Ann gave her mother a look. "Could you just wait a minute, please."

Ori didn't seem to pick up on the prickliness. "You're going to have to go to the bank first thing in the morning. I paid Maxine out of petty cash and there's hardly anything left."

"What happened to the fifty I gave you yesterday?"

"I just told you. I paid Maxine with that." "You paid her fifty dollars? How long was she here?"

"Well, you needn't take that tone. She come at ten and didn't leave till four and she never set down once except to eat her lunch."

"I bet she ate everything in sight."

Ori seemed offended. "I hope you don't begrudge the poor woman a little bite of lunch."

"Mother, she worked six hours. What are you paying her?"

Ori, uneasy on this point, began to pluck at the covers. "You know her son has been sick, and she says she doesn't see how she can keep cleaning for six dollars an hour. I told her we could go to seven."

"You gave her a raise?"

"Well, I couldn't very well tell her no."

"Why not? That's ridiculous. She's slow as molasses and she does shitty work."

"Well, pardon me, I'm sure. What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong! I've got problems enough. The rooms upstairs were a mess, and I had to do two of them again-"

Ori cut in. "That's no reason to snap at me. I told you not to hire the girl. She looked like some kind of foreigner with that black hair braided down the back."

"Why do you do this? The minute I walk in the door, you're all over me. I've asked you and asked you to give me time to catch my breath! But oh no… whatever you want is the most important thing in the world."

Ori shot me a look. This was the kind of treatment a sick old woman was subjected to. "I was just trying to help," she said, her voice quavering.

"Oh stop that!" Ann said. She left the room in exasperation. A moment later, we could hear her in the kitchen banging drawers and cabinet doors. Ori wiped at her eyes, making certain I noticed how upset she was.

"I have to make a phone call," I murmured, and eased out of the room before she could enlist my support.

I went upstairs, feeling out of sorts. I had never worked for such unpleasant people in my life. I locked myself in my room and lay down on the bed, too exhausted to move and too unsettled to sleep. The tensions of the day were piling up, and I could feel my head begin to pound from the lack of sleep. Belatedly, I realized I'd never eaten lunch. I was starving. "God," I said aloud.

I got out of bed, stripped, and headed for the shower. Fifteen minutes later, I was dressed in fresh clothes and on my way out. Maybe a decent dinner would help get me back on track. It was absurdly early, but I never eat at a fashionable hour anyway, and in this town the concept would be wasted.

Floral Beach has a choice of restaurants. There's the pizza parlor on Palm Street, and on Ocean, there's the Breakwater, the Galleon, and the Ocean Street Cafe, which is open for breakfast only. A line was already forming outside the Galleon. I gathered the Early Bird Special drew crowds from as far away as two blocks. The sign indicated "Family-Style Dining," which means no booze is served and there are shrieking kids on booster seats banging spoons.

I pushed into the Breakwater, heartened by the notion of a full bar. The interior was a mix of nautical and Early American: maple captain's chairs, blue-and-white-checked cloths on the tables, candles in fat red jars encased in the kind of plastic webbing it's fun to fiddle with while you talk. Above the bar, fishing nets were draped across the wooden spokes of a ship's wheel. The hostess was dressed in a mock pilgrim's costume, which consisted of a long skirt and a tight bodice with a low-cut neckline. She had apparently donned an Early American push-up bra because her perky little breasts were forced together like two pattypan squash. If she leaned over too far, one was going to pop right out. A couple of guys at the bar kept an eye on her, hoping against hope.

Aside from those two, the place was nearly deserted and she seemed relieved to have some business. She seated me in the no-smoking section, which is to say between the kitchen and the pay phone. The menu she handed me was oversized, bound with a tasseled cord, and featured steak and beef. Everything else was deep-fried. I was wrestling with the choice of 'plump shrimp, litely battered amp; served with our chef's own secret sause,' or 'tender sea scallops, batter-coated, litely sauteed and served with a zesty sweet 'n' sour dip,' when Dwight Shales materialized at my table. He looked as if he'd showered and changed clothes, too, in preparation for a big, hot night on the town.

"I thought that was you," he said. "Mind if I sit down?"

"Be my guest," I said, indicating the empty seat. "What's the story here? Should I have eaten at the Galleon?"

He pulled out a chair and sat down. "The same people own both."

"Well, then, how come the line's so long over there, and this place is empty?"

"Because it's Thursday and the Galleon offers free barbecued ribs as an appetizer. The service is always lousy, so you're not missing anything."

I surveyed the menu again. "What's good here?"

"Not much. All the seafood is frozen and the chowder comes out of cans. The steak is passable. I order the same thing every time I come. Filet mignon, medium rare, with a baked potato, tossed salad with bleu cheese, and apple pie for dessert. If you have two martinis up front, you'll think it's the fourth best meal you ever ate. Up from that is any quarter pounder with cheese."

I smiled. He was flirting, a hitherto unsuspected aspect of his personality. "You're joining me, I hope."

"Thanks. I'd like that. I hate to eat alone."

"Me, too."

The waitress appeared and we ordered drinks. I confess I was curing my fatigue with a martini on the rocks, but it was quick and efficient and I enjoyed every minute of it. While we talked, I did a covert assessment of him. It interests me how people's looks change as you get to know them. The first flash is probably the most accurate, but there are occasions when a face undergoes a transformation that seems almost magical. With Dwight Shales, there seemed to be a more youthful persona submerged in a fifty-five-year-old shell. His hidden self was becoming more visible to me as he talked.

I listened with both eyes and one ear, trying to discern what was really going on. Ostensibly, we were discussing how we spent our leisure time. He gravitated toward backpacking, while I tended to amuse myself with the abridged California Penal Code and textbooks on auto theft. While his mouth made noises about an assault of ticks on a recent day hike, his eyes said something else. I disconnected my brain and fine-tuned my receiver, picking up his code. This man was emotionally available. That was the subliminal message.

A chunk of lettuce dropped off my fork and my mouth closed on the bare tines. Ever the sophisticate. I tried to act as though I preferred to eat my salad that way.

Midway through the meal, I changed the tenor of the conversation, curious what would happen if we talked about something personal. "What happened to your wife? I take it she died."

"Multiple sclerosis. She went into remission numerous times, but it always caught up with her.

Twenty years of that shit. Toward the end, she couldn't do anything for herself. She was luckier than most, if you want to look at it that way. Some patients are rapidly incapacitated, but Karen wasn't in a wheelchair until the last sixteen months or so."

"I'm sorry. It sounds grim."

He shrugged. "It was. Sometimes it looked like she had it licked. Long periods symptom-free. The hell of it was she was misdiagnosed early on. She'd been plagued by minor health problems, so she started seeing a local chiropractor for what she thought was gout. Of course, once he got hold of her, he mapped out a whole bullshit program that only postponed her getting real help. Class three subluxation. That's what he said it was. I should have sued his ass off, but what's the point?"