His name was Geffin, and she didn't care for the fixed way he was looking at her. He took a small white paper cup to the room's sink, half– filled it with water, produced a pack of cigarettes from the drawer of his desk, and offered them to her.

She took one and he lit it for her. He had to chase the tip for a second or two with th e match because her hand was shaking. He tossed the match in a paper cup. Fssss.

'A wonderful habit,' he said. 'Right?'

'Oral fixation,' Kay replied.

He nodded and then there was silence. He kept looking at her. She got the feeling he was expecting her to cry, and it made her mad because she felt she might just do that. She hated to be emotionally preguessed, and most of all by a man.

'Boyfriend?' he asked at last.

'I'd rather not talk about it.'

'Uh-huh.' He smoked and looked at her.

'Didn't your mother ever tell you it was impolite to stare?'

She wanted it to come out hard-edged, but it sounded like a plea: Stop looking at me, I know how I look, I saw. This thought was followed by another, one she suspected her friend Beverly must have had more than once, that the worst of the beating took place inside, where you were apt to suffer something that might be called interspiritual bleeding. She knew what she looked like, yes. Worse still, she knew what she felt like. She felt yellow. It was a dismal feeling.

'I'll say this just once,' Geffin said. His voice was low and pleasant. 'When I work E.R. — my turn in the barrel, you might say — I see maybe two dozen battered women a week. The interns treat two dozen more. So look — there's a telephone right here on the desk. It's my dime. You call Sixth Street, give them your name and address, tell them what happened and who did it. Then you hang up and I'll take the bottle of bourbon I keep over there in the file cabinet — strictly for medicinal purposes, you understand — and we'll have a drink on it.

Because I happen to think, this is just my personal opinion, that the only lower form of life than a man who would beat up a woman is a rat with syphilis.'

Kay smiled wanly. 'I appreciate the offer,' she said, 'but I'll pass. For the time being.'

'Uh-huh,' he said. 'But when you go home take a good look at yourself in the mirror, Ms. McCall. Whoever it was, he jobbed you good.'

She did cry then. She couldn't help it.

Tom Rogan had called around noon of the day after she had seen Beverly safely off, wanting to know if Kay had been in touch with his wife. He sounded calm, reasonable, not the least upset. Kay told him she hadn't seen Beverly in almost two weeks. Tom thanked he r and hung up.

Around one the doorbell rang while she was writing in her study. She went to the door.

'Who is it?'

'Cragin's Flowers, ma'am,' a high voice said, and how stupid she had been not to realize it had been Tom doing a bad falsetto, ho w stupid she had been to believe that Tom had given up so easily, how stupid she had been to take the chain off before opening the door.

In he had come, and she had gotten just this far: 'You get out of h — ' before Tom's fist came flying out of nowhere, slamming into her right eye, closing it and sending a bolt of incredible agony through her head. She had gone reeling backward down the hallway, clutching at things to try and stay upright: a delicate one-rose vase that had gone smashing to the tiles, a coat-tree that had tumbled over. She fell over her own feet as Tom closed the front door behind him and walked toward her.

'Get out of here!' she had screamed at him.

'As soon as you tell me where she is,' Tom said, walking down the hall toward her. She was dimly aware that Tom didn't look very good — well, actually, terrible might have been a better word — and she felt a dim but ferocious gladness skyrocket through her. Whatever Tom had done to Bev, it looked as if Bev had given it back in spades. It had been enough to keep him off his feet for one whole day, anyhow — and he still didn't look as if he belonged anywhere but in a hospital.

But he also looked very mean, and very angry.

Kay scrambled to her feet and backed away, keeping her eyes on him as you might keep your eyes on a wild animal that had escaped its cage.

'I told you I haven't seen her and that was the truth,' she said. 'Now get out of here before I call the police.'

'You've seen her,' Tom said. His swollen lips were trying to grin. She saw that his teeth had a strange jagged look. Some of the front ones had been broken. 'I call up, tell you I don't know where Bev is. You say you haven't seen her in two weeks. Never a single question. Never a discouraging word, even though I know damn well that you hate my guts. So where is she, you numb cunt? Tell me.'

Kay turned then and ran for the end of the hall, wanting to get into the parlor, rake the sliding mahogany doors close'd on their recessed tracks, and turn the thumb-bolt. She got there ahead of him — he was limping — but before she could slam the doors shut he had inserted his body between. He gave one convulsive lunge and pushed through. She turned to run again; he caught her by her dress and yanked her so hard he tore the entire back of it straight down to her waist. Your wife made that dress, you shit, she thought incoherently, and then she was twisted around.

Where is she?'

Kay brought her hand up in a walloping slap that rocked his head back and started the cut on the left side of his face bleeding again. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head forward into his fist. It felt to her for a moment as if her nose had exploded. She screamed, inhaled to scream again, and began to cough on her own blood. She was ni utter terror now. She had not

known there could be so much terror in all the wide world. The crazy son of a bitch was going to kill her.

She screamed, she screamed, and then his fist looped into her belly, driving the air out of her and she could only gasp. She began to cough and gasp at the same time and for one terrifying moment she thought she was going to choke.

'Where is she?'

Kay shook her head. 'Haven't . . . seen her,' she gasped. 'Police . . . you'll go to jail . . . asshole . . . '

He jerked her to her feet and she felt something give in her shoulder. More pain, so strong it was sickening. He whirled her around, still holding onto her arm, and now he twisted her arm up behind her and she bit down on her lower lip, promising herself that she would not scream again.

'Where is she?'

Kay shook her head.

He jerked her arm up again, jerked it so hard that she heard him grunt. His warm breath puffed against her ear. She felt her closed right fist strike her own left shoulderblade and she screamed again as that thing in her shoulder gave some more.

'Where is she?'

' . . . know . . . '

'What?'

'I don't KNOW!'

He let go of her and gave her a push. She collapsed to the floor, sobbing, snot and blood running out of her nose. There was an almost musical crash, and when she looked around, Tom was bending over her. He had broken the top off another vase, this one of Waterford crystal. He held the base. The jagged neck was only inches from her face. She stared at it, hypnotized.

'Let me tell you something,' he said, the words coming out in little pants and blows of warm air, 'you're going to tell me where she went or you're going to be picking your face up off the floor. You've got three seconds, maybe less. When I' m mad it seems like time goes a lot faster.'

My face, she thought, and that was what finally caused her to give in . . . or cave in, if you liked that better: the thought of this monster using the jagged neck of the Waterford vase to cut her face apart.

'She went home,' Kay sobbed. 'Her home town. Derry. It's a place called Derry, in Maine.'