Leo didn't say anything and Alan stroked him again with a quiet, easy tone. "You got absolutely nothing to worry about. Go home take some pills and go to bed. Start counting up to a hundred grand, Leo, slowly." He grinned at the fat man behind the desk. "Hey, Leo, you'll be asleep before you get to your cut."

Alan got hold of Bobby Shy, just in time. Bobby was going out to Royal Oak to see his dealer and pick up some stuff. So Alan went along for the ride and told him about Mitchell taking the picture.

"What can the man do with it?" Bobby Shy asked him.

"Nothing. I'm talking about Leo," Alan said. Shit, he was more worried now about the way Bobby was driving in the fast-moving stream of night traffic on North Woodward. Bobby was up, gunning it away from lights, keeping up with the rods and muscle cars heading out to the drive-ins or for some street racing, past the flashy neon motel signs and used-car lots.

"What's wrong with Leo?"

"Leo is starting to whimper. He sees the guy again I think he's going to bust out crying."

"Talk to him," Bobby said. "Hold his little fat hand."

"Listen, I'll rock him to sleep every night if I have to," Alan said. "But if that doesn't work, then, buddy, we got a problem."

"Not a problem can't be fixed though, is it?"

"I'm not saying anything like that," Alan said. "Not yet. But from now on we got to keep a closer eye on him. Especially when he starts drinking."

"He can put it away," Bobby said. "I've seen him."

"He can also fall off the stool and bust wide open," Alan said. "That's what we don't want to happen."

10

Ross usually made his move during the after-dinner drinks. Over a Stinger or a Harvey Wallbanger he would lean in close and say, quietly, "Sweetheart, why don't we finish these and go to a motel?" Or, depending on the girl, "Sweetheart, you wouldn't want to go somewhere and screw, would you?" Responses to the direct approach ranged from, "Wow, you don't waste time, do you?" to "No, but I wouldn't mind fooling around." Once in a while he even got a straight "Sure." Very seldom a flat "No." Ross was successful because he was a good salesman and never afraid to ask for the order.

Tonight, though, was a little different. Barbara was a friend. The wife of a friend. And she didn't want an after-dinner drink. Just coffee. Black.

What he had going for him was the place. They had eaten dinner in the bar section of the restaurant. It was getting crowded and noisy and the wavy-haired middle-aged entertainer at the piano bar was singing things like "Some Enchanted Evening."

Ross said, "I think this place is going downhill. It's getting to be like a neighborhood bar. The local hangout."

"An expensive neighborhood bar," Barbara said. "Someone was telling me that hookers come in here now, pros. How do they compete with all the amateurs?"

Ross said, "That's in the afternoon the bored housewives stop by. Today the ladies either drink or play tennis."

"I would like to believe," Barbara said, "that somewhere, right now, a woman is sitting with a sewing basket on her lap, darning socks."

Ross said, "Would you?"

Barbara shrugged. "It doesn't matter." Her gaze moved past faces and raised glasses to the piano bar. "The thirty-five-to-sixty set. Out having a swinging time. How many do you think are married? Or how many have been married twice? Three times?"

"Those things happen," Ross said.

Barbara looked at him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

He saw the opening and said, "Barb, we haven't really talked yet. But I don't think this is the place." He sounded sincere.

She said, "That's all right. It's about time I was getting home."

"No, no-I mean I think we should go somewhere else. Have a quiet talk. It's only a little after ten." He leaned closer now, beginning to move in. "Is there someplace you'd especially like to go? Have one drink? Maybe a couple? Relax, and have a good talk?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't care. Wherever you want to go."

"Good," Ross said.

He paid the check, got their coats and walked past the dining rooms and down the hallway that was lined on both sides with original paintings for sale, to the lobby of the hotel-motel that was called an inn, the in Inn. Barbara hesitated.

"Ross-"

He took her arm. "Don't say anything yet. All right?" And guided her through the lobby around the planters and down another hallway to suite number 112, his hand in his coat pocket holding the key.

In the sitting room, on the coffee table-the first thing Barbara saw as she went in-was a bottle of champagne in a silver ice bucket, a bottle of good cognac and glasses. Closing the door behind them, Ross said, "I had this for a customer who was here a few days. He left this afternoon, it's paid for, I thought why not use it?-nice quiet spot."

Barbara said, "And the champagne. Is that left over?"

Ross laughed. "No, that's for us. Seriously though, folks-" Ross paused. "Barb, really, I thought this would be more comfortable. But if you feel… funny about it, we can always leave."

"It's fine," Barbara said.

"I promise you, I don't have any sneaky motives. Say the word, we'll turn around and walk out."

"Don't overdo it," Barbara said. "Right now I believe you." She sat down on the couch by the coffee table.

"I'll admit I've always been attracted to you," Ross said, opening the champagne. "I will even admit to having entertained fantasies about you."

"Sexual fantasies?"

"What other kind is there? But you know I didn't bring you here to get you in bed."

"Without my consent."

Ross grinned. "Well, maybe the possibility flashed through my mind. Any way I can give comfort, I'd be pleased to oblige. No, really." Serious again. "There's nothing better in a situation like this than to talk it out with someone, see what you think and how you honestly feel."

She watched him pour champagne, then open the cognac bottle.

"Touch of this? Make us a couple of French seventy-fives."

Barbara shook her head. "No thanks."

Ross poured about an ounce of cognac into his champagne and sat down on the couch, leaving a little space between them.

"Now then-have you told Sally and Mike?"

"No, I haven't really even talked to Mitch yet. I have no idea what his plans are."

"Does it matter?"

"Does it matter? Of course it matters."

"I mean, what if he wants a divorce?"

"Then we'll get a divorce," Barbara said. "Do you think I'd hold him against his will?"

"You wouldn't try to talk him out of it?"

"I'm not going to chase him," Barbara said. "He knows how I feel and what we've had for a long time. God, he's more sentimental than I am. The bottom drawer of his dresser, it's full of pictures of the kids when they were little. Birthdays, Christmas, a lot of them taken in Florida. We still have some of the old furniture, in the basement, my folks gave us to start out with when we got married. It's falling apart. He won't get rid of it; he won't even give it to the Goodwill."

"Sort of a bleeding heart," Ross said.

"Don't make him sound dumb," Barbara said. "He's not dumb. I'm saying if he wants to throw away twenty-two years to play house with some young broad, he's doing it with his eyes wide open."

Ross raised his arm to lay it on the backrest of the couch. The tip of his fingers touched Barbara's shoulders.

"I'm not saying he's dumb. But I do think he's out of his mind."

"Why, because he told me?"

"No, to get involved with somebody else. Do you know if he ever fooled around before?"

"I don't know when he would've had time. Now I think all of a sudden it's his age. Wanting to be twenty-five again."

"The trouble is, once they start…"