There was a childish imprint of lipstick on the bottom of the page. It wasn’t the sort of letter a man wanted to get when he awoke at noon with a bad hangover. Warlock’s bowels gurgled with fear, and he jumped from bed at the same time there was a knock at the door. It was an attractive young lady with an expensively wrapped present. Always a sucker for presents, he did not consider until he was on the toilet a minute later that the package might have contained high explosives. Instead there was an attractive, very dead pompano with a white rose stuck in its mouth. A joke fish? It smelled fresh but he had no cooking utensils. His thoughts flipped back and forth between Laura’s letter and the dead pompano in his hands. He pulled out the rose but there was no message attached to the stem so he stuck it in a glass of water. The contemporary artist, Garth, had been helpful with the squid. Warlock misdialed twice.

“Garth. Warlock here. Johnny Lundgren down here in Florida on a frankly secret mission …”

“Call back later. You’ve caught me in midstroke.” Garth began to put the receiver down until he heard a raspy yell. “My god. Please!” Warlock finally allowed the full measure of his franticness to arise to the surface. “I’ll be short. What does it mean when you get a present that’s a dead fish with a rose in its mouth?”

“What movie was it in? Had to be Italian.”

“No. Right now. Here in my room. The present just came and I don’t have a kitchenette.”

“That’s easy. Run for it. Drop the fish and run for it. It’s an ancient Sicilian death threat. You are the dead fish and the rose is an obvious symbol of the funereal spirit in the culture of that ancient land. Did I tell you I went there last spring? Wonderful place.”

“You’re not pulling my leg?” Warlock’s breath now came in short gasps.

“If it was me I’d fly to Houston and bribe myself onto one of those hideous space capsules. Or go to Johns Hopkins for a sex change. Just don’t come here because I don’t want to be involved. What in god’s name did you do, fuck somebody’s underage daughter?”

“A wife. She was sort of crippled. In a way.”

“Wonderful. You’re becoming artistic, very late in your life I might add. What I want you to do right now is call the beautiful Diana and tell her she is willed to me.”

“You’re not very helpful.” Warlock was trying to identify a strange sensation coming over his body. It was the need to go to the toilet again: fear had shorn him of all spontaneity.