Back in his quarters he was struck head on by the problem of loneliness, and what it can do to a borderline neurotic. An orange had temporarily allayed his hunger and he sat at the desk puzzled by the quaver in his mind, heart and bowels. A month ago Dad had sent him Employee Theft Investigation by J. Kirk Barefoot (not a nom de plume; this fascinating study may be ordered from Butterworth Books, 10 Tower Office, Woburn, MASS. 01801). But not even Barefoot could distract him from a rising tightness in his chest, a peculiar lightness midway between the ears. He identified the sensation finally as the dread sister of the anxiety attack he had suffered in Sault Ste. Marie.

As usual, the sufferer in these circumstances is blind to the help at hand: the ocean was a mere five blocks away, fine restaurants even closer, women that were susceptible to a proposal were an easy half mile across Lake Worth in West Palm Beach, even something so simple as a purchase of clothing would have staved off the attack. In short, swim, eat, fuck, buy; return to reality, embrace it, O anchorite of crime. Run from the rooms whose walls have already begun to move. You can’t balance the whole earth herself on your puny nose. Run.

Instead he rifled through the desk, discovering a number of fairly recent Reader’s Digest’s, Mom’s favorite magazine in the old days, to the point that she subscribed to the Condensed Book series. Warlock checked out the “Life in These United States” section for the sort of joke that can change a day. No luck. There was an article on contemporary marital fidelity excerpted from Psychology Today with the unlikely title of “Is What Is Good for Peter, Good for Petra?” A Greek couple, he wondered, but reading on saw that the piece applied readily to Paul and Paula, Gene and Janine, George and Georgette. The changing tides of fidelity swept through his mind, from full froth to neat neap, from the moon’s fulsome spring tide to a fishing boat tipped sideways in the Bay of Fundy’s mud. Some wives paid wayward husbands back tit for tat, and some new wave types frittered through life as Don Juanettes. Warlock hastily compared the evident loss of standards to the lack of the old Dickensenian faithfulness in employees evidenced in Barefoot’s book.