Nonsense! he thought furiously. If he hadn't done it before this, it wasn't likely that he could do it now.

64"

Louise guided the blue Ford around the wide, graded arc that led from Queens Boulevard to the Cross Island Parkway. There was no sound but the valve knocking rumble of the motor. Idle conversation had faded off a quarter-mile after they'd emerged from the Midtown Tunnel. Scott had even jabbed in the shiny radio button and cut off the quiet music. Now he sat staring glumly through the windshield, vision glazed to all but thought.

The tension had begun long before Louise came to the Centre to get him.

He'd been building himself up to it ever since he'd told the doctors that he was leaving. For that matter, the blocks of anger had been piling up from the moment he'd entered the Centre. Dread of the financial burden had constructed the first one, a block whose core was the dragging weight of further insecurity. Each nerve-spent, fruitless day at the Centre had added more blocks.

Then to have Louise not only angrily upset at his decision, but unable to hide her shock at seeing him four inches shorter than herself-it had been too much. He'd scarcely spoken from the moment she'd entered his room, and what he had said had been quiet, withdrawn, each sentence shackled by reserve.

Now they were driving past the understated richness of the Jamaica estates. Scott hardly noticed them. He was thinking about the impossible future.

"What?" he asked, starting a little.

"I said, did you have breakfast?"

"Oh. Yes. About eight, I guess."

"Are you hungry? Shall I stop?"

"No."

He glanced at her, at the tense indecision apparent on her face.

"Well, say it," he said. "Say it, for God's sake, and get it off your chest."

He saw the smooth flesh on her throat contract in a swallow.

"What is there to say?" she asked.

"That's right." He nodded in short, jerky movements. "That's right, make it sound like my fault. I'm an idiot who doesn't want to know what's wrong with himself. I'm-"

He was finished before he could get started. The undertow of nagging, unspoken dread in him swallowed all attempts at concentrated rage. Temper could come only in sporadic bursts to a man living with consistent horror.

"You know how I feel, Scott," she said.

"Sure I know how you feel," he said. "You don't have to pay the bills, though."

"I told you I'd be more than willing to work."

'There's no use arguing about it," he said. "Your working wouldn't help any. We'd still go under." He blew out a tired breath. "What's the difference anyway? They didn't find a thing."

"Scott, that doctor said it might take months! You didn't even let them finish their tests. How can you-"