Bruno Frye."

"He was."

"He might have resembled Frye, but--"

"You're acting just like Frank Howard did the other night," she said angrily.

Tony was patient. "The other night, at least, you were accusing a man who was alive."

"You're just like everyone else I've ever trusted," she said, her voice cracking.

"I want to help you."

"Bullshit."

"Hilary, don't turn away from me."

"You're the one who turned away first."

"I care about you."

"Then show it!"

"I'm here, aren't I? What more proof do you need?"

"Believe me," she said. "That's the best proof."

He saw that she was profoundly insecure, and he supposed she was that way because she had had very bad experiences with people she had loved and trusted. Indeed, she must have been brutally betrayed and hurt, for no ordinary disappointment would have made her as sensitive as she was now. Still suffering from those old emotional wounds, she now demanded fanatical trust and loyalty. The moment he showed doubts about her story, she began to withdraw from him, even though he wasn't impugning her veracity. But, dammit, he knew it wasn't healthy to play along with her delusion; the best thing he could do for her was gently coax her back to reality.

"Frye was here tonight," she insisted. "Frye and nobody else. But I won't tell the police that."

"Good," he said, relieved.

"Because I'm not going to call the police."

"What?"

Without explaining, she turned away from him and walked out of the kitchen.

As he followed her through the wrecked dining room, Tony said, "You have to report this."

"I don't have to do anything."

"Your insurance company won't pay if you haven't filed a police report."

"I'll worry about that later," she said, leaving the dining room, entering the living room.

He trailed her as she weaved through the debris in the front room, heading toward the stairs. "You're forgetting something," he said.

"What's that?"

"I'm a detective."

"So?"

"So now that I'm aware of this situation, it's my duty to report it."

"So report it."

"Part of the report will be a statement from you."

"You can't force me to cooperate. I won't."

As they reached the foot of the stairs, he grabbed her by the arm. "Wait a minute. Please wait."

She turned and faced him. Her fear had been driven out by anger. "Let go of me."

"Where are you going?"

"Upstairs."

"What are you going to do?"

"Pack a suitcase and go to a hotel."

"You can stay at my place," he said.

"You don't want a crazy woman like me staying overnight," she said sarcastically.

"Hilary, don't be this way."

"I might go berserk and kill you in your sleep."

"I don't think you're crazy."

"Oh, that's right. You think I'm just confused. Maybe a little dotty. But not dangerous."

"I'm only trying to help you."

"You've got a funny way of doing it."

"You can't live in a hotel forever."

"I'll come home once he's been caught."

"But if you don't make a formal complaint, no one's even going to be looking for him."

"I'll be looking for him."

"You?"

"Me."

Now Tony was angry. "What game are you going to play--Hilary Thomas, Girl Detective?"

"I might hire private investigators."

"Oh, really?" he asked scornfully, aware that he might alienate her further with this approach, but too frustrated to be patient any longer.

"Really," she said. "Private investigators."

"Who? Philip Marlowe? Jim Rockford? Sam Spade?"

"You can be a sarcastic son of a bitch."

"You're forcing me to be. Maybe sarcasm will snap you out of this."

"My agent happens to know a first-rate firm of private detectives."

"I tell you, this isn't their kind of work."

"They'll do anything they're paid to do."

"Not anything."

"They'll do this."

"It's a job for the LAPD."

"The police will only waste their time looking for known burglars, known rapists, known--"

"That's a very good, standard, effective investigative technique," Tony said.

"But it won't work this time."

"Why? Because the assailant was an ambulatory dead man?"

"That's right."

"So you think maybe the police should spend their time looking for known dead rapists and burglars?"

The look she gave him was a withering mixture of anger and disgust.

"The way to break this case," she said, "is to find out how Bruno Frye could have been stone-cold dead last week--and alive tonight."

"Will you listen to yourself, for God's sake?"

He was concerned for her. This stubborn irrationality frightened him.

"I know what I said," she told him. "And I also know what I saw. And it wasn't just that I saw Bruno Frye in this house a little while ago. I heard him, too. He had that distinct, unmistakable, guttural voice. It was him. No one else. I saw him, and I heard him threatening to cut off my head and stuff my mouth full of garlic, as if he thought I was some sort of vampire or something."

Vampire.

That word jolted Tony because it made such a startling and incredible connection with several things that had been found last Thursday in Bruno Frye's gray Dodge van, strange items about which Hilary couldn't possibly know anything, items that Tony had forgotten until this morning. A chill swept through him.

"Garlic?" he asked. "Vampires? Hilary, what are you talking about?"

She pulled out of his grasp and hurried up the stairs.

He ran after her. "What's this about vampires?"

Climbing the steps, refusing to look at Tony or answer his questions, Hilary said, "Isn't this some swell story I've got to tell? I was assaulted by a walking dead man who thought I was a vampire. Oh, wow! Now you're absolutely positive that I've lost my mind. Call the little white chuckle wagon! Get this poor lady into a straitjacket before she hurts herself! Put her in a nice padded room real quick! Lock the door and throw away the key!"

In the second-floor hallway, a few feet from the top of the stairs, as Hilary was heading toward a bedroom door, Tony caught up with her. He grabbed her arm again.

"Let go, dammit!"

"Tell me what he said."

"I'm going to a hotel, and then I'm going to work this thing out on my own."

"I want to know every word he said."

"There's nothing you can do to stop me," she told him. "Now let me go."

He shouted in order to get through to her. "I have to know what he said about vampires, dammit!"

Her eyes met his. Apparently she recognized the fear and confusion in him, for she stopped trying to pull away. "What's so damned important?"

"The vampire thing."

"Why?"

"Frye apparently was obsessed with the occult."

"How do you know that?"

"We found some things in that van of his."

"What things?"

"I don't remember all of it. A deck of tarot cards, a Ouija board, more than a dozen crucifixes--"

"I didn't see anything about that in the newspapers."

"We didn't make a formal press release out of it," Tony said. "Besides, by the time we searched the van and inventoried its contents and were prepared to consider a release, all of the papers had published their first-day stories, and the reporters had filed their follow-ups. The case just didn't have enough juice to warrant squeezing third-day coverage out of it. But let me tell you what else was in that van. Little linen bags of garlic taped above all the doors. Two wooden stakes with very sharp points. Half a dozen books about vampires and zombies and other varieties of the so-called 'living dead.'"

Hilary shuddered. "He told me he was going to cut out my heart and pound a stake through it."

"Jesus."

"He was going to cut out my eyes, too, so I wouldn't be able to find my way back from hell. That's how he put it. Those were his words. He was afraid that I was going to return from the dead after he killed me. He was raving like a lunatic. But then again, he returned from the grave, didn't he?" She laughed harshly, without a note of humor, but with a trace of hysteria. "He was going to cut off my hands, so I couldn't feel my way back."

Tony felt sick when he thought of how close that man had come to fulfilling those threats.

"It was him," Hilary said. "You see? It was Frye."

"Could it have been make-up?"

"What?"

"Could it have been someone made-up to look like Frye?"

"Why would anyone do that?"

"I don't know."

"What would he have to gain?"

"I don't know."

"You accused me of grabbing at straws. Well, this isn't even a straw you're grabbing at. It's just a mirage. It's nothing."

"But could it have been another man in make-up?" Tony persisted.

"Impossible. There isn't any make-up that convincing at close range. And the body was the same as Frye's. The same height and weight. The same bone structure. The same muscles."

"But if it was someone in make-up, imitating Frye's voice--"

"That would make it easy for you," she said coldly. "A clever impersonation, no matter how bizarre and unexplainable, is easier to accept than my story about a dead man walking. But you mentioned his voice, and that's another hole in your theory. No one could mimic that voice. Oh, an excellent impressionist might get the low pitch and the phrasing and the accent just right, but he wouldn't be able to recreate that awful rasping, crackling quality. You could only talk like that if you had an abnormal larynx or screwed-up vocal cords. Frye was born with a malformed voice box. Or he suffered a serious throat injury when he was a child. Maybe both. Anyway, that was Bruno Frye who spoke to me tonight, not a clever imitation. I'd bet every cent I have on it."

Tony could see that she was still angry, but he was no longer so sure that she was hysterical or even mildly confused. Her dark eyes were sharply focused. She spoke in clipped and precise sentences. She looked like a woman in complete control of herself.

"But Frye is dead," Tony said weakly.

"He was here."

"How could he have been?"

"As I said, that's what I intend to find out."

Tony had walked into a strange room, a room of the mind, which was constructed of impossibilities. He half-remembered something from a Sherlock Holmes story. Holmes had expressed the view to Watson that, in detection, once you had eliminated all the possibilities except one, that which was left, no matter how unlikely or absurd, must be the truth.

Was the impossible possible?

Could a dead man walk?

He thought of the inexplicable tie between the threats the assailant had made and the items found in Bruno Frye's van. He thought of Sherlock Holmes, and finally he said, "All right."

"All right what?" she asked.

"All right, maybe it was Frye."

"It was."

"Somehow ... some way ... God knows how ... but maybe he did survive the stabbing. It seems utterly impossible, but I guess I've got to consider it."

"How wonderfully open-minded of you," she said. Her feathers were still ruffled. She was not going to forgive him easily.

She pulled away from him again and entered the master bedroom.

He followed her.

He felt slightly numb. Sherlock Holmes hadn't said anything about the effects of living with the disturbing thought that nothing was impossible.

She got a suitcase out of the closet, put it on the bed, and started filling it with clothes.

Tony went to the bedside phone and picked up the receiver. "Line's dead. He must have cut the wires outside. We'll have to use a neighbor's phone to report this."

"I'm not reporting it."

"Don't worry," he said. "All that's changed. I'll support your story now."

"It's too late for that," she said sharply.

"What do you mean?"

She didn't answer. She took a blouse off a hanger with such a sudden tug that the hanger clattered to the closet floor.

He said, "You're not still planning to hide out in a hotel and hire private investigators."

"Oh, yes. That's exactly what I'm planning to do," she said, folding the blouse.

"But I've said I believe you."

"And I said it's too late for that. Too late to make any difference."

"Why are you being so difficult?"

Hilary didn't respond. She placed the folded blouse in the suitcase and returned to the closet for other pieces of clothing.

"Listen," Tony said, "all I did was express a few quite reasonable doubts. The same doubts that anyone would have in a situation like this. In fact, the same doubts that you would have expressed if I'd been the one who'd said he'd seen a dead man walking. If our roles were reversed, I'd expect you to be skeptical. I wouldn't be furious with you. Why are you so damned touchy?"

She came back from the closet with two more blouses and started to fold one of them. She wouldn't look at Tony. "I trusted you ... with everything," she said.

"I haven't violated any trust."

"You're like everyone else."

"What happened at my apartment earlier--wasn't that kind of special?"

She didn't answer him.

"Are you going to tell me that what you felt tonight--not just with your body, but with your heart, your mind--are you going to tell me that was no different from what you feel with every man?"

Hilary tried to freeze him out. She kept her eyes on her work, put the second blouse in the suitcase, began to fold the third. Her hands were trembling.

"Well, it was special for me," Tony said, determined to thaw her. "It was perfect. Better than I ever thought it could he. Not just the sex. The being together. The sharing. You got inside me like no woman ever has before. You took away a piece of me when you left my place last night, a piece of my soul, a piece of my heart, a piece of something vital. For the rest of my life, I'm not going to feel like a whole man except when I'm with you. So if you think I'm going to just let you walk away, you're in for a big surprise. I'll put up one hell of a fight to hold on to you, lady."

She had stopped folding the blouse. She was just standing with it in her hands, staring down at it.

Nothing in his entire life had seemed half so important as knowing what she was thinking at that moment.

"I love you," he said.

Still looking at the blouse, she responded to him in a tremulous voice. "Are commitments ever kept? Are promises between two people ever kept? Promises like this? When someone says, 'I love you,' does he ever really mean it? If my parents could gush about love one minute, then beat me black and blue a minute later, who the hell can I trust? You? Why should I? Isn't it going to end in disappointment and pain? Doesn't it always end that way? I'm better off alone. I can take good care of myself. I'll be all right. I just don't want to be hurt any more. I'm sick of being hurt. Sick to death of it! I'm not going to make commitments and take risks. I can't. I just can't."

Tony went to her, gripped her by the shoulders, forced her to look at him. Her lower lip quivered. Tears gathered in the corners of her beautiful eyes, but she held them back.

"You feel the same thing for me that I feel for you," he said. "I know it. I feel it. I'm sure of it. You're not turning your back on me because I had some doubts about your story. That doesn't really have anything to do with it. You're turning your back on me because you're falling in love, and you are absolutely terrified of that. Terrified because of your parents. Because of what they did to you. Because of all the beatings you took. Because of a lot of other things you haven't even told me about yet. You're running from your feelings for me because your rotten childhood left you emotionally crippled. But you love me. You do. And you know it."

She couldn't speak. She shook her head: no, no, no.

"Don't tell me it isn't true," he said. "We need each other, Hilary. I need you because all my life I've been afraid to take risks with things--money, my career, my art. I've always been open to people, to changing relationships, but never to changing circumstances. With you, because of you, for the very first time, I'm willing to take a few tentative steps away from the security of being on the public payroll. And now, when I think seriously about painting for a living, I don't start feeling guilty and lazy, like I used to. I don't always hear Papa's lectures about money and responsibility and the cruelty of fate, like I used to. When I dream of a life as an artist, I no longer automatically start reliving all the financial crises our family endured, the times we were without enough food, the times we were almost without a roof over our heads. I'm finally able to put that behind me. I'm not yet strong enough to quit my job and take the plunge. God, no. Not yet. But because of you, I can now envision myself as a full-time painter, seriously anticipate it, which is something I couldn't do a week ago."

Tears were streaming down her face now. "You're so good," she said. "You're a wonderful, sensitive artist."

"And you need me every bit as much as I need you," he said. "Without me, you're going to build that shell a little thicker, a little harder. You're going to wind up alone and bitter. You have always been able to take risks with things--money, your career. But you haven't been able to take chances with people. You see? We're opposites in that respect. We complement each other. We can teach each other so much. We can help each other grow. It's like we were each only half a person--and now we've found our missing halves. I'm yours. You're mine. We've been knocking around all our lives, groping in the dark, trying to find each other."

Hilary dropped the yellow blouse that she had intended to pack in the suitcase, and she threw her arms around him.

Tony hugged her, kissed her salty lips.

For a minute or two they just held each other. Neither of them could speak.

At last he said, "Look in my eyes."

She raised her head.

"You've got such dark eyes."

"Tell me," he said.

"Tell you what?"

"What I want to hear."

She kissed the corners of his mouth.

"Tell me," he said.

"I ... love you."

"Again."

"I love you, Tony. I do. I really do."

"Was that so difficult?"

"Yeah. For me it was."

"It'll get easier the more often you say it."

"I'll make sure to practice a lot," she said.

She was smiling and weeping at the same time.

Tony was aware of a growing tightness, like a rapidly expanding bubble, in his chest, as if he quite literally were bursting with happiness. In spite of the sleepless night just passed, he was full of energy, wide awake, keenly aware of the special woman in his arms--her warmth, her sweet curves, her deceptive softness, the resiliency of her mind and flesh, the fading scent of her perfume, the pleasant animal odor of clean hair and skin.

He said, "Now that we've found each other, everything will be all right."

"Not until we know about Bruno Frye. Or whoever he is. Whatever he is. Nothing will be all right until we know he's definitely dead and buried, once and for all."

"If we stick together," Tony said, "we'll come through safe and sound. He's not going to get his hands on you so long as I'm around. I promise you that."

"And I trust you. But ... just the same ... I'm scared of him."

"Don't be scared."

"I can't help it," she said. "Besides, I think it's probably smart to be scared of him."

Tony thought of the destruction downstairs, thought of the sharp wooden stakes and the little bags of garlic that had been found in Frye's van, and he decided that Hilary was right. It was smart to be scared of Bruno Frye.

A walking dead man?

She shivered, and Tony caught it from her.

PART TWO

The Living and The Living Dead

Goodness speaks in a whisper.

Evil shouts.

--a Tibetan proverb

Goodness shouts.

Evil whispers.

--A Balinese proverb

Five

TUESDAY MORNING, for the second time in eight days, Los Angeles was rocked by a middle-register earthquake. It hit as high as 4.6 on the Richter Scale as measured at Cal Tech, and it lasted twenty-three seconds.

There was no major damage, and most Angelenos spoke of the tremor only to make jokes. There was the one about the Arabs repossessing part of the country for failure to pay oil debts. And that night, on television, Johnny Carson would say that Dolly Parton had caused the seismic disturbance by getting out of bed too suddenly. To new residents, however, those twenty-three seconds hadn't been the least bit funny, and they couldn't believe that they would ever become blasé about the earth moving under their feet. A year later, of course, they would be making their own jokes about other tremors.

Until the really big one.

A never-spoken, deeply subconscious fear of the big one, the quake to end all quakes, was what made Californians joke about the smaller jolts and shocks. If you dwelt upon the possibility of cataclysm, if you thought about the treachery of the earth for too long, you would be paralyzed with fear. Life must go on regardless of the risks. After all, the big one might not come for a hundred years. Perhaps never. More people died in those snowy, sub-zero Eastern winters than in California quakes. It was as dangerous to live in Florida's hurricane country and on the tornado-stricken plains of the Midwest as it was to build a house on the San Andreas fault. And with every nation on the planet acquiring or seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, the fury of the earth seemed less frightening than the petulant anger of men. To put the quake threat in perspective, Californians made light of it, found humor in the potential disaster, and pretended that living on unstable ground had no effect on them.

But that Tuesday, as on all other days when the earth moved noticeably, more people than usual would exceed the speed limit on the freeways, hurrying to work or to play, hurrying home to families and friends, to lovers; and none of them would be consciously aware that he was living at a somewhat faster pace than he had on Monday. More men would ask their wives for divorces than on a day without a quake. More wives would leave their husbands than had done so the previous day. More people would decide to get married. A greater than usual number of gamblers would make plans to go to Las Vegas for the weekend. Prostitutes would enjoy substantial new business. And there most likely would be a marked increase in sexual activity between husbands and wives, between unwed lovers, and between inexperienced teenagers making their first clumsy experimental moves. Uncontestable proof of this erotic aspect of seismic activity did not exist. But over the years, at several zoos, many sociologists and behavioral psychologists had observed primates--gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans--engaging in an abnormal amount of frenzied coupling in the hours following large- and middle-sized earthquakes; and it was reasonable to assume that, at least in the matter of primal reproductive organs, man was not a great deal different from his primitive cousins.

Most Californians smugly believed that they were perfectly adjusted to life in earthquake country; but in ways of which they were not aware, the psychological stress continued to shape and change them. Fear of the impending catastrophe was an everpresent whisper that propagandized the subconscious mind, a very influential whisper that molded people's attitudes and characters more than they would ever know.

Of course, it was just one whisper among many.

***

Hilary wasn't surprised by the police response to her story, and she tried not to let it upset her.

Less than five minutes after Tony placed the call from a neighbor's home, approximately thirty-five minutes before the morning earthquake, two uniformed officers in a black-and-white arrived at Hilary's house, lights flashing, no siren. With typical, bored, professional dispatch and courtesy, they duly recorded her version of the incident, located the point at which the house had been breached by the intruder (a study window again), made a general listing of the damage in the living room and the dining room, and gathered the other information required for the proper completion of a crime report. Because Hilary had said that the assailant had worn gloves, they decided not to bother calling for a lab man and a fingerprint search.

They were intrigued by her contention that the man who attacked her was the same man she thought she had killed last Thursday. Their interest had nothing to do with a desire to determine if she was correct in her identification of the culprit; they made up their minds about that as soon as they heard her story. So far as they were concerned, there was no chance whatsoever that the assailant could have been Bruno Frye. They asked her to repeat her account of the attack several times, and they frequently interrupted with questions; but they were only trying to determine if she was genuinely mistaken, hysterical and confused, or lying. After a while, they decided that she was slightly mixed up due to shock, and that her confusion was exacerbated by the intruder's resemblance to Bruno Frye.

"We'll work from this description you've given us," one of them said.

"But we can't put an APB on a dead man," said the other. "I'm sure you understand that."

"It was Bruno Frye," Hilary said doggedly.

"Well, there's just no way we can go with that, Miss Thomas."

Although Tony supported her story as best he could without having seen the assailant, his arguments and his position with the Los Angeles Police Department made little or no impression on the uniformed officers. They listened politely, nodded a lot, but were not swayed.

Twenty minutes after the morning earthquake, Tony and Hilary stood at the front door and watched the black-and-white police cruiser as it pulled out of the driveway.

Frustrated, she said, "Now what?"

"Now you'll finish packing that suitcase, and we'll go to my apartment. I'll call the office and have a chat with Harry Lubbock."

"Who's he?"

"My boss. Captain Lubbock. He knows me pretty damned well, and we respect each other. Harry knows I don't go out on a limb unless I've thoroughly tested it first. I'll ask him to take another look at Bruno Frye, get some deeper background on the man. And Harry can put more pressure on Sheriff Laurenski than he's done so far. Don't worry. One way or another, I'll get some action."

But forty-five minutes later, in Tony's kitchen, when he placed the call, he could not get any satisfaction from Harry Lubbock. The captain listened to everything that Tony had to say, and he didn't doubt that Hilary thought she had seen Bruno Frye, but he couldn't find any justification for launching an investigation of Frye in conjunction with a crime that had been committed days after the man's death. He was not prepared to consider the one-in-ten-million chance that the coroner had been wrong and that Frye miraculously had survived massive blood loss, an autopsy, and subsequent refrigeration in the morgue. Harry was sympathetic, soft-spoken, and endlessly patient, but it was clear that he thought Hilary's observations were unreliable, her perceptions distorted by terror and hysteria.

Tony sat down beside her, on one of the three breakfast bar stools, and told her what Lubbock had said.

"Hysteria!" Hilary said. "God, I'm sick of that word! Everyone thinks I panicked. Everyone's so damned sure I was reduced to a blubbering mess. Well, of all the women I know, I'm the one least likely to lose my head in a situation like that."

"I agree with you," Tony said. "I'm just telling you how Harry sees it."

"Damn."

"Exactly."

"And your support didn't mean a thing?"

Tony grimaced. "He thinks that, because of what happened to Frank, I'm not entirely myself."

"So he's saying you're hysterical."

"Just upset. A little confused."

"Is that really what he said?"

"Yeah."

Remembering that Tony had used those same words to describe her when he'd first heard her story about a walking dead man, she said, "Maybe you deserved that."

"Maybe I did."

"What did Lubbock say when you told him about the threats--the stake through the heart, the mouth full of garlic, all of that stuff?"

"He agreed it was a striking coincidence."

"Just that? Just a coincidence?"

"For the time being," Tony said, "that's how he's going to look at it."

"Damn."

"He didn't say it straight out, but I'm pretty sure he thinks that, last week some time, I told you what was found in Frye's van."

"But you didn't."

"You know I didn't, and I know I didn't. But I suppose that's the way it's going to look to everyone else."

"But I thought you said that you and Lubbock were close, that there was a lot of mutual respect."

"We are, and there is," Tony replied. "But like I told you, he thinks I'm not myself right now. He figures I'll get my head on straight in a few days or a week, when the shock of my partner's death subsides. He thinks then I'll change my mind about supporting your story. I'm sure I won't because I know you weren't aware of the occult books and bric-a-brac in Frye's van. And I've got a hunch, too, a very strong hunch that Frye somehow has come back. God knows how. But I need more than a hunch to sway Harry, and I can't blame him for being skeptical."

"In the meantime?"

"In the meantime, the homicide squad has no interest in the case. It doesn't come under our jurisdiction. It'll be handled like any other break-in and attempted assault by a person or persons unknown."

Hilary frowned. "Which means not much of anything will be done."

"Unfortunately, I'm afraid that's true. There's almost nothing the police can do with a complaint like this one. This sort of thing is usually solved, if ever, a long way down the line, when they catch the guy in the act, breaking and entering another house or assaulting another woman, and he confesses to a lot of old, unsolved cases."

Hilary got up from the stool and began to pace in the small kitchen. "Something strange and frightening is happening here. I can't wait a week for you to convince Lubbock. Frye said he'd be back. He's going to keep trying to kill me until one of us is dead--permanently and irrevocably dead. He could pop up anytime, anywhere."

"You won't be in danger if you stay here until we can puzzle this out," Tony said, "or at least until we come up with something that'll convince Harry Lubbock. You'll be safe here. Frye--if it is Frye--won't know where to find you."

"How can you be sure of that?" she asked.

"He's not omniscient."

"Isn't he?"

Tony scowled. "Wait a minute now. You aren't going to tell me that he has supernatural powers or second sight or something like that."

"I'm not going to tell you that, and I'm not going to rule it out either," she said. "Listen, once you've accept the fact that Frye is somehow alive, how can you rule out anything? I might even start believing in gnomes and goblins and Santa Claus. But what I meant was--maybe he simply followed us here."

Tony raised his eyebrows. "Followed us from your house?"

"It's a possibility."

"No. It isn't."

"Are you positive?"

"When I arrived at your place, he ran away."

She stopped pacing, stood in the middle of the kitchen, hugging herself. "Maybe he hung around the neighborhood, just watching, waiting to see what we'd do and where we'd go."

"Highly unlikely. Even if he did stay nearby after I got there, he sure as hell split when he saw the police cruiser pull up."

"You can't assume that," Hilary said. "At best, we're dealing with a madman. At worst, we're confronting the unknown, something so far beyond our understanding that the danger is incalculable. Whichever the case, you can't expect Frye to reason and behave like an ordinary man. Whatever he may be, he's most definitely not ordinary."

Tony stared at her for a moment, then wearily wiped one hand across his face. "You're right."

"So are you positive we weren't followed here?"

"Well ... I didn't look for a tail," Tony said. "It never occurred to me."

"Me either. Until just now. So as far as we know, he might be outside, watching the apartment, right this very minute."

That idea disturbed Tony. He stood up. "But he'd have to be pretty damned bold to pull a stunt like that."

"He is bold!"

Tony nodded. "Yeah. You're right again." He stood for a moment, thinking, then walked out of the kitchen.

She followed him. "Where are you going?"

He crossed the living room toward the front door. "You stay here while I have a look around."

"Not a chance," Hilary said firmly. "I'm coming along with you."

He stopped with his hand on the door. "If Frye is out there, keeping a watch on us, you'll be a whole lot safer staying here."

"But what if I wait for you--and then it's not you who comes back?"

"It's broad daylight out there," Tony said. "Nothing's going to happen to me."

"Violence isn't restricted to darkness," Hilary said. "People get killed in broad daylight all the time. You're a policeman. You know that."

"I have my service revolver. I can take care of myself."

She shook her head. She was adamant. "I'm not going to sit here biting my nails. Let's go."

Outside, they stood by the balcony railing and looked down at the vehicles in the apartment complex parking lot. There were not many of them at that time of day. Most people had gone to work more than an hour ago. In addition to the blue Jeep that belonged to Tony, there were seven cars. Bright sunshine sparkled on the chrome and transformed some of the windshields into mirrors.

"I think I recognize all of them," Tony said. "They belong to people who live here."

"Positive?"

"Not entirely."

"See anybody in any of them?"

He squinted. "I can't tell with the sun shining on the glass."

"Let's take a closer look," she said.

Down in the parking area, they found the cars were empty. There wasn't anyone hanging around who didn't belong.

"Of course," Tony said, "even as bold as he is, it's not likely that he'd stand a watch right on our doorstep. And since there's only one driveway in and out of these apartments, he could keep an eye on us from a distance."

They walked out of the walled complex, onto the sidewalk, and looked north, then south along the tree-shaded street. It was a neighborhood of garden apartments and townhouses and condominiums, nearly all of which lacked adequate parking; therefore, even at that hour of a weekday morning, a lot of cars were lined up along both curbs.

"You want to check them out?" Hilary asked.

"It's a waste of time. If he has binoculars, he'll be able to watch this driveway from four blocks away. We'd have to walk four blocks in each direction, and even then, he could just pull out and drive away."

"But if he does, then we'll spot him. We won't be able to stop him, of course, but at least we'll know for sure that he followed us. And we'll know what he's driving."

"Not if he's two or three blocks from us when he splits," Tony said. "We wouldn't be close enough to be sure it was him. And he might just get out of his car and take a walk, then come back after we've gone."

To Hilary, the air seemed leaden; she found it somewhat taxing to draw a deep breath. The day was going to be very hot, especially for the end of September; and it would be a humid day, too, especially for Los Angeles, where the air was nearly always dry. The sky was high and clear and gas flame-blue. Already, wriggling ghost snakes of heat were rising from the pavement. High-pitched, musical laughter sailed on the light breeze; children were playing in the swimming pool at the townhouse development across the street.

On such a day as this, it was difficult to maintain a belief in the living dead.

Hilary sighed and said, "So how do we find out if he's here, watching us?"

"There's no way to be sure."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

Hilary looked down the street, which was mottled with shadow and light. Horror cloaked in sunshine. Terror hiding against a backdrop of beautiful palm trees and bright stucco walls and Spanish-tile roofs. "Paranoia Avenue," she said.

"Paranoia City until this is over."

They turned away from the street and walked back across the macadam parking area in front of his apartment building.

"Now what?" she asked.

"I think we both need to get some sleep."

Hilary had never been so weary. Her eyes were grainy and sore from lack of rest; the strong sunlight stung them. Her mouth felt fuzzy and tasted like cardboard; there was an unpleasant film of tartar on her teeth, and her tongue seemed to be coated with a furry mold. She ached in every bone and muscle and sinew, from her toes to the top of her head, and it didn't help to realize that at least half of the way she felt was the consequence of emotional rather than physical exhaustion.

"I know we need to sleep," she said. "But do you really think you can?"

"I know what you mean. I'm tired as hell, but my mind's racing. It's not going to shut off easily."

"There's a question or two I'd like to ask the coroner," she said. "Or whoever performed the autopsy. Maybe when I get some answers I'll be able to take a nap."

"Okay," Tony said. "Let's lock up the apartment and go to the morgue right now."

A few minutes later, when they drove away in Tony's blue Jeep, they watched for a tail, but they were not followed. Of course, that didn't mean Frye wasn't sitting in one of those parked cars along that tree-lined street. If he had followed them from Hilary's house earlier, he didn't need to trail after them now, for he already knew the location of their lair.

"What if he breaks in while we're gone?" Hilary asked. "What if he's hiding in there, waiting, when we come back?"

"I've got two locks on my door," Tony said. "One of them is the best deadbolt money can buy. He'd have to chop down the door. The only other way is to break one of the windows that faces on the balcony. If he's waiting in there when we come back, we'll know it long before we set foot inside."

"What if he finds another way in?"

"There isn't one," Tony said. "To get in through any of the other windows, he'd have to climb to the second floor on a sheer wall. and he'd have to do it right out in the open where he'd be sure to be seen. Don't worry. Home base is safe."

"Maybe he can pass through a door. You know," she said shakily. "Like a ghost. Or maybe he can turn into smoke and drift through a keyhole."

"You don't believe garbage like that," Tony said.

She nodded. "You're right."

"He doesn't have any supernatural powers. He had to break a windowpane to get into your house last night."

They headed downtown through heavy traffic.

Her bone-deep weariness undermined her usually strong mental defenses against the pernicious disease of self-doubt, leaving her uncharacteristically vulnerable. For the first time since seeing Frye walk out of the dining room, she began to wonder if she truly had seen what she thought she had seen.

"Am I crazy?" she asked Tony.

He glanced at her, then back at the street. "No. You're not crazy. You saw something. You didn't wreck the house all by yourself. You didn't just imagine that the intruder looked like Bruno Frye. I'll admit I thought that's what you were doing at first. But now I know you aren't confused."

"But ... a walking dead man? Isn't that too much to accept?"

"It's just as difficult to accept the other theory--that two unassociated maniacs, both suffering from the same unique set of delusions, both obsessed with a psychotic fear of vampires, attacked you in one week. In fact, I think it's a little easier to believe that Frye is somehow alive."

"Maybe you caught it from me."

"Caught what?"

"Insanity."

He smiled. "Insanity isn't like the common cold. You can't spread it with a cough--or a kiss."

"Haven't you heard of a 'shared psychosis'?"

Braking for a traffic light, he said, "Shared psychosis? Isn't that a social welfare program for underprivileged lunatics who can't afford psychoses of their own?"

"Jokes at a time like this?"

"Especially at a time like this."

"What about mass hysteria?"

"It's not one of my favorite pastimes."

"I mean, maybe that's what's happening here."

"No. Impossible," he said. "There's only two of us. That's not enough to make a mass."

She smiled. "God, I'm glad you're here. I'd hate to be fighting this thing alone."

"You'll never be alone again."

She put one hand on his shoulder.

They reached the morgue at quarter past eleven.

***

At the coroner's office, Hilary and Tony learned from the secretary that the chief medical examiner had not performed the autopsy on the body of Bruno Frye. Last Thursday and Friday, he had been in San Francisco on a speaking engagement. The autopsy had been left to an assistant, another doctor on the M.E.'s staff.

That bit of news gave Hilary hope that there would be a simple solution to the mystery of Frye's return from the grave. Perhaps the assistant assigned to the job had been a slacker, a lazy man who, free of his boss's constant supervision, had skipped the autopsy and filed a false report.

That hope was dashed when she met Ira Goldfield, the young doctor in question. He was in his early thirties, a handsome man with piercing blue eyes and a lot of tight blond curls. He was friendly, energetic, bright, and obviously too interested in his work and too dedicated to it to do less than a perfect job.

Goldfield escorted them to a small conference room that smelled of pine-scented disinfectant and cigarette smoke. They sat at a rectangular table that was covered with half a dozen medical reference books, pages of lab reports, and computer print-outs.

"Sure." Goldfield said. "I remember that one. Bruno Graham ... no ... Gunther. Bruno Gunther Frye. Two stab wounds, one of them just a little worse than superficial, the other very deep and fatal. Some of the best developed abdominal muscles I've ever seen." He blinked at Hilary and said, "Oh yes.... You're the woman who ... stabbed him."

"Self-defense," Tony said.

"I don't doubt that for a second," Goldfield assured him. "In my professional opinion, it's highly unlikely that Miss Thomas could have initiated a successful assault against that man. He was huge. He'd have brushed her away as easily as one of us might turn aside a small child." Goldfield looked at Hilary again. "According to the crime report and the newspaper accounts that I read, Frye attacked you without realizing you were carrying a knife."

"That's right. He thought I was unarmed."

Goldfield nodded. "It had to be that way. Considering the disparity in body sizes, that's the only way you could have taken him without being seriously injured yourself. I mean, the biceps and triceps and forearms on that man were truly astounding. Ten or fifteen years ago, he could have entered body building competitions with considerable success. You were damned lucky, Miss Thomas. If you hadn't surprised him, he could have broken you in half. Almost literally in half. And easily, too." He shook his head, still impressed with Frye's body. "What was it you wanted to ask me about him?"

Tony looked at her, and she shrugged. "It seems rather pointless now that we're here."

Goldfield looked from one of them to the other, a vague, encouraging smile of curiosity on his handsome face.

Tony cleared his throat. "I agree with Hilary. It seems pointless ... now that we've met you."

"You came in looking so somber and mysterious," Goldfield said pleasantly. "You pricked my interest. You can't keep me hanging like this."

"Well," Tony said, "we came here to find out if there actually had been an autopsy."

Goldfield didn't understand. "But you knew that before you asked to see me. Agnes, the M.E.'s secretary, must have told you...."

"We wanted to hear it from you," Hilary said.

"I still don't get it."

"We knew that an autopsy report had been filed," Tony said. "But we didn't know for certain that the work had been done."

"But now that we've met you," Hilary said quickly, "we have no doubt about it."

Goldfield cocked his head. "You mean to say ... you thought I filed a fake report without bothering to cut him open?" He didn't seem to be offended, just amazed.

"We thought there might be an outside chance of it," Tony admitted. "A long shot."

"Not in this M.E.'s jurisdiction," Goldfield said. "He's a tough old SOB. He keeps us in line. If one of us didn't do his job, the old man would crucify him." It was obvious from Goldfield's affectionate tone that he greatly admired the chief medical examiner.

Hilary said, "Then there's no doubt in your mind that Bruno Frye was ... dead?"

Goldfield gaped at her as if she had just asked him to stand on his head and recite a poem. "Dead? Why, of course he was dead!"

"You did a complete autopsy?" Tony asked.

"Yes. I cut him--" Goldfield stopped abruptly, thought for a second or two, then said, "No. It wasn't a complete autopsy in the sense you probably mean. Not a medical school dissection of every part of the body. It was an extremely busy day here. A lot of incoming. And we were short-handed. Anyway, there wasn't any need to open Frye all the way up. The stab wound in the lower abdomen was decisive. No reason to open his chest and have a look at his heart. Nothing to be gained by weighing a lot of organs and poking around in his cranium. I did a very thorough exterior examination, and then I opened the two wounds further, to establish the extent of the damage and to be certain that at least one of them had been the cause of death. If he hadn't been stabbed in your house, while attacking you ... if the circumstances of his death had been less clear, I might have done more with him. But it was clear there wasn't going to be any criminal charges brought in the case. Besides, I am absolutely positive that the abdominal wound killed him."

"Is it possible he was only in a very deep coma when you examined him?" Hilary asked.

"Coma? My God, no! Jesus, no!" Goldfield stood up and paced the length of the long narrow room. "Frye was checked for pulse, respiration, pupil activity, and even brainwaves. The man was indisputably dead, Miss Thomas." He returned to the table and looked down at them. "Dead as stone. When I saw him, there wasn't enough blood in his body to sustain even the barest threshold of life. There was advanced lividity, which means that the blood still in his tissues had settled to the lowest point of the body--the lowest corresponding, in this case, to the position in which he'd been when he'd died. At those places, the flesh was somewhat distended and purple. There's no mistaking that and no overlooking it."

Tony pushed his chair back and stood. "My apologies for wasting your time, Dr. Goldfield."

"And I'm sorry for suggesting you might not have done your job well enough," Hilary said as she got to her feet.

"Hold on now," Goldfield said. "You can't just leave me standing here in the dark. What's this all about?"

She looked at Tony. He seemed as reluctant as she was to discuss walking dead men with the doctor.

"Come on," Goldfield said. "Neither of you strikes me as stupid. You had your reasons for coming here."

Tony said, "Last night, another man broke into Hilary's house and attempted to kill her. He bore a striking resemblance to Bruno Frye."

"Are you serious?" Goldfield asked.

"Oh, yes," Hilary said. "Very serious."

"And you thought--"