"I thought it was nothing but Mozart," Nitz said.

The blonde continued: "On Sunday, when the shop is closed,

Joe has a two-hour record concert. You should go."

"You mean people just walk in?"

"Fifteen or so people show up. He plays atonal, early baroque, whatever they want." With a flicker of her blue eyes she glanced up at Tweany. "I saw you there; you showed up once."

"That's so," Tweany admitted. "You brought out a tray of coffee for us, halfway through."

"Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Very much. That's an extraordinary shop he has."

"What's that?" Mary Anne said sharply. She woke up, then: the conversation had ceased to be abstract. Now it was dealing with reality, and she began to pay attention.

"The new record shop," Tweany said.

Mary Anne turned to confront the blonde. "Do you know that man?" she demanded, recalling in a rush the record shop, the looming shape of the man with his vest and gold watch and tweed suit.

"Joe?" The blonde smiled. "Oh, yes. We're old friends of Joe's."

"Where'd you meet him?" She experienced a kind of horror, as if she were being told about some personal crime.

"In Washington, D.C."

"You're from out of town, aren't you?"

"Yes," the blonde said.

"He's really on the level!" Her distress was real, again. But after four months it no longer had the same urgency. It had thinned as it receded into time; it was not immediate.

"Joe has been in the music business all his life," the blonde said. "His aunt sold harps in Denver during the Spanish-American War. Joe worked for Century Music in New York, in the twenties. Before you were born."

Brooding, Mary Anne said: "I don't like it in there."

"Why not?"

"It gives me the creeps." Not wishing to discuss it, Mary Anne said to Tweany: "When are you going to leave? Are you doing another set or not?"

Tweany pondered. "I believe I'll go lie down. No, I won't do another set. I've done enough for tonight."

The blonde was still studying Mary Anne with interest. "What do you mean? Why do you say that about Joe's store?"

Struggling, Mary Anne answered: "It's not the store." That was certainly true; she had loved the store.

"Did something happen?"

"No, nothing." She shook her head irritably. "Forget it, will you?" All at once the fear came back, and she said to Tweany: "Do you really go in there?"

"Certainly," Tweany said.

It seemed difficult to believe. "But that's the man I told you about."

Tweany had no comment.

"Did-you like him?" Mary Anne asked.

"A gentleman," Tweany stated. "We had quite an interesting talk about Bascom Lamar Lunsford. He played an ancient Lunsford record for me, cut around 1927. From his private collection."

Bewildered by this double set of images, Mary Anne said: "You never told me you went in there."

"Why? What's the importance?" Tweany seemed unconcerned. "I go wherever I care to."

Paul Nitz could no longer keep quiet. "You suppose he'd give me a few pointers?" he asked.

"Joe has worked with a number of young musicians," the blonde said. "He gave me a great deal of help-he got some pieces of mine published. Right now he's plugging a kid he heard singing up in San Francisco at one of the North Beach joints; he's been taping his routine and trying to get one of the lp companies to press it."

"Chad Lemming," her companion said.

"What sort of approach does he represent?" Tweany asked with professional interest.

"Chad does political monologues," the blonde said. "With a guitar. Sort of rhymed commentaries on the present state of affairs. Thought control, Senator McCarthy, topics like that. Would you care to hear him?"

"I suppose," Tweany said.

The blonde got promptly to her feet. "Come along, then."

"Where?"

"He's at our place-he's staying with us until he goes back up the peninsula. He'll only be down here a few days."

Mary Anne watched with dismay the response of Carleton Tweany. What was happening was obvious, but she could think of nothing to do. And then Nitz, mild, eyes half-shut, came to her rescue. "You've got another set, man," he said.

"I'm tired," Tweany said. "I'll let it go this time."

"You can't."

Hauteur overcame Tweany; he clearly was not giving up. "I can't perform creatively when I'm tired."

"Then come on," the blonde urged.

As if responding to an occult power, Taft Eaton approached the table, his bar rag oozing bubbles in a trail across the floor. "One more set, Carleton. You've not leaving."

"Certainly not," Tweany agreed.

Grinning, with a wink at Mary Anne, Nitz said, "Tough luck. Anyhow, this Lemming might start singing folk songs."

With his usual profound gravity, Tweany turned back to the blonde. She was still standing, still smiling at him, on the verge of leaving. "Perhaps," Tweany said, in a tone Mary Anne well recognized, "you could bring him over to my place. I'll be there directly I complete this final set."

"Then it's settled." A little quiver of her hips-a quite visible undulation of triumph-and then the blonde prodded her still-seated companion, saying: "Let's be going."

--My address," Tweany began artfully, but Nitz interrupted him.

"I'll take them over." Under the table he gave Mary Anne a comradely kick. "I'll be along; I want to have a look at this bird."

"Glad to have you," the blonde said.

"Just a moment," Taft Eaton began. "Paul, it seems strange to hear you talk about leaving."

"I don't have to accompany him," Nitz said. "I'm intermission pianist. He can sing some of those stomps and chain-gang hollers."

"Can I come?" Mary Anne asked, in a flurry of misery. She didn't want to be left out; she was helpless to prevent Tweany and the blonde from mingling, but at least she could be there, too.

"And my girl," Nitz said, rising. "I have to have her with me."

"Bring her." The blonde was already moving toward the street door.

"A party," her companion murmured, glancing at Nitz and Mary Anne. "Got any more friends?"

"Don't be rude." Halting beside Tweany, the blonde said: "My name's Beth, and this is my husband, Danny. Danny Coombs."

"How do you do," Tweany said.

"You can't leave," Taft Eaton repeated stubbornly, still there. "Somebody has to do something around here."

"I'm not leaving," Tweany said. "I explained it fully. I'll do the final set and then leave."

Putting his hand on Mary Anne's shoulder, Nitz said to her, "Don't feel bad."

She followed morosely after Beth and Danny Coombs, her hands in her pockets. "I don't want to go. But I have to."

"You'll live through it," Nitz said. He held the red-padded door open as Mary Anne stepped out onto the sidewalk. The Coombses had begun climbing into a parked Ford. "We'll give this guy a hotfoot."

He crawled into the backseat of the Ford and helped Mary Anne in. Hugging her comfortingly to him, he reached into his coat and got out his drink glass.

"Ready'?" Beth inquried cheerfully over her shoulder. "Here we go," Nitz said, settling back and yawning.