“You have a new swimming coach, don’t you?”

“Just a volunteer. Are you from the union? She isn’t drawing a paycheck. But Miss Finley, the head coach, is desperately shorthanded-she teaches Latin, you know-and this woman is a big help.”

“I’m not from the union. I’m her trainer. I need to talk to her-find out why she’s dropped out and whether she plans to compete in any of her meets this fill.”

The teacher gave me the hard look of someone used to sizing up fabricated excuses. I didn’t think she believed me, but she told me I could go into the pool area and talk to the swim coach.

The pool dated to the time when this high school served an affluent neighborhood. It was twenty-five yards long, built with skylights along the outer wall. You reached it through the changing rooms, separate ones with showers for girls and boys. It didn’t have an outside hallway entrance.

Alicia was perched alone on the high dive. A few students, boys and girls, were splashing about in the pool, but no organized training was in progress. Alicia was staring at nothing.

I cupped my hands and called up to her, “You’re not working very hard at your new job.”

At that she turned and recognized me. “Vic!” Her cry was enough to stop the splashing in the pool. “How-Are you alone?”

“I’m alone. Come down. I took a slug in the shoulder-I’d rather not climb up after you.”

She shot off the board in a perfect arc, barely rippling the surface of the water. The kids watched with envy. I was pretty jealous, myself-nothing I do is done with that much grace.

She surfaced near me but looked at the students. “I want you guys swimming laps,” she said sharply. “What do you think this is-summer camp?”

They left us reluctantly and began swimming.

“How did you find me?”

“It was easy. I was looking through the yearbook, trying to think of someone you would trust. Miss Finley was the simple answer-I remembered how you practically lived in her house for two years. You liked to read Jane Eyre together, and she adored you.

“You are in deep trouble. Smollensk is after you, and so is the FBI. You can’t hide here forever. You’d better talk to the bureau guys. They won’t love you, but at least they’re not going to shoot you.”

“The FBI? Whatever for?”

“Your designs, sweetie pie. Your designs and the Chinese. The FBI are the people who look into that kind of thing.”

“Vic. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The words were said with such slow deliberateness that I was almost persuaded.

“The seven hundred fifty thousand dollars you owe Art Smollensk.”

She shook her head, then said, “Oh. Yes. That.”

“Yes, that. I guess it seems like more money to me than it does to you. Or had you forgotten Louise Carmody getting shot?… Anyway, a known Chinese spy left Fermilab yesterday or the day before, and you’re gone, and some of your wing designs are gone, and the FBI thinks you’ve sold them overseas and maybe gone East yourself. I didn’t tell them about Art, but they’ll probably get to him before too long.”

“How sure are they that the designs are gone?”

“Your boss can’t find them. Maybe you have a duplicate set at home nobody knows about.”

She shook her head again. “I don’t leave that kind of thing at home. I had them last Saturday, working, but I took the diskettes back…” Her voice trailed off as a look of horror washed across her face. “Oh, no. This is worse than I thought.” She hoisted herself out of the pool. “I’ve got to go. Got to get away before someone else figures out I’m here.”

“Alicia, for Christ’s sake. What has happened?”

She stopped and looked at me, tears swimming in her black eyes. “If I could tell anyone, it would be you, Vic.” Then she was jogging into the girls’ changing room, leaving the students in the pool swimming laps.

I stuck with her. “Where are you going? The Feds have a hook on any place you have friends or relations. Smollensk does, too.”

That stopped her. “Tom, too?”

“Tom first, last, and foremost. He’s the only relative you have in Chicago.” She was starting to shiver in the bare corridor. I grabbed her and shook her. “Tell me the truth, Alicia. I can’t fly blind. I already took a bullet in the shoulder.”

Suddenly she was sobbing on my chest. “Oh, Vic. It’s been so awful. You can’t know… you can’t understand… you won’t believe…” She was hiccuping.

I led her into the shower room and found a towel. Rubbing her down, I got the story in choking bits and pieces.

Tom was the gambler. He’d gotten into it in a small way in high school and college. After he went into business for himself, the habit grew. He’d mortgaged his insurance agency assets, taken out a second mortgage on the house, but couldn’t stop.

“He came to me two weeks ago. Told me he was going to start filing false claims with his companies, collect the money.” She gave a twisted smile. “He didn’t have to put that kind of pressure on-I can’t help helping him.”

“But Alicia, why? And how does Art Smollensk have your name?”

“Is that the man Tom owes money to? I think he uses my name-Alonso, my middle name-I know he does; I just don’t like to think about it. Someone came around threatening me three years ago. I told Tom never to use my name again, and he didn’t for a long time, but now I guess he was desperate-seven hundred fifty thousand dollars, you know…

“As to why I help him… You never had any brothers or sisters, so maybe you can’t understand. When Mom died, I was thirteen, he was six. I looked after him. Got him out of trouble. All kinds of stuff. It gets to be a habit, I guess. Or an obligation. That’s why I’ve never married, you know, never had any children of my own. I don’t want any more responsibilities like this one.”

“And the designs?”

She looked horrified again. “He came over for dinner on Saturday. I’d been working all day on the things, and he came into the study when I was logging off. I didn’t tell him it was Defense Department work, but it’s not too hard to figure out what I do is defense-related-after all, that’s all Berman does; we don’t make commercial aircraft. I haven’t had a chance to look at the designs since-I worked out all day Sunday getting ready for that damned meet Monday. Tom must have taken my diskettes and swapped the labels with some others-I’ve got tons of them lying around.”

She gave a twisted smile. “It was a gamble: a gamble that there’d be something valuable on them and a gamble I wouldn’t discover the switch before he got rid of them. But he’s a gambler.”

“I see… Look, Alicia. You can only be responsible for Tom so far. Even if you could bail him out this time-and I don’t see how you possibly can-there’ll be a next time. And you may not survive this one to help him again. Let’s call the FBI.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “You don’t understand, Vic. You can’t possibly understand.”

While I was trying to reason her into phoning the bureau, Miss Finley, swim coach-cum-romantic-Latin-teacher, came briskly into the locker room. “Allie! One of the girls came to get me. Are you all-” She did a double take. “ Victoria! Good to see you. Have you come to help Allie? I told her she could count on you.”

“Have you told her what’s going on?” I demanded of Alicia.

Yes, Miss Finley knew most of the story. Agreed that it was very worrying but said Allie could not possibly turn in her own brother. She had given Allie a gym mat and some bedding to sleep on-she could just stay at the gym until the furor died down and they could think of something else to do.

I sat helplessly as Miss Finley led Alicia off to get some dry clothes. At last, when they didn’t rejoin me, I sought them out, poking through half-remembered halls and doors until I found the staff coaching office. Alicia was alone, looking about fifteen in an old cheerleader’s uniform Miss Finley had dug up for her.