Belle Danamato said, “His name’s Alan Grofield.”

  “Mr. Grofield,” said George. “I am George Milford, Mrs. Danamato’s attorney. Shall we go?”

  “Lead the way,” said Grofield. He turned, and the sparring partner was still sitting on the floor, now holding his neck with only one hand. He looked up at Grofield and said, “I am never going to like you.” His voice was raspier than before.

  “That’ll be a loss in my life,” Grofield told him.

  George Milford led the way out of the dining room and through a few other rooms, turning on lights along the way, till he came to a kind of library or den. There were two black leather chairs facing each other, with a large round coffee table between, with inlaid tile mosaic. “Sit down,” Milford said. “Care for a drink?”

  “Gin and tonic.”

  There was a well-stocked bar in one area of the bookcase, with its own ice-maker. Milford made drinks, gave Grofield his, sat down in the other leather chair and said, “I can understand your annoyance. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but before I do would you mind telling me what happened after you left here this afternoon?”

  Grofield told him, briefly. Milford wanted descriptions of the men involved, but whether the descriptions rang any bell for him or not Grofield couldn’t tell.

  When Grofield was done, Milford said, “I take it Mrs. Danamato’s name means nothing to you?”

  “Not before today.”

  “Then you’ve never heard of B.G. Danamato either. Benjamin Danamato.”

  “B.G. was who those guys were going to report to,” Grofield said. “Would that be the same one?”

  “It would,” Milford said. “He’s Belle’s husband.”

  Grofield made a face. “I’m involved with a jealous husband?”

  “Not exactly,” Milford said. “B.G. isn’t jealous, not in the usual sense. It might help if I tell you he’s a mobster. He operates big-time gambling structures in the States.”

  “It tells me where he got those friends from,” Grofield said. “Otherwise, it doesn’t help. It doesn’t tell me what Mrs. Danamato wanted to hire me for, and it doesn’t tell me why her husband’s people tried to intimidate me.”

  Milford said, “Of course.” Then he sank into a brown study, rubbing his chin with the fingers of one hand, brooding, his eyes on Grofield as though Grofield was a painting which just might be a clever forgery.

  Grofield let him go on for half a minute, then said, “You’re her lawyer, right?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Then right now you’re doing what lawyers do,” Grofield told him.

  Milford seemed somewhat surprised. “I am? What’s that?”

  “You’re trying to decide how little you can tell me, without actually lying, and both satisfy my desire to know and your desire to maintain security.”

  Milford made a small and crooked smile. “I suppose I was,” he said. “One does tend to think in terms of secrecy after a while, in a matter like this.”

  “A matter like what?”

  Milford nodded. “All right. You have been treated shabbily, and you do deserve to know. The fact of the matter is, Mrs. Danamato is in the process of divorcing her husband.”

  “Contested?”

  “Not exactly,” Milford said. “The settlement is quite complicated, that’s all. Both parties are agreeable to the action, but the details are taking some ironing out.”

  “Are they?”

  “In the meantime,” Milford said, “Mrs. Danamato believes her life may be in jeopardy. I’m not prepared to state whether or not her belief is justified.”

  “I didn’t think you would be,” Grofield said.

  “Whether or not she is justified,” Milford said, “she has taken precautions. Harry is one.”

  “Harry?”

  “The man you took the gun away from. He is her personal bodyguard.”

  Grofield grinned. “Then I’m glad I’m not her insurance man,” he said.

  “Harry is better than he appeared in the dining room,” Milford said. “You seemed to be engaging in civilized discourse with Belle. There was no reason for Harry to suppose you were suddenly going to turn violent.”

  “If Harry’s a bodyguard,” Grofield said, “he’s supposed to suppose everybody will turn violent.”

  Milford’s smile was thin. “Granted,” he said.

  Grofield said, “I guess those two Pancho Villas with the dog are more precautions.”

  “Yes. They guard the grounds.”

  “Where were they when I came in just now?”

  “Eating, I assume.”

  “Both of them?”

  Milford smiled again, just as thinly. “You seem to have established a number of weaknesses in Belle’s defenses.”

  “Happy to oblige,” said Grofield. “Now, let’s get to me. What was supposed to be my part in the plot?”

  “You’ve seen Harry,” Milford said. “Whatever his abilities or deficiencies as a bodyguard, you must admit he would not be considered the ideal escort for an attractive woman in a public place.”

  “Except maybe Madison Square Garden.”

  “Exactly. What Belle wanted was someone to take Harry’s place in public. Someone who could fulfill Harry’s function of bodyguard and yet be acceptable in appearance.”

  “That’s flattering,” Grofield said. “How’d it happen to be me?”

  “Our normal sources for such an employee,” Milford said carefully, “were unfortunately closed to us.”

  “Why?”

  Milford spread his hands. “We would never be sure the man wasn’t more loyal to Belle’s husband than to Belle.”

  There was a knock at the door. Milford turned his head, calling, “Come in.”

  It was Belle Danamato. She said, “You done?”

  “Just about,” Milford said. He looked at Grofield. “Unless you have more questions.”

  Grofield said, “I take it B.G. is keeping an eye on this place. They saw me go in . . . No, they knew I was coming, knew about the Wilcox name at the airport. But they didn’t know what I was supposed to be for. So when I came out, they asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “Wonderful,” said Grofield.

  Belle Danamato said to Grofield, “Did George tell you what I wanted to hire you for?”

  “Yes.”

  “The job is still available,” she said.

  “I’m still not,” Grofield told her.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not my line of work, in the first place,” Grofield said. “And in the second place, if I was going to be somebody’s bodyguard, I’d have to like the person I was guarding. Otherwise I might tend to be sloppy.”

  Belle Danamato flushed. “And you don’t like me?”

  “Not even a little bit,” Grofield said.

  Milford, politely shocked, murmured, “Please, Mr. Grofield.”

  “Let him alone,” Belle Danamato said. To Grofield she said, “What’s the problem? Why are you so down on me?”

  “You’re arrogant,” Grofield said. “Without reason. At your age a woman shouldn’t be a spoiled brat.”

  “You are a bastard,” she said coldly. “I’d had a place set for you at the table, but I think you’d prefer to leave at once.”

  “On the contrary,” Grofield said. “I haven’t eaten since lunch on the plane. Dinner’s a good idea.” He got to his feet, said to Milford, “You coming?”

  5

  THE extra place was set at the foot of the table. Sitting there, Grofield was facing Belle Danamato, angry and tight-lipped, at the head, with the six others grouped three on each side.

  Grofield smiled at them all and said, “Mrs. Danamato forgot to introduce me. My name is Alan Grofield. I was invited here.”

  “In error,” snapped Belle Danamato.

  George Milford was sitting to her left, and he now took her hand in his own, saying softly, “Take it easy, Belle.”

  Harry the bodyguard was to Grofield’s immediate right. Grofield smiled at him and said, “Let’s see. I know you.”

  “I know you, too, buddy,” Harry said grimly. His voice was still a little hoarse.

  Grofield ignored that, looking instead at the woman past Harry, between Harry and George Milford. She was a severely girdled middle-aged woman in a dark suit too heavy for the climate, her mouth down-turned in what seemed to be a permanent expression of disapproval. Her hair was in a permanent so tight and rigid it looked as though it had to be painful.

  Grofield gave this personage his most charming smile, saying, “But this lovely lady and I haven’t met.”

  “My wife,” George Milford said sourly. Then, with an obvious effort to be more polite, he said, “Eva, this is Mr. Grofield.”

  “Alan,” said Grofield.

  She nodded at him, her eyes flicking in his direction and then away again as her lips moved and something small and birdlike was murmured between them. Grofield understood that the severity of her appearance was a form of protection, that she was painfully shy and self-conscious. Not wanting to be sadistic to her, he merely nodded back, smiled amiably, and switched his attention to the man nearest on his left.

  This one was different. An African apparently, in robes of maroon and white, with a sort of maroon pillbox on his head. His skin was extremely dark, almost totally black, with no brown pigmentation at all. His face was impassive, ageless. He returned Grofield’s look with an absolutely blank look of his own.

  Grofield met his gaze for a few seconds, then smiled again and said, “Alan Grofield.”

  Was that a smile on the other’s face? If so, it was too slight to matter. His voice was soft, almost as semiexistent as the smile, as he answered, “How do you do? I am Onum Marba.” His accent was slight but unmistakable and seemed to imply that his native tongue tended heavily to clicks.

  “Mr. Marba,” Grofield said, and nodded his head in a tiny bow, then moved his gaze to Marba’s left.

  Now here was the winner of the evening. If this was the body to be guarded, Grofield wouldn’t hesitate for a second. A lovely girl of twenty-something, as slender as a spring evening, she had long ash-blond hair and a level brown-eyed gaze. Her manner, as she studied Grofield, not so much meeting his eyes as looking past them into his head, was solemn, thoughtful, as a doe might look at the first hunter of autumn.

  Grofield’s smile as he gazed at the winner was perhaps broader than it had been before. “And good evening to you,” he said.

  Her one flaw seemed to be a lack of humor. Grofield hoped not; he preferred to think her sense of humor was being held in check for this reason or that.

  In any case, her expression remained solemn as she said, “Good evening. I’m Patricia Chelm.”

  “Good evening, Patricia Chelm.”

  She looked away from him to gesture to the young man on her left, saying, “And this is my brother, Roy.”

  Roy Chelm was as slender as his sister, but on a male it didn’t look quite so good. His face was weaker than his sister’s, too, even a bit petulant. He looked away from the introduction and said to Belle Danamato, “Belle, do we really need him here? I mean, after all.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said as the heavy-set woman servant Grofield had seen earlier today came in with a tray bearing bowls of soup. “He isn’t staying. He won’t take the job.”

  “Good,” said Roy Chelm. His voice had weakness in it, too.

  A bowl of soup was placed in front of Grofield. “I hate to eat and run,” he said, picking up his spoon, “but I’ll be leaving right after dinner.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Milford.

  Grofield looked up.

  Milford said, “You’ll never get a plane out tonight, Grofield. Nor a hotel room, without a reservation. You can stay here tonight, and I’ll drive you to the airport in the morning.”

  “All right,” Grofield said. He tried the soup. Vichysoisse. Excellent for a hot night.

  6

  THE scream brought him out of bed on the run.

  Grofield’s two professions often complemented each other, the training in one reinforcing the training in the other, and between acting and thievery his reaction time to the unexpected had become very fast indeed. Before the last echoes of the scream had died away, he was on his feet, in his pants, and headed for the door.

  God alone knew what time it was. He’d come up to his room around eleven, not so much because he was tired as because the company downstairs was so painfully dull. The African, Marba, sat around watching everybody like a cat on a hearth. Belle Danamato carried her arrogance and bad temper around like a merit badge, with Roy Chelm in constant Uriah Heep attendance on her. Could Chelm be anything but a gigolo, the other private half of what Grofield was to have been for her in public? He could see that Harry and Chelm between them served at home in the capacity she had wanted to hire him for in her public appearances, and he wasn’t sure whether he should be complimented or disgusted.

  In any case, Chelm’s sister had obviously inherited all the guts in the family. If she’d only inherited some sense of humor as well. But if Marba sat around like a cat, Patricia Chelm sat around like a solemn faun, silent and unapproachable, lovely but no fun.

  As for the Milfords, they weren’t much fun either. The husband was the only one present trying for any kind of normal polite civilized discourse, and his attempts were more painful than silence. But when there was silence, his desperately shy and self-conscious wife filled it with her own painful silence the way an aching tooth fills a head.

  Grofield stuck it out as long as he could, but even an unending string of daiquiris on the rocks didn’t help, and he finally left the living room where the torture was taking place, wandered around till he found a library, scanned it, settled reluctantly for a novel by Lloyd Douglas, and went upstairs to his room.

  He had no suitcase now. With any luck he’d be able to pick it up from the car-rental agency tomorrow. In the meantime, he had to brush his teeth with his finger and borrowed toothpaste, after which Lloyd Douglas put him peacefully to sleep for X hours and X minutes, ending with the scream.

  Grofield’s room was dark, but the corridor was lighted. He yanked open his door, squinted in the light for a few seconds, looked to the left, looked to the right, and saw Patricia Chelm backing out of a room on the other side of the hall. The back of her hand was to her mouth, and she was staring in frozen shock at something inside the room.

  Grofield hurried down there, put his hand on her shoulder, said, “What is it?”

  She didn’t react, neither to his hand nor to his voice. He sensed doors opening up and down the hall. He turned and looked into the room she’d come backing out of, and Belle Danamato was lying on the floor in there beside the bed, fully dressed, staring pop-eyed at the ceiling. Her face was purple.

  Grofield stepped into the room, saw the wire around her neck, knew she wasn’t breathing, and turned around to see Harry in the doorway, wearing yellow pajamas with race horses all over them and holding in his right hand the same old Colt automatic.

  “Hands on your head, bo,” said Harry. Behind him, Roy Chelm had appeared and was standing there with his arms around his sister, whose head was buried against his shoulder.

  “She’s dead,” Grofield said. “Garrotted.”

  “I said hands on your head,” said Harry. “I’d be happy to plug you.”

  “You know I didn’t do this,” Grofield told him, but he didn’t like Harry’s expression, so he put his hands on top of his head.

  “You and nobody else,” Harry said. “Turn around.”

  Grofield turned around. Harry frisked him from behind, and Grofield said, “I’m just as clean as I was the last time.”

  “Shut up.”

  Grofield shrugged and waited it out.

  George Milford came into the room and into Grofield’s line of vision. He looked down at Belle Danamato, shook his head grimly, and said, “What a mess.”

  Harry was done. “Okay, bo,” he said. “Turn around and walk outa here.”

  Milford said to Harry. “It was him?”

  “Who else?” Harry said.

  “Somebody else,” Grofield said.

  Milford looked at Grofield heavily. “So B.G.’s people got to you,” he said. “We knew you were for sale to the highest bidder, but you should have at least given us a chance to put in our bid.”

  Grofield shook his head. “You’re wrong, Milford,” he said.

  Milford looked past him at Harry. “What are you going to do with him?”

  “Lock him away till the law gets here,” Harry said. “Only he didn’t do this for B.G., he did it on his own hook.”

  “How do you know that?” Milford asked him.

  “Because I’m working for B.G.,” Harry said calmly. “If he wanted Mrs. Danamato dead, he would’ve told me.”

  Grofield said to Milford, “You see this doesn’t make any sense, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t. Where will you put him, Harry?” It didn’t seem to surprise or bother Milford to learn that Harry was actually working for the husband.

  “There’s a storeroom in the cellar,” Harry said.

  “Can I bring my book along?” Grofield asked. “I was just to the exciting part.”

  “Move, bo,” said Harry.

  7

  THE room was gray, windowless, about ten feet square and with a ceiling of barely seven feet. Rough wooden shelves ringed the rough cement walls, and the rough wooden door looked about as heavy as a young elephant. The shelves were empty and so was the room.

  Grofield was barefoot, and the concrete floor was cold, so he tended to stand in one place. He was wearing trousers and T-shirt, which weren’t enough for this chilly and slightly clammy room. There was one dim light bulb in the ceiling, which Grofield had left on even though there wasn’t much of anything to see.

  Or do. Harry hadn’t given him another shot at the automatic, though all the way down here to this basement storeroom Grofield had been looking for a chance to get on top of the situation. Well. The situation was on top of him, and the prospects were gloomy.