“You figured she was bought and paid for,” Hook said.

“It’s not the way I wanted it, believe me. I’m not a rich man. It’s what she wanted. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Liz isn’t blessed with very much of that old Puritan work ethic.”

Hook wanted to backtrack, to the cliff edge. “You said you lost your cool.”

For a time Douglas sat there looking down at his glass. “You want to hear about it?” he asked finally. “My side?”

“Just the part on the cliff, how he went over. The rest I know. Or can guess. Or don’t care about.”

Douglas refilled his glass, drank, set it down. “It was an accident pure and simple. All we wanted to do, Bo and me, was march him out to the road and send him on his way. But he reacted like a wild man. Kicked Bo in the nuts, knocked him down. And I couldn’t handle him alone. So when Bo got up—well, we were fighting for our lives, believe me. One second he was right there, your boy. And the next he was gone. It was his momentum, I think. I figure he must have lunged at one of us, and we ducked. It’s hard to know for sure. It was dark. We were drunk.”

Throughout this brief account Hook had tried to make Douglas meet his eyes, but the man preferred to study his drink and cigarette, the patrons at the bar, the islands floating like giant hippos at the edge of the sea.

“So it wasn’t anybody’s fault,” Hook said.

“I know you can’t accept that. But yes—I’d say it wasn’t anybody’s fault. Oh, we were there, of course. We tried to make him leave. To that extent we’re responsible. But then so was he, for not leaving. If he’d reacted differently—”

“If he’d let you kick him out, like a dog.”

“That isn’t the way it was. You weren’t there.”

“No. Just you and Parnelli.”

“On the cliff, yes.”

“And you knew what was happening every second?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean was there any time you were out of it? Dazed, maybe? Or looking the other way?”

“Why?”

“Just tell me.”

Douglas smiled in puzzlement and disbelief. “You’re wondering if Bo did it alone. And I’m protecting him.”

“Are you?”

“I’ve already told you what happened.”

“He’s a violent man.”

“A physical man, maybe.”

“No, violent.”

“But not a killer, Hook. Never.”

“You’re sure of that.”

“I’m sure.”

“I have this feeling you cover for him. In your business, for instance. I think you carry him. And I wonder why.”

Douglas wearily shook his head. “Could be you don’t know the P.R. business.”

“I’m wrong, huh?”

“Dead wrong. In fact, I think you’d be a little amazed how the average businessman reacts to a jock. The idea of rubbing shoulders and bending elbows with someone who’s played in the Rose Bowl—it really turns them on.”

“So he’s good business.”

“And a good friend. From way back. High school, even. The football teams he starred on, I was a sub. Now I star. But it works out. The relationship is the same.”