Douglas shrugged in mock innocence as she moved past him. “Forgive me for being such a poor host, Mr. Hook. I just don’t know what came over me.”

Hook smiled wearily. “Do we have to play this game all day?”

“And what game is that?”

“Your sarcasm. Why bother? I’ll concede your hostility. You don’t have to keep insisting on it.”

“Big of you,” Douglas said. “You are a generous person.”

Liz came out with their drinks, water glasses a third full of scotch, and Hook tossed off part of his. In the cold it felt like brandy hitting his stomach, a feast of warmth.

“Thanks,” he said. “That helps.”

Douglas was grinning at them. “You know, you two make a splendid-looking couple.”

“You’re in rare form today,” Liz said.

Douglas nodded sagely. “Yes, I think deep down, Liz kind of goes for you, Hook. Electra finds her father.”

“You bastard,” Liz said. “You low bastard.”

She went back inside the cabin, but Douglas followed her to the doorway.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? Come on, admit it.” He turned to Hook, shaking his head in mock sorrow. “My poor Liz goes through life from one hate affair to the next. I’m the current one, that’s all. But what she’s really looking for, I think, is Daddy, the daddy she never had. Not some slick Spanish cocksman but an All-American square like you. Someone she could cling to and be sheltered by—like a goddamn oak tree, you know?” He laughed now. “And come to think of it, you fill the bill just right. Straight, upstanding, rigid. Why, you got everything but acorns.”

Hook was looking out at the water, where the small raft was bobbing like a cork. “You forgotten about your tiger?” he asked.

“Oh, he’ll be up soon. Don’t worry about him. What’s the matter—I touch a nerve?” Looking sad, Douglas turned back to Liz in the cabin. “I’m sorry if I ruined your play, sweetheart. Sorry about that.”

She walked over and slid the cabin hatch shut, and Douglas laughed. Hook wondered if the man was drunk, made drunk by a few ounces of scotch. It was hard to believe. But this Douglas was not the same man Hook had talked with at the beach house two days before.

And now he seemed to know just what Hook was thinking. “What’s the matter? You figure I’ve flipped?”

Hook shook his head. “No. I get the feeling you know just what you’re doing. All the time.”

“Well, you’re wrong. Today I just don’t give a shit. I can’t figure her out, and I can’t figure you out either. So I say to myself, what the hell. Anything goes. So don’t sweat it, friend. Don’t try to draw any conclusions from anything I say or do today. I didn’t want you to come along, but you came anyway. So I’m taking my revenge—by not being myself. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“A perverse kind of sense.”

“That’s me—perverse. Polymorphous perverse. Just call me Polly.” Now he looked past Hook, out at the water. “Hey, there’s our tiger—and he’s got a beauty.”