There were several messages at my hotel, all of them from Mary Lou Barcker. She’d called just after I left the night before and a couple of times that morning.

When I called her she said, “I’ve been trying to reach you. I would have called you at your girlfriend’s but I couldn’t remember her last name.”

“Her number’s unlisted.” And I wasn’t there, I thought, but left it unsaid.

“I’m trying to reach Chance,” she went on. “I thought you might have talked to him.”

“Not since around seven last night. Why?”

“I can’t get hold of him. The only way I know is to call his service—”

“That’s the only way I know.”

“Oh. I thought you might have a special number.”

“Only the service.”

“I’ve called there. He always returns his calls. I’ve left, God, I don’t know how many messages and he hasn’t called me back.”

“Has that ever happened before?”

“Not for this length of time. I started trying him late yesterday afternoon. What time is it, eleven o’clock? That’s over seventeen hours. He wouldn’t go that long without checking with his service.”

I thought back to our conversation at his house. Had he checked with his service in all the time we were together? I didn’t think he had.

Other times we’d been together he called in every half hour or so.

“And it’s not just me,” she was saying. “He hasn’t called Fran, either. I checked with her and she called him and he never returned her calls.”

“What about Donna?”

“She’s here with me. Neither of us wanted to be alone. And Ruby, I don’t know where Ruby is. Her number doesn’t answer.”

“She’s in San Francisco.”

“She’s where?”

I gave her a brief explanation, then listened as she relayed the information to Donna. “Donna’s quoting Yeats,” she told me. “ ‘Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.’ Even I can recognize that. Apt, though. Things are falling apart all over the place.”

“I’m going to try to get hold of Chance.”

“Call me when you do?”

“I will.”

“Meanwhile Donna’s staying here and we’re not booking any tricks or answering the door. I already told the doorman not to let anybody come up.”

“Good.”

“I invited Fran to come over here but she said she didn’t want to. She sounded very stoned. I’m going to call her again and instead of inviting her to come over I’m going to tell her to come over.”

“Good idea.”

“Donna says the three little pigs will all be hiding in the brick house. Waiting for the wolf to come down the chimney. I wish she’d stick to Yeats.”