"He barely counts," Paul said. "It's like he wasn't there. My childhood memories are almost empty of him."

"What are they full of?" I said.

There wasn't much travel midday, midweek, going west. I was doing seventy in the right-hand lane on the theory that cops always look for speeders in the passing lane. A trucker going eastbound flashed his headlights at me and I slowed as I crested the next hill. There was a two-tone blue state police cruiser parked sideways on the median strip with a radar gun. I cruised serenely past him at about fifty-seven.

"Fear," Paul said. "Fear of being left. I was thin and whiny and had colds all the time and I used to cling to my mother like a cold sore. She couldn't stand it. She'd try to get me away from her so she could breathe and of course the more she tried the more I clung."

I nodded. I could hear the therapist's voice in Paul's, and behind the calm exposition of past events, the pain and lingering fear that engendered the pain. I wished Susan had come with us.

"Hard on both of you," I said.

"Sometimes she would actually hide under the bed," Paul said. "But I'd find her. She could run, but she couldn't hide."

"Too bad your father wasn't around," I said. "Be easier if you'd had more than one person bringing you up."

"He couldn't stand either one of us," Paul said. "Maybe at first he could, or did, or thought he ought to. I think my mother and he actually loved each other, whatever the hell that quite means. But they shouldn't have got married. They just…" Paul seemed wordless. He shook his head, put his hands up in a gesture of bafflement. "They just shouldn't have gotten married…" He stared straight ahead for a moment. Pearl leaned forward and snuffled at the back of his neck, and he put his hand up absently to pat her muzzle. "Or had me," he said.

"But they did," I said. "But they did."

CHAPTER 18

THE Tailored Lady was a boutique off Church Street in downtown Lenox. It was in a sort of shopping center, where private houses had been converted to stores in which you could buy turquoise jewelry and Icelandic sweaters. The woman who ran it wore a blue blazer over a green turtleneck sweater.

She was very polite, but she couldn't tell us anything at all.

"I'm sorry," she said, "that I can't be more helpful. I could find my copy of the American Express receipt, but it would merely duplicate what you have."

"You don't remember if she was with anyone?" Paul said.

She smiled and shook her head. Matching the sweater and blazer was a Black

Watch plaid skirt. Her blonde hair was caught back and tied with a little

Black Watch ribbon.

"There are so many tourists," she said. "It's the start of the foliage season, and"-she smiled as if she were saying something daring-"the fall getaway time. A lot of women come in for lingerie." She paused as if weighing the propriety of what she said. "Usually there are men with them." She glanced demurely down at her Cobbie Cuddlers shoes.

"Where do they usually stay?" I said.

"Oh, there are so many places. It depends on price, I should think. There's a tourist information booth across the way that could probably give you a list."

She was looking straight at me and I realized she was appraising me. I grinned at her. The grin I used before Susan, the one where women slipped their house keys in my coat pocket as soon as I'd used it. I saw something show through for a moment in her face, passing over it the way the shadow of a cloud moves quickly across a field. And I knew that the Talbot's outfit was a disguise. And I saw the assertive body suddenly, inside the disguise. Then the look was gone again. But I knew I'd seen it, and she knew I'd seen it. It was my move. I smiled again, a modulated version of the killer grin, and said, "Thanks very much. Sorry to bother you."

And she said, "You're welcome." She was wearing an ornate wedding band with diamond chips set in it. But I knew that would not have been an issue. As

Paul and I turned and went out of the store toward the tourist information center, I looked back once at the now apparent body that seemed somuch realer than its inessential camouflage, and took a deep breath. The price of monogamy.

Across the way, a plump woman in a flowered purple dress gave us a printed list of area hotels and bed and breakfast accommodations. There were eighty-seven of them.

"Of course we only cover the immediate Lenox area," she said. "People come from all over the Berkshires and eastern New York State to shop. So your friends might very well be staying in Pittsfield or Williamstown or Albany,

New York, even Saratoga."

"How encouraging," I said.

We took the listing, got a road map out of the car, and took both to a restaurant specializing in cheesecake. Paul had a chicken salad on light rye. I ordered a turkey on whole wheat with mustard. And another one plain to go. He had a Coke. I abandoned any hint of prudence and had coffee.

Neither of us had cheesecake.

"How we going to do this?" Paul said.

I drank some coffee. Not as much fun as the woman in the preppie disguise would have been. But better than nothing.

"Say your mother's with Beaumont. Which isn't a bad bet, since no one can find him either, and some good people are looking." I took a bite of the turkey sandwich. The menu had advertised fresh turkey. It seemed to be fresh from the turkey roll. It wasn't particularly good, but that was no reason not to eat it. "That being the case, if they are out here, and he gets a hint that someone's looking for him, they'll be gone ten minutes later. If he's in trouble with Broz he has reason to run."

I had another bite, another draught of coffee.

"So we can't just start calling places up," Paul said, "because somebody might tell him."

"Well, maybe if you called and asked for your mother," I said.

"What if he answers?" Paul said.

The waitress came past with coffee and refilled my cup. I rewarded her with a dazzling smile. She didn't notice.

"Say who you are. Ask for your mother."

"And if he hangs up?"

"We hotfoot it over there and try to get them before they leave."

"And if I get her?" Paul said.

"Tell her the deal," I said. "You're worried about her. You want to see her."

"And what if she hides under the bed?"

"I don't know what to do about that," I said.

"Why not get the police to help?"

I shook my head.

"Too delicate," I said. "The Lenox cops may be the ultimate police machine for all I know. But small-town police forces often aren't, and I'm afraid if they start looking for Richie and your mother that they'll spook them for sure." I put a second spoonful of sugar in my coffee. "Besides," I said, "they haven't done anything illegal that we know, but, if the cops get in it, and they have…"

"Yes," Paul said. "I understand. We've got to protect my mother in this."

I finished my sandwich, and ate the chips that came with it, and the sour pickle. I drank some coffee. The pickle made the coffee taste metallic.

"What if they are registered under another name?" Paul said.

"That's harder than everyone thinks it is," I said. "Unless you've got a lot of cash so that you needn't use a credit card, and you register someplace that doesn't require an identification. Most places do. Of course