Cable was a risk taker, a gambler. Any man who had spent ten years of his life working hundreds of feet underwater, breathing helium and working with explosive gas, had to have come to terms with fear, and fear was what Sam traded in.

In most cases the fear was easy to identify. It was not the fear of death that motivated Sam's clients to buy; it was the fear of dying unprepared. If he did his job right, the clients would feel that by turning down a policy they were somehow tempting fate to cause them to die untimely. (Sam had yet to hear of a death considered "timely.") In their minds they created a new superstition, and like all superstitions it was based on the fear of irony. So, the only lottery ticket you lose will be the winning one, the one time you leave your driver's license at home is the time you will be stopped for speeding, and when someone offers you an insurance policy that only pays you if you're dead, you better damn well buy it. Irony. It was a tacit message, but one that Sam delivered with every sales pitch.

He walked into Jim Cable's office with the unusual feeling of being totally unprepared. Maybe it was just the girl who had thrown him, or the Indian.

Cable was standing behind a long desk that had been fashioned from an old dinghy. He was tall, with the thin, athletic build of a runner, and completely bald. He extended his hand to Sam.

"Jim Cable. Frank told me you'd be coming, but I'm not sure I like this whole thing."

"Sam Hunter." Sam released his hand. "May I sit? This shouldn't take long." This was not a good start.

Cable gestured for Sam to sit across from him and sat down. Sam remained standing. He didn't want the desk to act as a barrier between them; it was too easy for Cable to defend.

"Do you mind if I move this chair over to your side of the desk? I have some materials I'd like you to see and I need to be beside you."

"You can just leave the materials, I'll look them over."

Technology had helped Sam over this barrier. "Well, actually it's not printed matter. I have it in my computer and I have to be on the same side of the screen as you."

"Okay, I guess that's fine, then." Cable rolled his chair to the side to allow Sam room on the same side of the desk.

That's one, Sam thought. He moved his chair, sat down beside Cable, and opened the notebook computer.

"Well, Mr. Cable, it looks like we can set this whole thing up without any more than a physical for you and Frank."

"Whoa!" Cable brought his hands up in protest. "We haven't agreed on this yet."

"Oh," Sam said. "Frank gave me the impression that the decision had been made — that this was just a meeting to confirm the tax status and pension benefits of the policy."

"I didn't know there were pension benefits."

"That's why I'm here," Sam said. It wasn't why he was there at all. "To explain them to you."

"Well, Frank and I haven't gotten down to any specifics on this. I'm not sure it's a good idea at all."

Sam needed misdirection. He launched into the presentation like a pit bull/Willy Loman crossbreed. As he spoke, the computer screen supported his statements with charts, graphs, and projections. Every five seconds a message flashed across the screen faster than the eye could see, but not so fast that it could not nibble on the lobes of the subconscious like a teasing lover. The message was: BE SMART, BUY THIS. Sam had designed the program himself. The BE SMART part of the message could be modified for each client. The options were: BE SEXY, BE YOUNG, BE BEAUTIFUL, BE THIN, BE TALL, and Sam's personal favorite, BE GOD. He'd come up with the idea one night while watching a commercial in which six heavily muscled guys got to run around on the beach impressing beautiful women presumably because they drank light beer. BE A STUD, DRINK LIGHT.

Sam finished his presentation and stopped talking abruptly, feeling that he had somehow forgotten something. He waited, letting the silence become uncomfortable, letting the conversation lay on the desk before them like a dead cat, letting the diver come to the correct conclusion. The first one to speak loses. Sam knew it. He sensed that Cable knew it.

Finally, Jim Cable said, "This is a great little computer you have. Would you consider selling it?"

Sam was thrown. "But what about the policy?"

"I don't think it's a good idea," Cable said. "But I really like this computer. I think it would be smart to buy it."

"Smart?" Sam said.

"Yeah, I just think it would be a smart thing to do."

So much for subliminal advertising. Sam made a mental note to change his message to: BE SMART, BUY THE POLICY. "Look, Jim, you can get a computer like this in a dozen stores in town, but this partnership policy is set up for right now. You are never going to be younger, you'll never be in better health, the premium will never be lower or the tax advantage better."

"But I don't need it. My family is taken care of and I don't care who takes control of the company after I'm dead. If Frank wants to take a policy out on me I'll take the physical, but I'm not betting against myself on this."

There it was. Cable was not afraid and Sam knew no way to instill the fear he needed. He had read that Cable had survived several diving accidents and even a helicopter crash while being shuttled to one of the offshore rigs. If he hadn't glimpsed his mortality before, then nothing Sam could say would put the Reaper in his shaving mirror. It was time to walk away and salvage half of the deal with Cable's partner.

Sam stood and closed the screen on the computer. "Well, Jim, I'll talk to Frank about the specifics of the policy and set up the appointment for the physical."

They shook hands and Sam left the office trying to analyze what had gone wrong. Again and again the fear factor came up. Why couldn't he find and touch that place in Jim Cable? Granted, his concentration had been shot by the morning's events. Really, he'd done a canned presentation to cover himself. But to cover what? This was a clean deal, cut and dried.

When he climbed back into the Mercedes there was a red feather lying on the seat. He brushed it out onto the street and slammed the door. He drove back to his office with the air conditioner on high. Still, when he arrived ten minutes later, his shirt was soaked with sweat.

Santa Barbara

There are those days, those moments in life, when for no particular reason the senses are heightened and the commonplace becomes sublime. It was one of those days for Samuel Hunter.

The appearance of the girl, the wanting she had awakened in him, had started it. Then the Indian's presence had so confused him that he was fumbling through the day marveling at things that before had never merited a second look. Walking back into his outer office he spied his secretary, Gabriella Snow, and was awed for a moment by just how tremendously, how incredibly, how child-frighteningly ugly she was.

There are those who, deprived of physical beauty, develop a sincerity and beauty of spirit that seems to eclipse their appearance. They marry for love, stay married, and raise happy children who are quick to laugh and slow to judge. Gabriella was not one of those people. In fact, if not for her gruesome appearance, an unpleasant personality would have been her dominant feature. She was good on the phone, however, and Sam's clients were sometimes so relieved to be out of her office and into his that they bought policies out of gratitude, so he kept her on.

He'd hired her three years ago from the resume she had mailed in. She was wildly overqualified for the position and Sam remembered wondering why she was applying for it in the first place. For three years Sam had breezed by her desk without really looking at her, but today, in his unbalanced state, her homeliness inspired him to poetry. But what rhymed with Gabriella?