"About what?"

"Are you feeling all right?"

"I will be." She paused and slowly the focus of her eyes changed until she was actually looking at Dora. "I'm getting married," she said suddenly. "Did you know? Of course not; no one knows. But I'm getting married."

"Why, that's wonderful," Dora said. "Congratulations. Who's the lucky man?"

"I bought him," Felicia said, mouth stretched in an ugly grin. "I bought the lucky man."

Dora drank off half her beer, wondering whether to end this mad conversation as soon as possible or take advantage of this poor woman's derangement. "Turner Pierce?" she asked quietly.

"Oh," Felicia said, "I did tell you. I forgot. You know Turner?"

"We've met. I hope you'll be very happy."

"He knows how to make me happy." She leaned across the table and beckoned with a long forefinger. Dora bent forward to hear. "I'm naked," Felicia said in a low voice.

"Pardon?"

"Under my coat. I haven't a stitch on. Look." She opened two buttons, pulled the neckline apart. Dora saw bare breasts.

"Button up," she said sharply. "Felicia, why on earth aren't you dressed?"

"What's the point? I don't feel like it. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. And mother can't make me." That bony forefinger beckoned again, and again Dora leaned forward. "Clayton is going to marry Helene. Good. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I thought Turner and Helene were making it."

"Felicia! They're brother and sister."

"So? But now it's all right. Turner is mine. I'll never give him up."

She said this so fiercely that Dora was saddened, fearing what might happen to this vulnerable woman. Felicia sat back and looked at her pridefully. "I've moved in with Turner. It's my home now."

"And when will the wedding be?"

The focus of Felicia's eyes flattened, the aimless stare returned. "Soon," she said. "Real soon. I think I better go. Turner worries about me. He doesn't like me to be out by myself. He wants me with him all the time. Every minute."

"That's nice," Dora said not believing a word of all this. "Felicia, please, take care of yourself. And see your mother as often as you can."

"I don't think so. Do you have any money?"

Dora was startled. "I have a little with me."

"Could you give me a twenty for a cab?"

"Of course," Dora said. She took out her wallet and handed over a bill.

Felicia stood up, steadily enough, and unexpectedly proffered her hand. "I've enjoyed our little chat," she said formally. "So nice seeing you, and we must do this again very soon."

"Yes," Dora said.

Felicia turned away, then came back to put an arm across Dora's shoulders and lean close. "I call him the iceman," she whispered. "Turner. When we're getting it off, I say to him, 'The iceman cometh.' Isn't that hilarious?"

Dora nodded and watched her go, feeling horrified and helpless. An avalanche was beginning to move, and there was no way to stop it.

That demented conversation with Felicia Starrett spooked her. But it wasn't only Felicia, Dora acknowledged; the entire case involved befuddled and vexatious characters, all seemingly acting from irrational motives. Their lives were so knotted, ambitions so perverse, plans so Byzantine that she despaired of sorting it all out.

But then, she admitted ruefully, her own life was hardly a model of tidiness. John Wenden's confession-and implied plea-was never totally banished from her thoughts. An analysis of the way she felt about him was proving as frustrating as untangling the Starrett mishmash. She, whose thinking had always been so ordered and linear, seemed to have been infected by the loonies who peopled this case. She had caught their confusion and was as muddled as they.

Almost for self-preservation, she resolutely decided to concentrate her attention on Solomon Guthrie's computer printout and what it might reveal about the perplexing gold trading by Starrett Fine Jewelry, Inc. Now she was dealing with names, addresses, numbers, transactions: all hard data that had none of the wild emotionalism of the Starrett clan and their intimates.

She jotted a page of notes and planned a course of action.

She phoned the car rental agency used by the Company, identified herself, and gave her credit card number. She arranged for a Ford Escort to be brought to the Hotel Bedlington the next morning at 7:00 A.M.

She left wake-up call instructions at the hotel desk.

She was waiting on the sidewalk the following morning when the Escort was delivered. It was dark blue, had recently been washed, and the interior smelled of wild cherry deodorant.

She drove to LaGuardia Airport, parked, and waited twenty minutes before boarding the next Pan Am shuttle. Destination: Logan Airport, Boston.

She had a window seat on the port side of the plane and midway in the flight, above the cloud cover, she waved at the ground. The man seated next to her, reading The Wall Street Journal, looked up and asked curiously, "What are you waving at?"

"My husband," Dora said. "In Hartford."

"Oh," the man said.

She waited in line for a cab at Logan, then handed the driver the address she had written down. He read it and turned to look at her. "You sure you want to go there?"

"I'm sure," Dora said. "You can wait for me, then drive me back here."

"If we're alive," he said mournfully.

The address was in Roxbury, on a street that was mostly burned-out buildings and weed-choked lots. But there were three little stores huddled together, awaiting the wrecking ball. One was a bodega, one a candy store cum betting parlor. The third was Felix Brothers Classic Jewelry.

"This is it," the cabdriver said nervously. "If you're not back in five minutes, I'm taking off-if I still have wheels."

"I'm not going anywhere," Dora said.

She got out of the taxi and inspected the jewelry store. Ten feet wide at the most. A plate glass window half-patched with a sheet of tin. Glass so dusty and splattered she could hardly peer within. She saw a few empty display cases, a few chairs, one lying on its side. There was no use trying the door; it was behind a rusty iron grille and secured with an enormous padlock.

A man lounging nearby had watched Dora's actions with lazy interest. He was wearing camouflaged dungarees and a fake fur hat with earflaps that hung loosely.

"I beg your pardon," Dora said, "but could you tell me when the jewelry store is open."

The idler was much amused. "Cost you," he said.

Dora gave him a dollar.

"It ain't never open," the man said.

"Thank you very much," Dora said, and hastily got back in the cab.

"Thank God," the driver said, and gunned away.

She took the next shuttle back to New York. She reclaimed the Ford Escort and drove into Manhattan. She left her car for the Bedlington doorman to park and went up to her suite. She immediately called John Wenden.

"Got a minute?" she asked.

"All my life," he said. "What's up?"

"Listen to this…" she said, and related her day's activities. Then: "John, that place isn't even a hole-in-the-wall. It's a falling-down dump. It's never open. No stock and no customers. It's a great big nothing."

"So?"

"Two months ago the Starrett Fine Jewelry branch store in Boston sold Felix Brothers Classic Jewelry more than a million dollars' worth of pure gold."

"Son of a bitch," the detective said.