Her pulse quickened. “Where?”

“To some big city. How about north, to Denver? I’ll take you out; buy you ticket to a show, good restaurant, taxi, get you evening dress or what you need. Okay?”

She could hardly believe him, but she wanted to; she tried to.

“Will that Stude of yours make it?” Joe called.

“Sure,” she said.

“We’ll both get some nice clothes,” he said. “Enjoy ourselves, maybe for the first time in our lives. Keep you from cracking up.”

“Where’ll we get the money?”

Joe said, “I have it. Look in my suitcase.” He shut the bathroom door; the racket of water shut out any further words.

Opening the dresser, she got out his dented, stained little grip. Sure enough, in one corner she found an envelope; it contained Reichsbank bills, high value and good anywhere. Then we can go, she realized. Maybe he’s not just stringing me along. I just wish I could get inside him and see what’s there, she thought as she counted the money.

Beneath the envelope she found a huge, cylindrical fountain pen, or at least it appeared to be that; it had a clip, anyhow. But it weighed so much. Gingerly, she lifted it out, unscrewed the cap. Yes, it had a gold point. But…

“What is this?” she asked Joe, when he reappeared from the shower.

He took it from her, returned it to the grip. How carefully he handled it… she noticed that, reflected on it, perplexed.

“More morbidity?” Joe said. He seemed lighthearted, more so than at any time since she had met him; with a yell of enthusiasm, he clasped her around the waist, then hoisted her up into his arms, rocking her, swinging her back and forth, peering down into her face, breathing his warm breath over her, squeezing her until she bleated.

“No,” she said. “I’m just slow to change.” Still a little scared of you, she thought. So scared I can’t even say it, tell you about it.

“Out the window,” Joe cried, stalking across the room with her in his arms. “Here we go.”

“Please,” she said.

“Kidding. Listen—we’re going on a march, like the March on Rome. You remember that. The Duce led them, my Uncle Carlo for example. Now we have a little march, less important, not noted in the history books. Right?” Inclining his head, he kissed her on the mouth so hard that their teeth clashed. “How nice we both’ll look, in our new clothes. And you can explain to me exactly how to talk, deport myself; right? Teach me manners; right?”

“You talk okay,” Juliana said. “Better than me, even.”

“No.” He became abruptly somber. “I talk very bad. A real wop accent. Didn’t you notice it when you first met me in the cafe?”

“I guess so,” she said; it did not seem important to her.

“Only a woman knows the social conventions,” Joe said, carrying her back and dropping her to bounce frighteningly on the bed. “Without a woman we’d discuss racing cars and horses and tell dirty jokes; no civilization.”

You’re in a strange mood, Juliana thought. Restless and brooding, until you decide to move on; then you become hopped up. Do you really want me? You can ditch me, leave me here; it’s happened before. I would ditch you, she thought, if I were going on.

“Is that your pay?” she asked as he dressed. “You saved it up?” It was so much. Of course, there was a good deal of money in the East. “All the other truck drivers I’ve talked to never made so—”

“You say I’m a truck driver?” Joe broke in. “Listen; I rode that rig not to drive but keep off hijackers. Look like a truck driver, snoozing in the cab.” Flopping in a chair in the corner of the room he lay back, pretending sleep, his mouth open, body limp. “See?”

At first she did not see. And then she realized that in his hand was a knife, as thin as a kitchen potato skewer. Good grief, she thought. Where had it come from? Out of his sleeve; out of the air itself.

“That’s why the Volkswagen people hired me. Service record. We protected ourselves against Haselden, those commandos; he led them.” The black eyes glinted; he grinned sideways at Juliana. “Guess who got the Colonel, there at the end. When we caught them on the Nile—him and four of his Long Range Desert Group months after the Cairo campaign. They raided us for gasoline one night. I was on sentry duty. Haselden sneaked up, rubbed with black all over his face and body, even his hands; they had no wire that time, only grenades and submachine guns. All too noisy. He tried to break my larynx. I got him.” From the chair, Joe sprang up at her, laughing. “Let’s pack. You tell them at the gym you’re taking a few days off; phone them.”

His account simply did not convince her. Perhaps he had not been in North Africa at all, had not even fought in the war on the Axis side, had not even fought. What hijackers? she wondered. No truck that she knew of had come through Canon City from the East Coast with an armed professional ex-soldier as guard. Maybe he had not even lived in the U.S.A., had made everything up from the start; a line to snare her, to get her interested, to appear romantic.

Maybe he’s insane, she thought. Ironic… I may actually do what I’ve pretended many times to have done: use my judo in self-defense. To save my—virginity? My life, she thought. But more likely he is just some poor low-class wop laboring slob with delusions of glory; he wants to go on a grand spree, spend all his money, live it up—and then go back to his monotonous existence. And he needs a girl to do it.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll call the gym.” As she went toward the hall she thought, He’ll buy me expensive clothes and then take me to some luxurious hotel. Every man yearns to have a really well-dressed woman before he dies, even if he has to buy her the clothes himself. This binge is probably Joe Cinnadella’s lifelong ambition. And he is shrewd; I’ll bet he’s right in his analysis of me—I have a neurotic fear of the masculine. Frank knew it, too. That’s why he and I broke up; that’s why I still feel this anxiety now, this mistrust.

When she returned from the pay phone, she found Joe once more engrossed in the Grasshopper, scowling as he read, unaware of everything else.

“Weren’t you going to let me read that?” she asked.

“Maybe while I drive,” Joe said, without looking up.

“You’re going to drive? But it’s my car!”

He said nothing; he merely went on reading.

At the cash register, Robert Childan looked up to see a lean, tall, dark-haired man entering the store. The man wore a slightly less-than-fashionable suit and carried a large wicker hamper. Salesman. Yet he did not have the cheerful smile; instead, he had a grim, morose look on his leathery face. More like a plumber or an electrician, Robert Childan thought.

When he had finished with his customer, Childan called to the man, “Who do you represent?”

“Edfrank Jewelry,” the man mumbled back. He had set his hamper down on one of the counters.

“Never heard of them.” Childan sauntered over as the man unfastened the top of the hamper and with much wasted motion opened it.

“Handwrought. Each unique. Each an original. Brass, copper, silver. Even hot-forged black iron.”

Childan glanced into the hamper. Metal on black velvet, peculiar. “No thanks. Not in my line.”

“This represents American artistry. Contemporary.”

Shaking his head no, Childan walked back to the cash register.

For a time the man stood fooling with his velvet display boards and hamper. He was neither taking the boards out nor putting them back; he seemed to have no idea what he was doing. His arms folded, Childan watched, thinking about various problems of the day. At two he had an appointment to show some early period cups. Then at three—another batch of items returning from the Cal labs, home from their authenticity test. He had been having more and more pieces examined, in the last couple of weeks. Ever since the nasty incident with the Colt .44.