"Pity," Susan said. "I took pity on you."

We began to walk downhill on California Street, toward Stockton.

"We don't have to leave until tomorrow. What would you like to do the rest of the day?"

"I don't know, what would you like to do?"

I smiled.

"Oh," Susan said. "That."

I smiled some more.

"Afterwards can we shop?"

"Sure," I said. "If you're not too tired."

"I'm never too tired to exercise my rancorous capitalism."

"Nor I to display my rampant machismo," I said.

"A match made in heaven," Susan said.

We turned right on Stockton Street and went into the hotel.

FORTY

SUSAN AND I had hugged for an extended period at San Francisco Airport, before she got on a plane to Boston and I flew off to Georgia. Now, looking for my car in the Atlanta airport, I imagined that I could still smell her perfume and maybe taste her lipstick. Missing her was a tangible experience. I was already homesick for her, and by the time I retrieved my car and drove down to Lamarr I was quite sad, for a man of my native ebullience. I sang a little to cheer myself up, but "I'll hurry home to you, Lamarr, Georgia" didn't have quite the right ring.

It was hot even at night, and by the time I walked from my car to the hotel, my shirt was soaked with sweat. I made a drink in my room, and sat on the bed and sipped it, and thought about Susan. I had another drink, and when it was done, I rinsed out the glass, put away the bottle, took a shower and went to bed, and lay awake for a long time. In the morning, after breakfast, I got a call from Martin Quirk.

"Jon Delroy," he said.

"Yes, sir."

"FBI has no record of him ever working for them."

"Ah hah," I said.

"Ah hah?"

"It's a detective expression," I said.

"Oh, no wonder I was confused," Quirk said. "Then I ran him past the Marine Corps. They have a Jonathan Delroy killed on Guadalcanal. They have Jon Delroy, a lance corporal, currently on active duty. They have a Jon Michael Delroy, discharged 1958."

"My guy's around forty," I said.

"That's all the Delroys they got," Quirk said.

"Ah hah, ah hah," I said.

"That's what I thought," Quirk said.

I hung up from Quirk and called Dr. Klein. The woman who answered said he would call me back. I said no, that doctors did not have a good track record on calling back promptly and I would prefer to stop by. She asked if it was an emergency. I said yes, but not a medical emergency. That confused her so deeply that I was transferred to the doctor's nurse. After a lot more give-and-go with the nurse, I got an agreement that he would see me after hospital rounds and before his first patient. But only for a moment. The doctor was very busy. She recommended I get there by ten.

I did. At eleven-fifteen Klein came out of his office and grinned at me, and jerked his thumb to come in.

"So, you got by the guardians," he said.

"Barely."

"They're very zealous."

"Me too," I said.

"What can I do for you?"

"Tell me when the results of Walter Clive's DNA tests came back," I said.

"That's all you want?"

"Yep."

"I could have told you that on the phone."

"And when would you have called me?"

"Certainly before the end of the month," Klein said.

He pushed a button on his phone.

"Margie? Bring me Walter Clive's file, please," Klein said into the speakerphone. Then he looked at me and said, "I've been keeping it handy until I figured out how to resolve the questions about his DNA results."

"I'm going to help you with that," I said.

Margie came in with the folder. She looked at me with the same deep confusion she'd displayed on the phone and then went back to her post. Klein thumbed through the folder and stopped and looked at one of the papers in it.

"I got the test results on May twentieth," he said.

"How soon did you notify Clive?"

"Same day."

"Are you sure you're a real doctor?" I said.

"I called him at once," Klein said. "I remember it because it was so unusual."

"So he knew the results on the twentieth."

"Yes."

"He's the only one you told?"

"Yes."

"Could anyone else have known?"

"He could have told someone."

"But nobody at the lab or in your office?"

"No. He used a pseudonym. I've told you all this before."

"If the pseudonymous report was in his file, how hard would it be to figure out whose it was?"

"It wasn't in his file," Klein said. "I kept it, along with Dolly's results and Jason's, in a sealed envelope in my locked desk until long after he was dead."

"Do you remember when he died?"

"Couple months ago."

"He was killed on May twenty-second," I said.

Klein sat back in his chair. On the wall behind him was a framed color photo of three small boys grouped around a pretty woman in a big hat. Next to it was his medical degree.

"Jesus Christ!" Klein said.

FORTY-ONE

WHEN I PULLED back into the parking lot behind my motel, a smallish black man in a baseball cap got out of a smallish Toyota pickup truck and walked toward me.

"Mr. Spenser," he said. "Billy Rice, Hugger Mugger's groom."

"I remember," I said. "How is the old Hug?"

"Doing good," Billy said. He looked a little covert. "Can we talk in your room?"

"Sure," I said.

We went up the stairs and along the balcony to my room. Billy stayed inside me near the wall. The room was made up. The air-conditioning was on high, and it was cool. Billy looked somewhat less unhappy when we had the door closed behind us.

"You mind locking it?" he said.

I turned the dead bolt and put the chain on. The venetian blinds were open. I closed them.

"There," I said. "Privacy."

Billy nodded. He sat on the neatly made bed, near the foot, leaning a little forward, with his hands clasped before him and his forearms resting on his thighs.

"How'd you know I was here?" I said.

"Everybody knows you're here."

"Does everybody know why?"

"Everybody be wondering," he said.

I saw no reason to dispel the wonder.

"What can I do for you?" I said.

"I don't know who else to talk to 'bout this," Rice said.

I waited.

"I mean, I talked with Delroy and he told me to just do my job and not go worrying about stuff I had no business worrying about."

"Un-huh."

"But damn! Hugger is my job. It is my business to worry 'bout him."

"That's right," I said.

"I can't talk to Penny 'bout it. She knows about it and ain't done a thing."

"Un-huh."

"And nobody broken no law, or anything."

"So why are you worried?"

"They ain't guarding him," Rice said.

"Security South?"

"That's right. They around all the time, and they keeping people out of the stable office and away from Mr. Clive's house and like that. But nobody paying no attention to Hugger, except me."