At the rear of the house, the French doors were open and just an antelope was on guard, so I went inside and took a squint in Noreen’s bedroom. She was sleeping, naked on the top sheet, and I stood there looking for all of a minute. Two naked women in one afternoon. It was like going to the Casa Marina except for the fact that now I realized I was in love with Noreen again. Or maybe they were the same feelings I’d always had and, perhaps, I’d just forgotten where I’d buried them. I don’t know, but in spite of what I’d told Dinah, there were plenty of feelings I could have tossed Noreen’s way if she’d been awake. And probably I’d have meant a few of them, too.

Her thighs yawned open, and courtesy obliged me to look away, which was when I noticed the gun on the bookshelves next to some photographs and a jar containing a frog preserved in formaldehyde. It looked like any old frog. But it wasn’t just any old gun. It might have been designed and produced by a Belgian who had given the revolver his name, but the Nagant had been the standard-issue sidearm for all Russian officers in the Red Army and NKVD. It was an odd, heavy weapon to have found in that house. I picked it up, curious to find myself reacquainted with it. This one had an embossed red star on the handle, which seemed to put its origins beyond any doubt.

“That’s her gun,” said Dinah.

I looked around as she came into the bedroom and drew the sheet across her mother. “Not exactly a ladies’ gun,” I said.

“You’re telling me.”

Then she went into the bathroom.

“I’ll leave my number on the desk by the telephone,” I called after her. “You can give me a ring if you really think she’s serious about harming herself. It doesn’t matter what time.”

I buttoned my jacket and walked out of the bedroom. Momentarily I caught sight of Dinah sitting on the lavatory and, hearing the sound of her peeing, I hurried on through to the study.

“I don’t think she meant it,” said Dinah. “She says a lot of things she doesn’t mean.”

“We all do.”

There was a three-drawer wooden desk covered with carved animals and different-sized shotgun cartridges and rifle bullets that someone had stood on their ends like so many lethal lipsticks. I found a piece of paper and a pen and scribbled out my telephone number in large writing so that it wouldn’t be missed. Unlike me. And then I left.

I drove home and spent the rest of the day and half the night in my little workshop. While I worked I thought about Noreen and Max Reles and Dinah. Nobody called me on the phone. But there was nothing unusual about that.