“Jay is his surname.”

“You really know him then?”

“I know him. Tell me again about the bar.”

Dulwater smiled. “Half the damned police department must have been there. You told McCluskey you wanted one on one? You got a hundred on one. Cars, vans, armed to the teeth. Man, he was ready for you and then some. You should have seen how angry he was when he figured it was a no-show. And his pals weren’t too happy with him either.”

“He’ll be worse when he finds out I’ve walked into Killin’s house after he pulled the guard away.”

“Oh, yeah, he’ll pop some blood vessels. And then Kosigin’ll pop him.”

“I hope so.”

The tape was coming to its end, Reeve’s face on the screen. Dulwater finished his drink and crouched in front of the machine. “You know, Gordon, I called the Radisson. I thought it was pretty dumb of you to stay in the same place you stayed last trip. But you’re not that dumb, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” Reeve said. He was right behind Dulwater, arms stretched out, when Dulwater stood up. As Dulwater turned, slowed by the alcohol, Reeve brought his hands together in what would have been a sharp clap, had Dulwater’s ears not been in the way. Dulwater’s face creased in sudden excruciating pain, and his balance went. He bounced off the bed and crumpled onto the floor, trying his best to rise again quickly.

Reeve kicked him once in the head and that dropped him.

“No, I’m not,” he repeated quietly, standing over Dulwater. He didn’t think he’d hit him hard enough to burst an eardrum. But then it wasn’t what you’d call an exact science. The Nietz-sche quote came to him: “Must one first shatter their ears to teach them to hear with their eyes?” Well, maybe he was one of Nietzsche’s gentlemen after all.

He spent a few minutes getting everything ready. Then he called McCluskey.

“Hey, McCluskey,” he said.

“You sonofabitch, where were you? I waited hours.”

“Well, leastways you weren’t lonely.”

There was a pause. “What do you mean?”

“I mean all your boyfriends.”

Another pause, then a sigh. “All right, Gordon, I admit it-but listen, and this is a friend speaking now, you’re on Interpol’s list, man. It came through after we spoke. The French police want to talk to you about some murders. Hell, when I read that I didn’t know what to think.”

“Nice story, McCluskey.”

“Now wait-”

“I’m gone.”

Reeve dropped the receiver onto the bed. He could hear McCluskey asking if anyone was still there. To drop a bigger hint, Reeve put the TV volume up. It was the insomniacs’ shopping channel. It would take McCluskey time to trace the call, once he figured the phone had been left off the hook. Time enough for Reeve to check out of the hotel and into another. He took three copies of the video with him, leaving just the one.

He knew that if McCluskey and Dulwater sat down to watch the video together, they might find out it was better all around to destroy it. Or rather, McCluskey would want it destroyed, and he’d tell Dulwater that if he didn’t let him destroy it, then Mr. Allerdyce might be appraised of the situation-such as what Gordon Reeve had been doing phoning from Dulwater’s hotel room, and what part Dulwater had played in the videotaping…

So in all, Reeve felt he needed three copies. One for himself, one for Kosigin.

And one just to let Allerdyce know the score.

REEVE HEADED NORTH OUT of town on I-5, citing a “family crisis” as the reason he had to leave the Marriott at such an odd hour. On the way down from Los Angeles, he had picked out a number of dreary-looking roadside motels, just off I-5 on the coastal road which ran parallel with it. He checked the mileage as he drove, and came off the interstate near Solana Beach. He was twenty miles out from the Marriott. The motel had a red neon sign which was making a buzzing sound as he parked beneath it. The reception was all locked up, but there was a sign drawing his attention to the machine attached to the wall alongside. It looked like a cash machine but was actually an Automated Motel Reception. Reeve slipped his credit card into the slot and followed the onscreen instructions. The key which appeared from another slot was a narrow plastic card with holes punched in it. The machine flashed up a final message saying it wished him a pleasant night’s sleep. Reeve wished the machine a pleasant night, too.

The rooms were around the far side of the building. Reeve drove slowly and picked out his room number with his headlights. There were four cars parked, and about twenty rooms. Reeve guessed they weren’t doing great business at the Ocean Palms Resort Beach Motel. He also guessed that resort and beach were misnomers; the motel was a tired motorist’s overnight stop, nothing more. The 1950s cinder-block construction told its own story. The building was in a gulch, closer to I-5 than any beach. The Cinder-Block Last Resort Motel would have been a more accurate name.

But the locks on the doors were new. Reeve slotted home his card, turned the handle, and pulled the card out. He had his bag with him and slung it over a chair. He checked the room over, tired as he was-just the one door and one window. He tried the air-conditioner and wasn’t surprised when it didn’t work. The lightbulb in the lamp fixed into the wall over the bedhead was dead, too, but he took out the dud and replaced it with a working bulb from the ceiling light. He went back out again, locking his door, and prowled the area. There was a small well-lit room at the end of the row. It had no windows and no doors and a bare concrete floor. There were humming machines in there, one dispensing cold drinks, another snacks, and the last one ice. When he lifted the lid he saw there was no ice, just a small metal paddle on a chain. He looked in his pocket for quarters, then went back to the Dart and found a few more. Enough for a can of cola, a chocolate bar, and some potato chips. He took his haul back to the room and settled on the sagging mattress. There was an ugly lamp on the table beside the TV, so he moved it where he couldn’t see it. Then he switched on the TV and stared towards it for a while, eating and drinking and thinking about things.

When he woke up, the morning programs were on, and a maid was cranking a cart past his door. He sat up and rubbed his head. His watch told him 10:00 A.M. He’d been asleep the best part of six hours. He ran a tepid shower and stripped off his clothes. He stayed a long time in the shower, letting the water hammer his back and shoulders while he soaped his chest. He had fallen asleep thinking, and he was thinking now. How badly did he want Kosigin? Did he want Kosigin at all? Maybe Dul-water was right: the proper torment for Kosigin was to give someone else-Allerdyce, in this case-power over him. It was a right and just fate, like something Dante would have dreamed up for one of the circles of Hell.

But then Reeve liked Allerdyce little better than he liked Kosigin. He wished he had a solution, something that would erase them all. But life was never that simple, was it?

Checking out of the motel was as easy as dropping his key into a box. He’d been there about eight hours and hadn’t seen a soul, and the only person he’d even heard was the chambermaid. It was everything he could have asked for.

By now he guessed McCluskey would be tearing up every hotel room in the city. He’d want details of Reeve’s car, but Dulwater wouldn’t be able to help him, and neither would anyone else. If he checked the automobile registration details at the Marriott, he’d see that Reeve had put down a false license plate attached to an equally fictitious Pontiac Sunfire. Reeve drove the Dart down to a stretch of beach and parked. He pulled off shoes and socks and walked across the sand to the ocean’s edge. He walked the beach for a while, then started jogging. He wasn’t alone: there were a few other men out here, mostly older than him, all of them jogging along the waterline. But none of them ran as far as Reeve did. He ran until he was sweating, then stripped off his shirt and ran some more.