This all ran through her head with the speed of light; the man behind the counter must have seen how she had cheered up.

“One o’clock on the nose,” he said in a friendly manner.

She felt better now, enough to wonder what he thought of her behavior. “I guess you don’t get many requests like mine,” she said with a small effort to be cheerful.

“More than you’d think, ma’am.” He smiled in a reassuring manner.

She went back outdoors. The sunlight seemed garish, almost scalding. She saw a cab pull into the parking lot, raised her hand in a signal. An old friend and neighbor got out, old Mrs. Potts, and she had to stop and commiserate over the woes of arthritis and colitis. Once in the cab and headed for home, a confused panic almost overwhelmed her. She was aware of her aimless, bumbling behavior. Perhaps she was, after all, doing the wrong thing. Surely the logical action would be to call Stolz in Las Vegas.

She could pretend she hadn’t investigated his room, hadn’t seen the money, was merely worried over indications of attempted entry.

She could ignore the emphatic request, repeated since the time he had begun staying overnight, that she never try to contact him in Nevada. A silly rule. Obviously he didn’t want anyone over there knowing of his private retreat in her house—but suppose a fire or other catastrophe had wiped out his money? Wouldn’t he want to know? She rapped on the glass panel between herself and the driver.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Stop at the first public telephone.”

He nodded, braked, swung toward a drugstore on a corner.

Inside it was cool and dim. The druggist, in a white jacket, was squatted before an array of rubber beach toys, building a pyramid. He rose and looked at her. “The phone,” she said.

Then she saw it, the black box inside its cubbyhole at the rear. It seemed to promise relief from intolerable anxiety and tension. She went into the phone booth and drew the door shut after her.

Stolz, however, was not at the Solano Sea. She had to leave a message for him, to be delivered if and when he came in.

Big Tom was sitting in a chair by the telephone, his expression glowering when the call came at eleven forty-five from Benny Busick.

“Benny here.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Take it easy, now, for God sakes. Keep the lid on.”

Big Tom hitched himself closer to the phone. “Look, crumb, why aren’t you on the way back here? I need you outside tonight. I’ve got things to tell you.”

“Not me, you don’t. No, sir, I don’t want any part of it.”

“What do you mean?” Big Tom felt like biting the phone. “You don’t want what we lined up—you crazy?”