“I think maybe it is. I think you know I’ll do what I say, too.”

Butch knew he’d do it; he’d seen him do it under the bleachers in the prison yard. Curly had forty pounds on him, all muscle, and nothing short of a shotgun to the head would stop him when he was mad. And he was looking mad.

Butch walked him to the door. “And I want the key to the Fairleigh apartment,” he said.

“I’ll mail it to you,” Curly said, “and I’ll see you tomorrow at the store, if the check bounces. I think your coworkers might enjoy seeing what I do to you.”

Curly walked away, and Butch locked the door behind him. He was sweating profusely, something that always happened when he was scared.

—

LATER, he was putting his things into a dresser drawer when he came across something of Theresa’s. It was a very small .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol, the proverbial “ladies’ gun.” And, on closer examination, he found it loaded, four in the magazine, one in the chamber. He remembered it vaguely as having belonged to their father. He shoved it to the back of the drawer and stacked underwear in front of it. He’d give it back to her later.

31

STONE LEFT SANTA FE without resuming his sexual relationship with Gala. Something had gone out of it for him, he realized, and she seemed to feel it, too.

He took off for Los Angeles and landed an hour and a quarter later at Santa Monica, where a car from the Arrington awaited.

It was a hot day, and as soon as he had been dropped off at his house on the property, he stripped off his clothes, grabbed a towel, and headed for the pool. He tossed the towel aside, then, naked, swam a few laps, then pushed off underwater and started toward the other end. To his surprise, someone dove in from the far end of the pool, and, as the bubbles cleared, he saw that it was a woman and that she was naked, too. Then she saw him, and they both rose to the surface.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she replied uncertainly, sweeping a lot of dark hair back from her forehead. “I wasn’t aware that the Arrington was a haven for naturists.”

“And yet you appear au naturel,” he said.

“Not having any way to deny that, I confess,” she said.

“And this is not, strictly speaking, one of the hotel pools. It belongs to my house, which is just there.” He nodded.

“Well, that means that one of us should leave, and that it should be me. I apologize for the intrusion.”

“Oh, you’re not an intrusion, just a surprise. My name is Stone Barrington.”

“How do you do?”

“Very well, thank you. And now I believe the quaint American custom requires you to tell me your name.”