Clinton was thinking about Berry-berry. “You think he’s still down there?”

Ralph said: “You never know about that Galbralian, where he is.”

In a moment they heard Berry-berry climbing the stairs, and then he came into the dining room. His eyes took in the emptiness of Annabel’s chair. He leaned on the back of it with his arms folded, and he was grinning again. “Listen, Ralph, I think I’ll drive around the block a couple of times. You know, for about five minutes. I want to get used to this place—gradually. Know what I mean?”

“Go on ahead,” Ralph said.

“You’re lookin’ good, Ralph.”

“Are you kiddin’?” Ralph tilted his head forward and pointed at the middle of his baldness. “Look at this, not a blade.”

“But you’re not the kind of a guy needs a lot of hair. You look good.”

Ralph was eager to be taken in, “Yeah? Well, maybe so. What the hell, I look all right.”

“Yes, you do, you look really good,” Berry-berry said. Then, indicating Clinton, he added, “By the way, who’s your friend here?”

Clinton was glad to have this attention. It caused him to smile in a way that he could not control, and he felt like a foolish gargoyle. But he was glad to feel that way.

“Oh, that little sonofabitch,” Ralph said. “You got to keep your eye on him, he’s gettin’ to be the worst one in the whole tribe. Stand up, Clint.”

Clinton said, “What for?” And then he stood up.

Ralph said, “Look at the arms on him, and that chest. It’s enough to scare a sensible person.”

Clinton stole a glance at Berry-berry. Berry-berry was looking him over, and he seemed to approve of Clinton.

“You want to come with me, Clint?” he said.

“Sure; where?”

“Oh, just around the block. Is that okay, Ralph? For about five minutes?”

Ralph answered in a slightly belligerent tone: “What the hell you telling me how long for? Do I ask you how long? Go on, get your asses out o’ here, for Chrisake.”

Berry-berry started out of the room. “Come on, Clint.”

Clinton followed. At the front door, he shouted to the house at large: “I’ll be gone for about fi’minutes! I’m takin’ a ride with Berry-berry!”

These words repeated themselves silently inside him. “I’m takin’ a ride with Berry-berry, a ride with Berry-berry, with Berry-berry.” And they kept echoing back and forth in all the chambers inside him until they were all but meaningless. Clinton knew that the visitor was Berry-berry, but he could not fit the two together. “Realize it,” he begged himself, as he climbed into the truck. “You got to realize it.”

Ralph went to the window in the living room and watched the young men climb into the truck. He read the sign on the side panel, and said, aloud to himself, “He’s no plumber, for godsake.”