She stopped typing when Dora entered, and looked up. "Yes?" she said in a crackly voice.

"Is this Stuttgart Precious Metals?" Dora asked.

The woman nodded.

Dora had prepared a scenario.

"My husband and I have a small craft shop in Vermont," she said, smiling brightly. "We design and fashion one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces, mostly gold and sterling silver in abstract designs. We've been buying our raw gold and sterling in Boston, but I had to come to New York on business and decided to find out if we could get a better price on metals down here."

The woman shook her head. "We don't sell retail," she said.

"Well, it's not actually retail," Dora said. "After all, we are designers and manufacturers. We sell to some of the best department stores and jewelry shops in the country."

The woman didn't change expression. "How much gold could you use in a month?" she asked. "Ounces? We sell our metals in pounds and kilos. Our gold comes from abroad in bars and ingots. Too much for you, girlie."

"Oh dear," Dora said, "I'm afraid you're right; we wouldn't know what to do with a pound of pure gold. Listen, one other thing, I walked over from Eighth Avenue, and it occurred to me that someday we might consider opening a small workshop and showroom in Manhattan. Does Stuttgart own any other property in the neighborhood?"

"We don't own," the woman said, "we lease."

"Oh dear," Dora said again. "Well, I guess I'll just have to keep looking. Thank you for your time."

The woman nodded and went back to her typing.

Dora was lucky; she caught an empty cab that had just come out of an Eleventh Avenue taxi garage. But traffic was murder, and it took an hour to get back to the Bedling-ton. She went immediately to her suite and kicked off her shoes. Then she phoned Mike Trevalyan in Hartford.

"Gee, it's good to hear from you," he said. "Having a nice vacation?"

"Come on, Mike, cut the bullshit. I need some help."

"No kidding?" he said. "And I thought you called to wish me Happy Birthday."

"I have two words for you," Dora said, "and they're not Happy Birthday. The computers in our property and casualty department use a data base that covers all commercial properties in our territory-right?"

"Oh-oh," he said. "I know what's coming."

"There's this business on West Fifty-fourth Street in Manhattan called Stuttgart Precious Metals, a subsidiary of an outfit registered in Luxembourg. Stuttgart leases their premises. I'll give you the address, and I need to know who owns the property and anything else you can find out about Stuttgart: the terms of the lease, how long they've occupied the place, and so forth."

"What's this got to do with the Starrett insurance claim?"

"Nothing," Dora said breezily. "I'm just having fun."

After he calmed down, she gave him the address of Stuttgart, and he promised to get back to her as soon as he had something.

"Miss me?" he asked her.

"I sure do," she said warmly. "What's your name again?"

She hung up on his profanity and then, a few minutes later, phoned Mario, and they talked for almost a half-hour. Dora got caught up on local gossip and told Mario how much she missed him and their little house.

"It's the home cooking you miss," he said.

"That, too," she agreed.

"When are you coming back?"

"Soon," she promised. "Have you been behaving yourself?"

"As usual," he said, which wasn't exactly what she wanted to hear.

But the talk with her husband cheered her, and she went to bed resolved to forget all about people with sloppy morals; nothing could equal the joy of a happy, faithful marriage.

But sleep did not come easily; her equanimity didn't last, and she found herself questioning again. So she got out of bed to kneel and pray. It was something she hadn't done for a long while, and she thought it was about time.

Felicia Starrett was not a stupid woman, but introspection dogged her like a low-grade infection. She was aware- continually aware-that her life lacked some essential ingredient that might make it meaningful, or at least endurable. Her mother never ceased to remind her that a loving mate and a happy marriage would solve all her problems. That advice, Felicia thought wryly, was akin to telling a penniless, starving bum that he really should eat good, nourishing meals.

But it was true, she admitted, that her relations with men had soured her life. She was still in her teens, with the arrogance of youth, when she began to offer money or valuable gifts to men. This pattern continued after she was graduated from Barnard and, in an effort to find the cause of this curious behavior, she read many books of popularized psychology. But none offered clues as to the reason she continually met (or sought?) men who accepted her largesse casually as if it were their due.

At various periods of self-analysis she had ascribed different motives for her compulsive generosity. First she thought it was a power ploy: She wanted to dominate men. In fact, she wanted to own them, reduce them to the role of paid servitors. Finally she concluded that she gave money because she was unable to give love. She was fearful of commitment, recognized the deficiency, and lavished gifts as a substitute.

But recognizing the cause did nothing to ameliorate her unhappiness. And so she surrendered to addictions: caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, a variety of drugs, and eventually cocaine, in an endless search for the magic potion that would provide the joy life had denied her.

She thought her search had finally succeeded when Turner Pierce provided ice, the smokable methampheta-mine. Here was a bliss that turned her into a beautiful creature floating through a world of wonders. The high was like nothing she had ever experienced before.

But there was a heavy price to pay. The crash was horrendous: nausea, incontinence, dreadful hallucinations, fears without name, and frequently violence she could not control. But Turner-the darling!-was always there to minister to her and, when the worst had passed, to provide more of those lovely crystals in a glass pipe, and then she soared again.

She was vaguely aware of vomiting, weight loss, respiratory pain, thundering heartbeat, and heightened body temperature. But she became so intent on achieving that splendid euphoria that she would have paid any price, even life itself, if she might slip away while owning the world.

But death held no lure, for there, always, was Turner who had promised to marry her, an act of love that made her happiness more intense. So joyful was she that she was even able to acknowledge the beauty and beneficence of Helene-a woman she had formerly mistrusted-who came once to help Turner bathe her and wash her hair. And also clean up the apartment, which Felicia, during a vicious crash, had almost destroyed, slashing furniture with a carving knife, breaking mirrors, and smashing all those cute china figurines belonging to the landlord.

So she alternated between ecstasy and despair, hardly conscious of time's passage but, in her few semilucid moments, realizing with something like awe that she would soon be a married woman and finally, at last, her life would be meaningful.