"Thanks," I said. I got Ebony's personal telephone number from her and we walked out together. I was re-lieved that the valet service brought her car first. I watched her pull away in a little red Alfa-Romeo. My car appeared. I tipped the fellow more than I should have and got in with care, humping myself onto the seat to avoid snagging my panty hose behind the knee. The valet slammed the door and I turned the key. Honest to God, it started right up and I felt a surge of pride. The damn thing is paid for and only costs me ten bucks a week in gas.

I drove home and let myself in the gate, steadfastly disregarding the yawning air of emptiness about the place. The winter grass seemed ragged and the dead heads on the zinnias and marigolds had multiplied. Henry's house stood silent, his back door looking blank. Usually the scent of yeast or cinnamon lies on the air like a heady perfume. Henry's a retired commercial baker who can't quite give up his passion for kneading dough and proofing bread. If he isn't in the kitchen, I can usually find him on the patio, weeding the flower beds or stretched out on a chaise in-venting crossword puzzles filled with convoluted puns.

I let myself into my apartment and changed back into jeans, my whole body sighing with relief. I hauled the mower out of the toolshed and had a run at the yard, and then I got down on my hands and knees and clipped all the dead blossoms from the beds. This was very boring. I put the lawn mower away. I went inside and typed up my notes. As long as I was investigating in my own behalf, I decided to do it properly. This was boring, too.

Since Rosie's was closed, I ate dinner at home, prepar-ing a cheese-and-pickle sandwich, which entertained me no end.

I'd finished the Len Deighton and I didn't have any-thing else in the house to read, so I switched on my little portable television set.

Sometimes I wonder if my personal resources aren't wearing a little thin.

6

Tuesday morning, I went into the gym at 6:00 A.M. As I no longer had an office to go to, I could well have waited until later in the morning, but I like the place at that hour. It's quiet and half empty, so there's no competition for equip-ment. The free weights are neatly reracked. The mirrors are clean and the air doesn't smell like yesterday's sweat socks. Weight-lifting apparatus are a curious phenomenon -machines invented to replicate the backbreaking man-ual labor the Industrial Revolution relieved us of. Lifting weights is like a meditation: intermittent periods of con-centrated activity, with intervals of rest. It's a good time for thinking, as one can do little else. I did ab crunches first; thirty-five, then thirty, then twenty-five. I adjusted the bench on one of the Nautilus machines and started doing seated military presses, three sets, ten reps each, using two plates. The guys lift anywhere from ten to twenty plates, but I work just as hard, and I'm not really preparing for the regional body-building championship.

I was thinking back over the details of the frame-up… a clever piece of work, dependent on a number of events coming together just as they had. The phone call to Mac must have come from Ava Daugherty, but who put her up to it? Surely she didn't cook up that trouble by herself. Someone had access to the Wood/Warren file, and while it was possible that the office keys had been lifted from my bag, who at Wood/Warren knew enough to make a mockup of a fire-department report? That must have been done by someone who knew the procedure at CF. Insurance investigations usually follow a format. An outsider simply couldn't guarantee that all the paper switch-ing could be done in the necessary sequence. Darcy could have managed it. Andy might have, or even Mac. But why?

I worked through biceps and triceps. Since I jog six days a week, my prime interest in the gym is the three A's -arms, abs, and ass-a routine that takes forty-five min-utes three times a week. I was finished by 7:15. I went home to shower and then I started out again, dressed in jeans, turtleneck, and boots. Darcy was due at work at 9:00, but I'd spotted her three days out of five having breakfast first, coffee and a Danish in the coffee shop across the street. She used the time to chitchat, read the newspa-per, and do her nails.

There was no sign of her when I got there at 8:00. I bought a paper and settled into the back booth where she usually sits. Claudine came by and I ordered breakfast. At 8:12, Darcy came through the door in a lightweight wool coat. She stopped when she saw me, checked her stride, and slid into an empty booth halfway down. I picked up my coffee cup and joined her, loving the sour look that crossed her face when she realized what I was up to.

"Mind if I join you?" I asked.

"Well, actually, I'd prefer to have the time to myself," she said, avoiding my gaze.