How could a man leer like that when the girl he thinks is about to have intercourse is his own daughter, Adam wondered.

He was aware that Gaby was listening on the other side of the closed door.

“Goodnight,” he said.

Pender waved and went away.

Jesus.

He lay down on the bed fully clothed. He could hear Pender make his way down the stairs to laugh briefly with his wife, and then the sound of the two of them leaving the hotel. The old building was very quiet. In the room next door he could hear Gaby Pender moving around, evidently getting ready for bed.

The rooms were separated by a bathroom. He walked through it and tapped on the closed door.

“What is it?”

“Feel like talking?”

“No.”

“Well, then. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

He closed the two bathroom doors, got into pajamas, shut off the light and lay in the dark. Outside the open window crickets shrilled a fierce serenade, perhaps with foreknowledge that the frost which would kill them was somewhere right over the horizon. The raccoon trilled, a desperate weeping sound. Gaby Pender went into the bathroom and through the closed door he could hear the tinkling and then the flushing of the john, sounds which despite his long clinical experience caused him to lie rigid, hating her father.

He got up and clicked on the light. There was stationery in the desk bearing the resort’s letterhead. He used his pen and wrote quickly, as if scribbling a prescription:

Commissioner

Division of Fish and Game

Montpelier, Vermont

Dear Sir:

A large female raccoon, captured illegally, is being held in a cage at this resort as a lure for the illegal capture of male raccoons. I have witnessed that the creature is being mistreated and would be pleased to testify to this. I may be reached at the Department of Surgery at Suffolk County General Hospital in Boston. Your prompt investigation is requested, since the raccoons are destined to be eaten.

Yours truly,
Adam R. Silverstone, M.D.

He put it in an envelope, wet the flap with his tongue and sealed it carefully, found the book of stamps in his wallet and affixed one, then he placed the letter in his valpac and returned to bed. For about a quarter of an hour he lay and tossed, certain despite his overwhelming weariness that now he would not be able to sleep. The old hotel creaked as if lecherous ghosts bed-hopped from room to room, shaking liberated chastity belts instead of chains. The crickets shrilled their swan song. The raccoon wept; and raged. Once he thought he heard Gaby crying but decided that perhaps he had been mistaken.

And fell asleep.

He was awakened—almost immediately, he felt—by her hand.

“What is it?” he said, thinking at first that he was in the hospital.

“Adam, take me away from here.”