“I don’t know-the place really was a madhouse. But it’s got a card on it. Also a bow. It must be your secret lover.”

“My lover’s so secret even I don’t know about her,” Norris said with real regret. He stepped out of his pants and laid them over the stall door while he put on his jeans.

Outside, Sandy McMillan smiled with a touch of malice. “Mr. Keeton was by tonight,” she said. “Maybe he left it. Maybe it’s a kiss-and-make-up present.” Norris laughed. “That’ll be the day.”

“Well, make sure you tell me tomorrow-I’m dying to know. It’s a pretty package. Goodnight, Norris.”

“Night.” Who could have left me a present? he wondered, zipping up his fly.

Sandy left, pulling the collar of her coat up as she went out-the night was very cold, reminding her that winter was on its way. Cyndi Rose Martin, the lawyer’s wife, was one of the many people she had seen that night-Cyndi Rose had turned up early in the evening.

Sandy never thought of mentioning her to Norris, however; he did not move in the Martins’ more rarefied social and professional circles.

Cyndi Rose said she was looking for her husband, which made a certain amount of sense to Sandy (although the evening had been so harum-scarum that Sandy probably wouldn’t have thought it odd if the woman had said she was looking for Mikhail Baryshnikov), because Albert Martin did some of the town’s legal work.

Sandy said she hadn’t seen Mr. Martin that evening, although Cyndi Rose w?-s welcome to check upstairs and see if he was in with Mr.

Keeton, if she wanted. Cyndi Rose said she thought she would do that, as long as she was here. By then the switchboard was lit up like a Christmas tree again, and Sandy did not see Cyndi Rose take the rectangular package with the bright foil paper and the blue velvet bow from her large handbag and put it on Norris Ridgewick’s desk. Her pretty face had been lit with a smile as she did it, but the smile itself was not pretty at all. It was, in fact, rather cruel.

Norris heard the outer door shut and, dimly, the sound of Sandy starting her car. He tucked his shirt into his jeans, stepped into his loafers, and arranged his uniform carefully on its hanger. He sniffed the shirt at the armpits and decided it didn’t have to go to the cleaners right away. That was good; a penny saved was a penny earned.

When he left the men’s room, he put the hanger back on the same file-cabinet handle, where he could not help seeing it on his way out.

That was also good, because Alan got pissed like a bear when Norris forgot and left his duds hanging around the police station. He said it made the place look like a laundrymat.

He went over to his desk. Someone really had left him a present-it was a box done up in light-blue foil wrapping paper and blue velvet ribbon exploding into a fluffy bow on top. There was a square white envelope tucked under the ribbon. Very curious now, Norris removed the envelope and tore it open. There was a card inside. Typed on it in capital letters was a short, enigmatic message:

!!!!!JUSTA REMINDER!!!!!

He frowned. The only two persons he could think of who were always reminding him of things were Alan and his mother… and his mother had died five years ago. He picked up the package, broke the ribbon, and set the bow carefully aside. Then he took off the paper, revealing a plain white cardboard box. It was about a foot long, four inches wide, and four inches deep. The lid was taped shut.

Norris broke the tape and opened the box. There was a layer of white tissue paper over the object inside, thin enough to indicate a flat surface with a number of raised ridges running across it, but not thin enough to allow him to see what his present was.

He reached in to pull the tissue paper out, and his forefinger struck something hard-a protruding tongue of metal. A heavy steel jaw closed on the tissue paper and also on Norris Ridgewick’s first three fingers. Pain ripped up his arm. He screamed and stumbled backward, grabbing his right wrist with his left hand. The white box tumbled to the floor. Tissue-paper crinkled.

Oh, son of a bitch, it hurt! He grabbed at the tissue, which hung down in a wrinkled ribbon, and tore it free. What he revealed was a large Victory rat-trap. Someone had armed it, stuck it in a box, put tissue-paper over it to hide it, and then wrapped it in pretty blue paper. Now it was clamped on the first three fingers of his right hand. It had torn the nail of his index finger right off, he saw; all that remained was a bleeding crescent of raw flesh.

“Whoremaster!” Norris cried. In his pain and shock, he at first beat the trap against the side of John LaPointe’s desk instead of just prying back the steel bar. All he managed to do was bang his hurt fingers against the desk’s metal corner and send a fresh snarl of pain up his arm. He screamed again, then grabbed the trap’s bar and pulled it back. He released his fingers and dropped the trap.

The steel bar snapped down again on the trap’s wooden base as it fell to the floor.

Norris stood trembling for a moment, then bolted back into the men’s room, turned on the cold water with his left hand, and thrust his right hand under the tap. It throbbed like an impacted wisdom tooth.

He stood with his lips drawn back in a grimace, watching thin threads of blood swirl down the drain, and thought of what Sandy had said: Mr. Keeton was by. maybe it’s a kiss-andmake-up present.

And the card: JUST A REMINDER.

Oh, it had been Buster, all right. He didn’t doubt it a bit. It was just Buster’s style.

“You son of a bitch,” Norris groaned.

The cold water was numbing his fingers, damping down that sick throbbing, but he knew it would be back by the time he arrived home.

Aspirin might dull it a little, but he still thought he could forget getting any real sleep tonight. Or any fishing tomorrow, for that matter.

Oh yes I will-I’ll go fishing even if my fucking hand falls fucking off. I had it planned, I’ve been looking forward to it, and Danforth Fucking Buster Keeton isn’t going to stop me.

He turned off the water and used a paper towel to blot his hand gently dry. None of the fingers which had been caught in the trap were broken-at least he didn’t think so-but they were already beginning to swell, cold water or no cold water. The arm of the trap had left a dark red-purple weal which ran across the fingers between the first and second knuckles. The exposed flesh beneath what had been the nail of his index finger was sweating small beads of blood, and that sick throbbing was already beginning again.

He went back into the deserted bullpen and looked at the sprung trap, lying on its side by John’s desk. He picked it up and went over to his own desk. He put the trap inside the gift-box and put it in the top drawer of his desk. He took his aspirin out of the lower drawer and shook three of them into his mouth. Then he got the tissue-paper, the wrapping paper, the ribbon, and the bow. These he stuffed into the trash basket, covering them with balls of discarded paper.

He had no intention of telling Alan or anyone else about the nasty trick Buster had played on him. They wouldn’t laugh, but Norris knew what they would think… or thought he did: Only Norris Ridgewick would fall for something like that-stuck his hand right into a loaded rat-trap, can you believe it?

It must be your secret lover… Mr. Keeton was by tonight… maybe it’s a kiss-and-make-up present.

“I’ll take care of this myself,” Norris said in a low, grim voice. He was holding his wounded hand against his chest. “In my own way, and in my own time.”

Suddenly a new and urgent thought came to him: what if Buster hadn’t been content with the rat-trap, which, after all, might not have worked? What if he had gone up to Norris’s house? The Bazun fishing rod was there, and it wasn’t even locked up; he had just leaned it in the corner of the shed, next to his reel.