"Fifty?"

He nodded.

"And you pay back sixty?"

He nodded.

"And a broken arm for every payment that you miss?"

He nodded.

"You're dreaming again. You'll never be able to make the payments. Not even the interest. You don't have enough arms and legs."

"Very funny. I make the jokes."

"I'm not trying to be funny, Calvin. I'm trying to help you out of a hole. There's a way."

He was instantly alert. "I'm listening."

I told him. A slow, sad smile worked its way across his face. "You know how much money I could have made doing that, I mean, all these trips. But I never did it, never once. I always played it straight."

"There's always a first time."

"Yeah, this time. Let's get it straight. You get to be the one who kills me, and I'm off the hook. You tear up the check, right."

"Right. No cash for you, but you owe me nothing."

"You'll still be losing. You'll only get about twenty."

"The other way I get nothing."

"All right, you got it."

"It's a deal?"

"I said you got it, didn't I?"

"There's one more thing."

"There always is."

"Wherever you hide out tomorrow night, I stay there with you. All night, until it's time to make the kill. Until the game is over."

"Trusting bastard, aren't you?"

"I can't afford to take a chance. You can see that, can't you?"

"Yeah, I can see it."

I grabbed a few hours sleep and got up at noon, in time to sign up for the Kill Calvin game in the Main Lounge. The officer in charge was Fleckmann, the second purser. I gave him my hundred dollars, and in return he gave me a receipt, an identification card, and one of those toy pistols that shoots pellets of paint. The paint came in three different colors: red, yellow, and blue. I chose yellow.

"Any particular significance?" asked Fleckmann.

"Cowardice. Real guns scare me."

He grinned. "Good hunting."

I took the pistol back to my cabin and examined it. It was roughly the same size and shape as the Walther in my suitcase. As far as I could tell without opening it, the paint was stored in the grip and was expelled in the form of pellets by a cartridge of compressed air. There was a Degas print on the cabin wall, the usual ballet dancer. I aimed, fired, and the pellet landed square in the tutu. I had no way of knowing how it would work at a greater range, but I didn't care. I had no intention of carrying the toy. I threw it into the suitcase, and tucked the Walther into my waistband under my shirt. Real guns really do scare me, but going up against Madrigal with a paint pistol scared me even more.

I spent the afternoon and the early evening trying to keep Calvin under observation, but it wasn't easy. He kept bouncing all over the ship, from lounge to lounge and group to group, whipping up interest in the game that night. It was a ridiculous sight, all those people flaunting their toy pistols, fake daggers, and lacy little nooses. I caught up with Calvin outside the Carousel Room, and pulled him aside. It was seven-thirty and the game began officially at eight.

"When do you disappear?" I asked.

"Very shortly. One minute you'll see me, and the next minute you won't."

"With all these people watching you?"

"I've been doing this for years. Don't follow me too close. Give me maybe half an hour, and make sure that nobody sees you."

I still don't know how he did it, but one minute he was in plain view, and then he was gone. A moment later, someone said loudly, "Hey, where the hell did Calvin go to?" But by then it was too late, as a bell rang to announce that the hunt was on.

I gave him his half-hour, and then joined him in his hidey-hole. It was a lifeboat, but not any old lifeboat. Both the port and the starboard sides of the Bridge Deck were lined with lifeboats hanging from davits, each about fifteen feet long and protected by tarpaulins, but the boat farthest aft on the starboard side was something special. Twenty-five feet long and painted a fire-engine red, it was a power launch that was built like a miniature tugboat with an enclosed cabin and a tiny wheel-house. Inside the cabin were two bunk beds, a folding table, a chemical toilet, and a sink. Not all of the comforts of home, but enough of them including the bottle of Scotch that Calvin had brought. The only inconvenience was that we could not show a light.

After I had settled onto one of the bunks, I asked, "Do you always use this place?"

"Always. It's amazing, I mean you'd think that somebody would check this out, but it's never happened, not in all the years I've been doing this. Sometimes I can hear them outside on the deck, but they never look here."

"How long do you stay?"

"Depends on how I feel. Sometimes I can catch some sleep in here, but if I can't then I get it over with early. Two, maybe three in the morning. I just show myself until somebody zaps me, and the game is over. You want a drink? It's gotta be from the bottle, I forgot to bring glasses."

He passed over the bottle. I took a slug, and gave it back. "That's all there is, so pace yourself," he said. "I could get it over with quick, you know, but I like to give them their money's worth. That okay with you?"

It was very much okay with me. I wanted to stay with him for as long as I could. "All night if you want to."

He grunted, and I took that for an agreement. We settled back into the bunks, shaking down for the night. It was dark in the cabin of the launch, and I could barely see his face. We passed the bottle back and forth, taking tiny sips.

"I shoulda brought some peanuts," he muttered.

"Peanuts are for sissies. Is it all right to talk like this?"

"Long as we keep it low."

"How do we pass the time? 'Sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of kings'?"

"Richard Second, Act Three." He laughed shortly.

"You patronizing me, quoting Shakespeare to a comic?"

"I didn't mean to. I'm sorry if it sounded that way."

"Forget it. I got a thin skin about things like that, comes with the line of work I'm in. You see the way people look at you, and you know what they're thinking. A comic, he's got no feelings. He's got no sensitivity. All he knows is how to drop his pants and make people laugh. We're not supposed to be like other people."

" 'And yet, if you prick us, do we not bleed?' "

"You gonna do that all night? Besides, that's about Jews, not comics. I know, I'm both." He was silent for as long as it took for each of us to take one of those ladylike sips from the bottle. "You remember that friend I told you about?"

"Mutt and Jeff?"

"The funniest part was that he was an Arab. An exchange student from Lebanon. Mutt and Jeff, the Arab and the Jew."

"And the Pom-Pom Queen."

"You got a good memory. You're not married, are you?"

"No."

"I didn't think so, and I can usually tell. Listen, what I said the other night about my wife…"

"You don't have to tell me anything."

"Yeah, but I want to. Whatever I said about her, I didn't mean it to sound like I'm blaming her. I've got a screwed-up marriage, but it isn't her fault. She just married the wrong guy."

"You don't know how it would have worked out with the other guy."

There was just enough light for me to see him shake his head. "You wouldn't say that if you knew Hassan."

"Mutt?"

"Yeah. Hassan was the straightest, sweetest guy who ever lived. Sure, we both loved her, but the way he loved her was different. Let me put it this way. If she had married him, she'd be happy today. And so would he. The marriage would have lasted, and the love would have lasted, too. That's the way he loved her. Forever."

"Nothing is forever."

"Like I said, you never knew him. But it was different with me. I'm a fuck-up, and I've always been a fuck-up. All I knew was that I wanted her. So I woo'd her, and I won her, but it was still a fuck-up."