Jim opened the door into a silence broken only by a low crackling sound which, Annie saw as she moved toward the back door, came from eggs frying on a stove. Looking down at them, a fork in one hand, was a thickset man in white tennis shorts. Annie recognized the man from the bedroom. Evidently he was hungry; there were four eggs in the pan.

“So long, Jack,” said Jim over his shoulder. The man waved the fork, his unwavering glance fixed upon his food.

The driver was asleep in the back of his taxi. Jim shook him gently. The dark, runty little face lit up with a smile of expectancy. Jim laughed softly. “The party’s over…”

They drove south toward a great expanse of pale-gray sky which gradually turned into the penetrating blue of a California morning. The driver smoked a bent cigarette and said he’d had a fine time of it, seeing how the other half lived.

Karin lived in a bungalow off Melrose which, she said, she shared with two other girls. She asked Annie for her address. Just before she slipped out of the taxi, she looked back at Jim. “Well, Herr Jim, I suppose I must thank you for this Hollywood, California, evening. And you, Annie, I will hope to see again.” She walked sedately up the cement walk to her door.

“A bad girl,” Jim said. “But smart. She knew I’d not help her! Oh, I don’t feel good!” he said, sighing, and fell back against the seat. He looked suddenly old. Then he opened his eyes. “It’s all right, I’ve not really left you…”

Annie saw the familiar Model T parked near her apartment house. It was, unexpectedly, a welcome sight. Just before she got out, Jim reached into his pocket and took out some bills which he pushed into her hand, opening her closed fingers one by one with a last flicker of energy. “I’d give you more,” he said, smiling, “but our friend up front gets my fortune for tonight.” His eyes closed, his jaw went slack. The driver assured her, “I’ll get him home. I’m used to them…” Next to him, on the front seat, sat the stuffed bear from Venice Park.

The air was sweet with the first freshness of the new day. Annie peered in through the window of the Model T. Johnnie Bliss was lying on the back seat on his rat’s nest of things, his stocking feet sticking up over the front seat. He was snoring softly. She leaned against the car, looking around at the palmettos, the silent houses, the shaded windows of her apartment house, the wide heavens. It had been a long long day. She’d been to the sea in the morning and then at night, to that same coastline along which Walter’s ship was even now making its way. She thought of Max Shore and the woman with the white gloves. Their meeting, or whatever it was they had been going to, must be long over.