“Oh, maybe Liz Madera too—she comes along sometimes. But so what? Join us anyway.”

Hook had no idea what he might be letting himself in for, but the look of alarm spreading on Ferguson’s face gave him all the confirmation he needed.

“Sure,” he said. “I’d like to go.”

Pretending to be amused now, Ferguson looked wonderingly at Parnelli. “Bo, what are you talking about? Mr. Hook can’t go out with Jack and Liz. For Christ sake, you forgotten what he’s doing here? You think he’s here on a pleasure trip? Don’t you remember why we’re sitting here with him now, what we came here to talk about?”

As Parnelli looked down at his little partner a muscle tightened in the slab of his jaw. Very softly he said, “Who are you to tell me? Ain’t you been listening? Ain’t you heard one word this man has said? He’s all right. He’s okay. You take my word for it, hear?”

“Look, Bo, for heaven’s sake. You—”

“Will you shut up!”

“Bo, come on. You’ve had enough. You—”

“Shut up, I said.” Parnelli uttered it with a quiet deadly menace, and Ferguson evidently heard in it the same thing Hook did—the physical man’s final effort at non-physical communication—for he said nothing more.

Parnelli sat there watching him, waiting. Then, the victor, he turned to Hook. “Seven in the morning, at the harbor. I’ll meet you where the breakwater starts.”

Hook nodded. “I’ll be there.”

Later, when Parnelli had gone to the men’s room to relieve himself, Ferguson hurriedly explained to Hook that he should not take Parnelli’s invitation seriously.

“I’m sure you can see it’s impossible,” he told Hook. “And I can guarantee you that’s how Jack Douglas will feel about it. So if I were you I just wouldn’t show up. But don’t say anything to Bo about it now. He’s got a pretty short fuse. Two drinks and he thinks he’s back on the gridiron.”

Hook was afraid that if he did not agree with Ferguson, by morning Douglas would call the thing off, and he did not want that to happen.

“I guess you’re right,” he said. “I’ll forget about it.”

The little man was on his feet then, shaking Hook’s hand, thanking him for joining him and Parnelli and talking over “this little problem” of theirs. He apologized that he had to leave so suddenly but he still had some work to do at the office and it was now or never. Then he hurried to the bar, signed the check, and scurried out of the restaurant, heading for the men’s room, Hook surmised, though he could not be sure, because it was located outside, off the corridor leading to the restaurant.

Sitting there alone at the corner table, Hook bet himself another scotch that he would not see either of them again that night, and he won. When the drink was served he ordered dinner, abalone steak amandine, and it proved to be quite different from the fare at the Banner Hill bowling alley grill.