He arrived promptly at seven; he said very little; he only watched her unbind her breasts and mounted her with unusual frenzy, spending himself in a harsh impersonality of pounding lust, sinking back afterward to lie in hard-breathing satiety.

She said, “Either you haven’t had a woman all week or it’s a very big business deal.”

“You know me too well,” he growled, and rolled off the bed to get dressed.

It was strange, she thought; he still had the capacity to terrify her, and yet in some utterly unlikely way she had become fond of him. She lay watching the light change on the hard planes of his face as he moved around the room; unaccountably she said, “Have you ever had anything close to you but your shirt, Mason?”

For a brief moment his hands became still. He did not glance at her, but she saw that she had scored a point and she took momentary satisfaction from it. Then he brought himself around, under rigid control, to look at her; he said, “Your concern is most touching.”

“Have you ever loved anybody?” she said, and was alarmed by her boldness.

It made him laugh. “After all the things that have happened to you, you can still ask a question like that.” He shook his head. “You’ll never grow up as long as you believe in love, Carol.”

“Oh, I believe in it. I believe in money, too. Some people have it, some people don’t.”

“Keep talking like that, and you’ll end up looking like a fool,” he told her.

She laughed, suddenly and with wild abandon; she could see it disturbed him, and that was what she wanted. He almost allowed his anger to show. She said demurely, “Yassuh, boss.”

He rammed his shirttail into his trousers and planted his feet and gave her his undivided attention. “You’re uncommonly impertinent and independent tonight.”

“Am I? Never mind. Tell me something-with all the respectable women you can get for a snap of your fingers, why keep coming back to me?”

“Because I taught you to be the best.”

“That’s not quite what I was fishing for-I was hoping you might admit it was because you like me.”

His head lifted slightly; lamplight reflected from his eyes. “I don’t dislike you,” he said. “I don’t dislike anybody, as long as they don’t get in my way.”

“At least I’m not in your way.”

“You make me wonder about that.”

“Do I? It’s probably good for you.”

“Have you been smoking pot?”

“No. Only thinking.”

“Don’t think, Carol. It’s not your strong point.”

“What would you say if I told you I was thinking of retiring?”

“You?” He became amused. “You, Carol? A few more years of ringside tables and sable coats and you’ll be too whipped and worn-out to make expenses at a plumbing-supply convention in Rapid City. You’ll get passed down the line from hand to hand until some smart guy comes along and takes you on a little vacation to Hong Kong, and then they’ll cop your passport and unload you into a crib, where you’ll get slapped down so far you won’t even want to come home.”

She stood up, full of languid grace, her hair fanning down her well-shaped back; she smiled frostily. “What a pig you can be.” She went into the bathroom, showered, and put on beige lace undies and a careful dose of scent, and emerged to find him smoking a cigarette, going through her closet with one hand. He was holding out the sleeve of a full-length Schulman Emba mink coat. “This is new,” he observed.

“A great many things are.”

He turned to face her. “What’s all this about, Carol?”

“I want off the hook, Mason. I want to pick and choose among the dirty jobs to suit myself.”

“Are you going to force me to remind you of the same tired old things we’ve been over before?”

“I’m not afraid of Albuquerque anymore. With a good lawyer I think I can beat the rap.”

“Possibly. And if you did, what do you suppose Rocco would be inclined to do?”

“You could use your influence. Persuade him I have no intention of making trouble for him.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Out of friendship, Mason. It’s the kind of thing a friend does for a friend.”

When he made no answer, she added mildly, “All you have to do is point out to him that even if I did accuse him of anything, it would only be my word against his.”

He began to smile; he said nothing, and Carol said, “That’s right, isn’t it? Rocco’s known that all along-that’s why he never made trouble for me. It never had anything to do with you, did it? You just used it as something to hold over my head. It only worked as long as I didn’t think it through.”

“You’ve learned to use your head, haven’t you?”

“I just don’t see how it could possibly be worth your while to go to the trouble of turning me over to the New Mexico cops, not when I’d probably be acquitted anyway. Look, why not drop it right here and go on like equals?”

He shook his head gently, watching her. She said in a rougher voice, “You just can’t do it, can you? You just can’t have any kind of relationship with anybody where your money or your blackmail doesn’t give you an edge.”

He ignored it; he said, “You’re ass-deep in muck, Carol. With your history it’s far too late for a declaration of independence.”

“Why? What could you prove against me? You can’t use anything you’ve got on me without implicating yourself. You’d hardly do that. You’ve got thousands of feet of infrared film on me, but you’d never use it because you can’t afford to expose the men who appear on the film with me. Besides, who would you show it to? I haven’t got a family. The law wouldn’t care, and even if they did, I’d survive a fifteen-day sentence for prostitution.”

“I admire your guts,” he said. “But you haven’t thought it all the way through. Working for me, you’ve learned too much about too many people. Some of them couldn’t afford to let you off the hook, even if I could. You’re locked in, Carol. There’s never been any way out. You’re a white chip in a no-limit game, and there are too many people in it who wouldn’t care if they had to tie weights on you and drop you off a motor launch in Long Island Sound.”

“You could keep them off my back, if you wanted to. You could convince them I was no danger to them. I’ve built up a complete new identity, false passport and bank accounts-I can fade out of sight and come to the surface in England or on the Riviera with a whole new identity. If you cover for me, the rest of them will never find me.”

“Maybe I could,” he said, turning toward the door, “but I won’t. Not now. Maybe I’ll think about it later. In the meantime, you’ll stay put and do as you’re told.”

She felt exhausted; she had nothing further to say. At the door he paused and said absently, “That lawyer from the SEC who asked you about my shares-have you heard from him again?”

“No.”

“All right,” he said. “Don’t do anything foolish.” He gave her a flat, hard glance with his hooded eyes, and went.

She put on a dress, walked into the living room, and stared at the door he had shut behind him; crossed the room to the stereo and put an album on the turntable. It pushed a slow, soothing beat through the room. She was adjusting the volume when she heard a knock at the door.

Surprised, frowning a little, she walked to the door.

It was Russ Hastings.

He smiled and said, “May I come in? I’m unarmed.”

Not certain how to respond, she stood looking at him. He was dressed in a rumpled seersucker suit, and he had an unassailable amiability on his pleasant, blocky face. He was searching her face with an odd intensity, but his manner was pleasantly abrasive, like a coarse towel after a bath. He said, “What a beauty you are, Carol,” and grinned at her. “Look here-my palms are sweating from the effort of pronouncing your name.”

“Good Lord,” she said. She shook her head in amazement. “The hell with it. I need cheering up-come on in, then.” She stepped back to let him enter; she thought, I’m being a fool.