Again he withdrew and I heard incomprehensible bits of a conversation nearly 1000 miles away. "… Miami… airplane… both

…" then Jack said loudly, "Tom, you pack a bag and be ready to get your ass over here."

I resented that rasping tone of command.

"Why? What's happening?"

"I'm not going to talk about it now. There's a satellite up there spraying this conversation all over the goddamn planet."

"I don't see…"

"Damn it! Do as I say and don't argue. There'll be a jet at Freeport International in about two hours. Don't keep it waiting, and be prepared to stay over awhile." The connection broke and silence bored into my ear.

I checked the time. It was 9. 30 in the evening.

Much against my will I got out of bed and dressed. impelled by the fizzing urgency in Jack Cunningham's voice Then I thought of Karen asleep in the next room. Damn Jack Cunningham! Damn the whole blasted family! I rang the desk and asked the clerk to find Kitty Symonette and send her up to my suite, then I started to pack a bag.

I was just finishing a letter when Kitty Symonette tapped at the door and I let her in.

"Sit down, Kitty. I have problems and I want you to help me."

She looked slightly surprised.

"I'll do what I can."

Kitty was the hotel nurse and I liked her very much, and so did Karen. She was totally unflappable and equally reliable.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"No. I was going to have an early night."

"Good. I have to go away and I don't know for how long. Tomorrow I want you to take Karen to stay with my sister on Abaco. I've just spoken to Peggy and Karen is expected." I scribbled my signature.

"These are instructions for Bobby Bowen to take you."

"No problem there," said Kitty.

"Karen is asleep in that room there. I don't want her to wake alone so you'd better sleep in my room tonight."

"You're going right away?"

"This minute. I don't want to wake Karen now, but you tell her I'll be back as soon as I can make it."

Kitty stood up.

"I'll collect some things from my room."

I gave her the key to the suite, picked up my bag, and went to my office where I collected my passport from the office safe. As an afterthought I took the packet of 2000 American dollars which I kept there for an emergency and put them in my wallet.

The wait at the airport was long and boring. I drank coffee until it sickened me, then had a couple of scotches. It was after midnight when the public address speakers said, "Will Mr. Mangan please go to the enquiry desk?"

I was met by a pretty girl dressed in a yellow uniform trimmed with black and with a badge on her lapel, two letters "C' intertwined in a monogram. The outfit made her look waspish, about as waspish as I was feeling.

"Mr. Mangan?"

"Yes," I said shortly.

"This way, sir." She led the way from the concourse and through a side door. Standing on the apron not very far away was a Lockheed Jet Star in gold with black trim; on the tailfin was the Cunningham monogram. Around it was a collection of airport vehicles like workers around a queen bee. I followed her up the gangway and paused as she stopped inside the door to take my bag.

"Glad to have you with us, Mr. Mangan."

I could not reciprocate her feelings, but I murmured, "Thank you," and passed on into the main cabin.

Billy Cunningham said explosively, "Now, will you, for Christ's sweet sake, tell me what's going on?"

From Freeport to Houston is about i ooo miles across the Gulf of Mexico. We droned across the Gulf at 500 miles an hour and Billy was morose sore because he had been yanked out of Miami as unceremoniously as I had from Freeport – and he was irritated when he found I could tell him nothing.

"What bugs me," he said, 'is that for the first time in my life I'm going somewhere in an airplane and I don't know why. What the hell's got into Jack? "

"I don't know," I said slowly.

"I think it's something to do with Debbie."

"Debbie! How come?"

"The first thing Jack asked was if she was with me in Freeport."

"He knew she wasn't," said Billy.

"She was in Houston."

I shrugged.

"Air travel is wonderful. A girl can get around fast."

"You think she's taken off again?" He snorted.

"That girl wants her ass spanked and if you won't do it, then I will. It's time she settled down and learned how to behave."

There was nothing more to say so we did not say it.

There was a car waiting at Houston airport and an hour later I was at the start of a Cunningham conference. At least it was the start for me; the others had evidently been arguing the toss for a long time and it showed. Jack Cunningham was at the head of the table, his silver hair making him look senatorially handsome as usual, and Billy One sat next to him. Debbie's brother, Frank, eyed me with arrogant and illconcealed hostility. As background there were half a dozen other collateral Cunninghams, most of whom I did not know, ready to take their cue from the powerful tribal bosses. This was the Cunningham clan in full deliberation and, predictably, there was not a woman in sight.

Our arrival brought instant silence which did not last long. Billy flipped a hand at his father, surveyed the gathering, and drawled, "Morning, y'all." Uproar broke out, everybody talking at once and I could not distinguish a word until Jack hammered the long table with a whisky bottle and yelled, "Quiet!"

It could have been the traditional smoke-filled room but for the air-conditioning and, indeed, they did look like a crowd of old-time political bosses carving up next year's taxes. Most had their jackets off and had loosened their neckties and the room smelled of good cigars. Only Jack had kept on his coat, and his tie was securely knotted at his neck. Even so he looked decidedly frayed around the edges, and there was a persistent twitch in his left cheek.

He said, "Tom, do you know what's happened to Debbie?"

The question could have had two meanings he really wanted to know if I knew, or it was rhetorical and there was no way of knowing from the inflection of his voice. I said, "How would I know? She left me."

12^ "He admits it," said Frank.

"Admit! I admit nothing I'm telling you, if she hasn't told you already. She's her own woman and she ran away."

"Ran away from what? That'S'what I'd like to know."

Billy casually walked up to the table and picked up a whisky bottle.

"Any clean glasses around?" Then he swung on Frank.

"Button up your mouth."

"You can't…"

"Shut it," said Billy quietly, but there was a cutting edge to his voice.

"Your sister's a brat. Everything she ever wanted she got, but she wouldn't know a man when she saw one, not a real man. When she found she couldn't handle him she picked up her marbles and wouldn't play any more." He looked at Jack.

"Nobody's going to hold a kangaroo court on Tom. Hear?"

Billy One stirred.

"Quiet, boy."

"Sure," said Billy easily.

"I've said the core of it, y'all know that." He dropped into a chair.

"Come sit here, Tom; you look as though you need a drink."

I suppose I did; we both did. And it was half past three in the morning. I took the chair he offered and accepted the drink, then I said, "If you want to know what happened to Debbie why don't you ask her?"

I was now facing Billy One across the table. He laid his hands flat.

"That's just it, son. She's not around to be asked."

"Jesus!" said Billy, and stared at Jack.

"Your little girl runs away again, and you jerk me from making the sweetest deal you ever saw?"

The tic convulsed Jack's cheek; he looked defeated.

"Tell him. Billy One," he said in an old man's voice.

Billy One stared at the back of his hands. He said slowly, "We weren't sure at first, not really, not even this afternoon when.. " He looked up at me.