Driscoll shrugged. “Frankly, Mr. Haller,” he said, “I don’t believe you. I think you’re telling us this because you know what we can do with your story, and you don’t want to see that done to your friend—no matter how he’s behaved. Of course, I may be wrong. We can’t force you to talk, in any case. But I’d like to submit something to you. May I?”

Preston Haller said nothing.

“If you tell us your story—and it’s a long one; we picked that much up from the kids at the university; some of them remembered—Adam Cramer will get hurt. It may not stop him, but it’ll slow him up. If, on the other hand, you decide to respect the friendship that you had with him and refuse to tell the story, a lot of people are going to get hurt. More than you can imagine, maybe. The choice is yours.”

Preston Haller rubbed his forehead, walked to the large couch and sat down.

The scent of flowers became heavier on the air.

A clock ticked loudly.

“Well?”

“All right.” Preston Haller sighed, and it was, clearly, a sigh of immense relief. He rose. “But let’s go somewhere to talk. Wait here and I’ll tell Dad.”

He returned in a while and they walked down the street to a small, dark bar called Ada’s and ordered beer.

Preston Haller said, “He’s got to be stopped?” It was almost a question.

“He’s got to be stopped,” Driscoll said.

“Yeah.” The young man took a large swallow of beer and licked his lips slowly. Then he said: “I met him in Switzerland. We were both attending the University of Zurich. Adam—”

“Never mind about Adam for a while,” Driscoll interrupted. “Tell us about you first. It’s important.”

“Well, I was there on a scholarship. I’d been majoring in philosophy at the university here and, I don’t know, they had a lot of lectures lined up, a lot of important people. The truth is, I went there to get away from death.”

Driscoll waited.

“My father’s a mortician, you know that. So’s my uncle. They wanted me to take over the business—only, I didn’t care for the idea. On the other hand, I wasn’t able to come up with anything better. I mean, if I’d said to them, ‘I can’t cut it because I want to be a doctor’—or a trumpet player, or something—anything—Dad would have understood. But it wasn’t that simple. All I knew was what I didn’t want to do; and that wasn’t enough. I thought that if I went away, maybe I could figure it out.” He paused. “You want to hear about all this?”

“Yes,” Driscoll said. “You keep talking, Mr. Haller. When I think you’re off the track, I’ll let you know. Okay?”

Preston Haller said “Okay,” dubiously, and went on: “Anyway, it didn’t work too well. I played with the idea of becoming a professor, but professors are supposed to know things; and the more I went to school, the more I realized I didn’t know anything at all.