With an uneasy glance at Dora. who had shrunk back against the wall, Fabian leaned over and kissed Priscilla, Priscilla wiped her mouth with the back of her hands, smudging her lipstick, 'I heard you can do better than that,' she said. 'What'» the matter - out of practice? Maybe you ought to go back to France.' But she allowed Fabian to lead her to the door.

'Dora,' Fabian called back, 'put out the lights and lock the doors. We'll clean up in the morning.' 'Yes, Mr Fabian,' Dora whispered.

We left her there, not moving, rigid against the wall, as we went out.

Priscilla insisted upon sitting between us in the front seat. "Cuddly,' she said. She had spilled champagne down the front of her dress and the smell was unpleasant. I rolled down my window before I turned on the ignition.

'Now, dear,' Fabian said, 'where are you staying?' ' 'Springs,' Priscilla said. 'That's it. Springs.'

'Where exactly is Springs, dear?' Fabian said patiently. What road?'

'How the hell do I know what road?' Priscilla said. 'Just drive. I'll show you the way.' 'What's the name of the people you're staying with? We could call them and they could give us directions.' Fabian sounded like a policeman trying to get information from a lost child on a crowded beach. 'Surely, you must know the name of the people you're staying with.'

Of course I do. Levy, Cohen, McMahon, something like that. Who cares? A bunch of jerks.' Priscilla leaned over and turned on the radio. The music from The Bridge on the River Kwai crashed through the car. 'Come on, Mr Clean,' she said angrily to me, 'get this crate moving. You know where Springs is, I hope.'

'Go to Springs,' Fabian said.

I started the car. But two minutes after we had passed the sign that read, Welcome to Springs, I knew it would be a miracle if we ever found the house that Priscilla was gracing with her presence that weekend. I slowed down at every fork and crossroad and every house we passed, but Priscilla only shook her head and said, 'No, that's not it.'

No matter how much money we were making from The Sleeping Prince, I thought, as I drove, it wasn't worth this.

'We're just wasting time," Priscilla said. 'I got an idea. I have two girl friends in Quogue. On the beach. You can at least find the Atlantic Ocean in Quogue, can't you?' She didn't wait for an answer. "They're fantastic. Original swingers. You'll love them. Let's go to Quogue and have a gang bang.' 'Quogue is an hour away from here,' Fabian said. He sounded very tired. "So Quogue is an hour away. So what?' Priscilla demanded.

'Let's have some fun.' 'We've had a very long day,' Fabian said.

Who hasn't?' Priscilla said. 'On to Quogue.' 'Perhaps tomorrow night,' Fabian said.

Fags,' Priscilla said.

We were running through woods, on a small, dark back road that I didn't recognize, and I wasn't sure how I could get back to town without roaming all over the Hamptons for hours. I had just about decided to try to make my way back to East Hampton and find a hotel room for Priscilla and dump her on the sidewalk, if necessary, when my headlights picked up a car facing me, pulled over to the side of the road, with its hood up and two men looking down into the motor. I stopped the car and called out, 'I wonder if you two gentlemen could tell me where...'

Suddenly I realized I was looking into the muzzle of a gun.

The two men came over to the car, walking slowly. I couldn't see their faces in the dark but could make out that they were both wearing leather jackets and fishermen's long-billed caps. 'They have a gun,' I whispered to Fabian, across Priscilla, whom I felt stiffening beside me.

That's right, brother,' the man with the gun said. 'We have a gun. Now, listen careful. Leave the key in the ignition, because we're going to take the loan of your car. And get out, Nice and easy. And the old guy, too. He gets out on his side. Also nice and easy. And leave the lady in the car. We're going to take the loan of the lady for a while, too.'

I heard Priscilla gasp, but she sat absolutely still. The man stepped back a pace as I opened the door and got out. The other man went around to Fabian's side. I heard him say to Fabian, 'Get over there with your partner.' Fabian came around and joined me. He was breathing heavily.

Then Priscilla started to scream. It was the loudest, most piercing scream I have ever heard.

'Shut the bitch up,' the man with the gun shouted to his partner. Priscilla was still screaming, but she was lying back, with her head on the wheel and kicking at the man, who was trying to hold onto her legs.

'For Christ's sake,' the man with the gun said. He moved a little, as though he was going to get at Priscilla from the driver's side. His gun had drooped a little and Fabian lunged at him. There was an enormous noise as the gun went off. I heard Fabian grunt as I jumped on the man, dragging his gun hand down. Our combined weight was too much for him and he fell back, the gun clattering to the pavement. Priscilla was still screaming. I grabbed the gun just as the second man came around the front of the car in the glare of the headlights. I fired at him and he turned and ran off into the woods. The man who had had the gun was crawling away on his hands and knees, and I fired at him. He jumped up and ran into the darkness. Priscilla was still screaming.

Fabian was lying on his back now on the pavement, holding his chest with his two hands. He was breathing in loud, irregular gasps. There was a little light reflected off the road top from our headlights. 'I think we'd better get me to a hospital, old man,' he said, with long spaces between the words. 'Fast. And tell Priscilla to please stop yelling.'

I was trying to lift Fabian, as gently as possible, into the back seat of the car, when I became conscious of headlights approaching from behind me. 'Sorry,' I said to Fabian, who was half in and half out of the car now. There's somebody coming.' I picked up the gun again and stood between Fabian and the oncoming car. Priscilla had stopped screaming and was sobbing wildly in the front seat, hitting her head dementedly against the dashboard. I didn't know which was worse, her screaming or this.

As the car approached, I saw that it was a police car. I dropped the gun I was holding. The car came to a halt and two policemen jumped out, their revolvers in their hands.

'What's going on here?' the one in front asked harshly.

There's been a holdup. Two men. They're in the woods somewhere. My friend's been shot. We've got to get him to a hospital right away.'

'Whose gun is this?' The policeman asked, bending down to pick it up from where it was lying at my feet.

'Theirs.'

'You jumped a guy with a gun?' the policeman said incredulously.

'Not me,' I said. 'Him.'

'Holy man,' the policeman said softly.

He helped me put Fabian into the rear of the car, while his partner, a thin man with glasses, who looked too young to be a policeman, went to inspect the car with the hood up that the two men had been examining when we drove up. That's the car, all right,' he said when he came back. 'We've been looking for it. It was stolen last night at Montauk. We got a description from a gas station at Three Mile Harbor. Lucky for you.'

'Real lucky,' I said.

He looked curiously at Priscilla, who was still knocking her head against the dashboard, but he didn't say anything. 'Follow us,' he said. 'We'll lead you to the hospital.'

With the lights of the police car all flashing and the siren going, we sped down the dark roads. Coming the other way, I saw first one, then another police car racing past us toward the scene of the holdup. They must have sent out a call by radio from the car ahead of us.

The operation took three hours. Fabian had lapsed into unconsciousness before we reached the hospital in Southampton. An intern had taken one look at Priscilla and had her put in a bed under heavy sedation. I sat in the anteroom of the emergency ward, trying to answer the questions of the policemen about what the men looked like, the sequence in which things had happened, what we were doing on the road at that hour, who the lady was, whether or not I thought I had hit one or both of the men when I fired at them. It was hard to sort the things out. My mind felt numb overwhelmed. It was hard to make the policemen understand who Priscilla Dean was and how it happened she didn't know where she lived. They were unfailingly polite and not suspicious, but they kept asking the same questions, in slightly different ways, over and over again, as though what had happened couldn't have happened the way I thought it bad. I had called Evelyn as soon as they wheeled Fabian into the operating room and told her Fabian had had an accident but I was all right, not to worry. I told her I'd give her the details when I got home.