Bobby shook his head.

Derek responded, addressing the remark to Glen. "She was fine half an hour ago. I talked to her myself."

"Oh Derek. For God's sake," she said with annoyance.

Kleinert reached over and opened the bed-table drawer. He sorted through some junk and then hesitated, pulling out a stash of pills that would have felled an elephant. They were in a Ziploc bag, maybe two hundred capsules: Nembutals, Seconals, blue-and-orange Tuinals, Placidyls, 'Quaaludes, like colorful supplies for some exotic cottage industry.

Kleinert's expression was despairing. He looked up at Derek, holding the bag by one corner. Exhibit A in a trial that had been going on for some time by my guess.

"What are those things?" Derek said. "How'd she get them?"

Kleinert shook her head. "Lets get people out of here and then we'll worry about that."

Glen Callahan had already turned and left the room and I could hear her heels clipping purposefully toward the stairs. Bobby took my arm and the two of us moved out into the hallway.

Derek was apparently still having trouble believing this was happening. "Is she going to be O.K.?"

Dr. Kleinert murmured a reply, but I couldn't hear what it was.

Bobby steered me into a room across the hall and closed the door. "Let's stay out of the way. We'll go downstairs in a bit." He rubbed at the fingers of his bad hand as if it were a talisman. The drag in his voice was back.

The room was large, with deep-set windows looking out onto the rear of the property. The wall-to-wall carpeting was white, a dense cut-pile so recently vacuumed that I could see Bobby's footprints in places. His double bed seemed diminutive in a room that was probably thirty feet square, with a large dressing room opening off to the left and what was apparently a bathroom beyond that. A television set rested on an antique pine blanket-chest at the foot of the bed. On the wall to my right was a long built-in desk with a white Formica surface. An IBM Selectric II and the keyboard, monitor, and printer for a home computer were lined up along its length. The bookshelves were white Formica too, filled almost exclusively with medical texts. There was a sitting area in the far corner; two overstuffed chairs and an ottoman covered in a plaid fabric of rust, white, and slate blue. The coffee table, reading lamp, books and magazines stacked nearby suggested that this was where Bobby spent his leisure time.

He went to an intercom on the wall and pressed a button.

"Callie, we're starving up here. Could you send us a tray? There are two of us and we'll need some white wine too."

I could hear a hollow clattering in the background: dishes being loaded into the dishwasher. "Yes, Mr. Bobby. I'll have Alicia bring something up."

"Thank you."

He limped over to one of the chairs and sat down. "I eat when I'm anxious. I've always done that. Come sit down. Shit, I hate this house. I used to love it. When I was a kid, it was great. Places to run. Places to hide. A yard that went on forever. Now it feels like a cocoon. Insulated. But it doesn't keep bad stuff out. It feels cold. Are you cold?"

"I'm fine," I said.

I sat down in the other chair. He pushed the ottoman over and I put my feet up. I wondered what it must be like to live in a house like this where all of your needs were tended to, where someone else was responsible for grocery shopping and food preparation, cleaning, trash removal, landscape maintenance. What did it leave you free to do? "What's it like coming from money like this? I can't even imagine it."

He hesitated, lifting his head.

In the distance, we could hear the ambulance approach, the siren reaching a crescendo and then winding down abruptly with a whine of regret. He glanced at me, dabbing self-consciously at his chin. "You think we're spoiled?" The two halves of his face seemed to give contradictory messages: one animated, one dead.

"How do I know? You live a lot better than most," I said.

"Hey, we do our share. My mother does a lot of fund raising for local charities and she's on the board for the art museum and the historical society. I don't know about Derek. He plays golf and hangs out at the club. Well, that's not fair. He has some investments he looks after, which is how they met. He was the executor for the trust my grandfather left me. Once he and Mom got married, he left the bank. Anyway, they support a lot of causes so it's not like they're just self-indulgent, grinding the poor underfoot. My mother launched the Santa Teresa Girls' Club just about single-handedly. The Rape Crisis Center too."

"What about Kitty? What does she do with herself besides get loaded?"

He looked at me carefully. "Don't make judgments. You don't know what any of us has been through."

"You're right. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound quite so righteous. Is she in private school?"

He shook his head. "Not anymore. They moved her over to Santa Teresa High School this year. Anything to try to get her straightened out."

He stared at the door uneasily. The house was so solidly constructed there was no way to tell if the paramedics had come upstairs yet.

I crossed the room and opened the door a crack. They were just coming out of Kitty's room with the portable gurney, its wheels swiveling like a grocery cart's as they angled her into the hall. She was covered with a blanket, so frail that she scarcely formed a mound. One thin arm was extended outside the covers. They'd started an I.V., a plastic bag of some clear solution held aloft by one of the paramedics. Oxygen was being administered through a nose cone. Dr. Kleinert moved toward the stairs ahead of them and Derek brought up the rear, hands shoved awkwardly in his pockets, his face pale. He seemed out of place and ineffectual, pausing when he caught sight of me.

"I'm going to follow in my car," he said, though no one had asked. "Tell Bobby we'll be at St. Terry's."

I felt sorry for him. The scene was like something out of a TV series, the medical personnel very deadpan and businesslike. This was his daughter being taken away and she might actually die, but no one seemed to be addressing the possibility. There was no sign of Bobby's mother, no sign of the people who'd come for drinks. Everything felt ill-planned somehow, like an elaborate entertainment that was falling flat. "You want us to come, too?" I asked.

Derek shook his head. "Let my wife know where I am," he said. "I'll call as soon as I know what's going on."

"Good luck," I said, and he flashed me a weak smile as if good luck was not something he'd had much experience with.

I watched the procession disappear down the stairs. I closed the door to Bobby's room. I started to say something, but Bobby cut me off

"I heard," he said.

"Why isn't your mother involved in this? Are she andr: Kitty on the outs or what?"

"Jesus, it's all too complicated to explain. Mom washed her hands of Kitty after the last incident, which isn't as heartless as it sounds. Early on, she did what she could, but I guess it was just one crisis after another. That's part of the reason she and Derek are having such a tough time."

"What's the other part?"

His look was bleak. Clearly, he felt he was equally to blame.

There was a tap at the door and a Chicano woman with her hair in a braid appeared with a tray. Her face was expressionless and she made no eye contact. If she knew what was happening, she gave no indication of it. She fussed around for a bit with cloth napkins and cutlery. I almost expected her to present a room-service check to be signed off with a tip added in.

"Thanks, Alicia," Bobby said.

She murmured something and departed. I felt uncomfortable that it was all so impersonal. I wanted to ask her if her feet hurt like mine, or if she had a family we could talk about. I wanted her to voice curiosity or dismay about the people she worked for, carted away on stretchers at odd hours of the day. Instead, Bobby poured the wine and we ate.