By the Light of the Moon

rebroadcast.

This Saturday night, however, as on the first night following injection with Proctor's stuff, Parish would forego the usual live broadcast and run instead a best-of program from his archives.

Shortly before they were expected to join their host for dinner, Jilly said to Dylan, 'I'm going to call my mom. I'll be right back.'

Leaving her empty martini glass on the deck railing, she folded to a shadowy corner of the gardens at the back of the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills. Her arrival went unnoticed.

She could have folded anywhere to make the call, but she liked the Peninsula. This hotel was the five-star quality she had hoped one day to be able to afford if her career as a comedian had taken off.

At a pay phone inside, she fed change to the slot and keyed in the familiar number.

Her mother answered on the third ring. Recognizing Jilly's voice, she blurted: 'Are you all right, baby girl, are you hurt, what's happened to you, sugar – Sweet Jesus keep you safe – where are you?'

'Relax, Mom. I'm fine. I wanted to let you know that I'm not going to be able to see you for a week or two, but I'll figure out a way for us to get together soon.'

'Jilly girl, since the church, people been here from the TV, from the newspapers, all of them as rude as any welfare bureaucrat on a dry-cracker diet. Fact is, they're out in the street right now, with all their noise and satellite trucks, littering with their filthy cigarettes and their granola-bar wrappers. Rude, rude, rude.'

'Don't talk to any of them, Mom. As far as you know, I'm dead.'

'Don't you say such a terrible thing!'

'Just don't tell anyone you've heard from me. I'll explain all this later. Listen, Mom, some big, tough-looking dudes are going to come around soon. They'll say they're with the FBI or somesuch, but they'll be lying. You just play dumb. Be nice as pie with them, pretend to be worried sick about me, but don't give them a clue.'

'Well, I'm just a one-eyed, two-cane, poor-as-dirt, ignorant, big-assed simpleton, after all. Who could expect me to know anything about anything?'

'Love you to pieces, Mom. One more thing. I'm sure your phone isn't tapped already, but eventually they might find a way. So when I come to see you, I won't call first.'

'Baby girl, I'm scared like I haven't had to be scared since your hateful father was good enough to get himself shot dead.'

'Don't be scared, Mom. I'll be all right. And so will you. You're in for some surprises.'

'Father Francorelli is here with me. He wants to talk to you. He's all excited about what happened at the wedding. Jilly girl, what happened at the wedding? I mean, I know, sure, I been told, but none of it makes a lick of sense.'

'I don't want to talk to Father Francorelli, Mom. Just tell him I'm so sorry I ruined the ceremony.'

'Ruined? You saved them. You saved them all.'

'Well, I could have been more discreet about it. Hey, Mom, when we get together in a couple weeks, would you like to have dinner in Paris?'

'Paris, France? What in the world would I eat in Paris?'

'Or maybe Rome? Or Venice? Or Hong Kong?'

'Baby girl, I know you wouldn't do drugs in a million years, but you got me worried now.'

Jilly laughed. 'How about Venice? Some five-star restaurant. I know you like Italian food.'

'I do have a passion for lasagne. How are you going to afford five stars, let alone in Venice, Italy?'

'You just wait and see. And Mom…'

'What is it, child?'

'I wouldn't have been able to save my own ass, not to mention all those people, if I hadn't grown up with you to show me how not to let the fear eat me alive.'

'God bless you, baby girl. I love you so much.'

When Jilly hung up, she took a moment to recover her composure. Then she used a ransom of quarters to place a long-distance call to a number that Dylan had given her. A woman answered the first ring, and Jilly said, 'I'd like to speak to Vonetta Beesley, please.'

'You're speakin' to her. What can I do you for?'

'Dylan O'Conner asked me to call and make sure you're okay.'

'What could anyone do to me that Nature won't eventually do worse? You tell Dylan I'm fine. And it's good to know he's alive. He's not hurt?'

'Not a scratch.'

'And little Shep?'

'He's standing in a corner right now, but he had a nice piece of cake earlier, and he'll be fine by dinner.'

'He's a love.'

'That he is,' Jilly said. 'And Dylan wanted me to tell you they won't be needing a housekeeper anymore.'

'From what I hear happened up at their place, you couldn't clean it up with anything less than a bulldozer, anyway. Tell me something, doll. You think you can take good care of them?'

'I think so,' Jilly said.

'They deserve good care.'

'They do,' she agreed.

Finished with the second call, she would have liked to erupt from the phone booth in cape and tights, leaping into flight with great drama. She didn't have a cape and tights, of course, and she couldn't actually fly. Instead, she looked both ways to be sure the pay-phone hallway was deserted, and then without trumpets, without flourishes, she folded herself to the deck overlooking the lake, where Dylan waited in the last of the Tahoe twilight.

The moon had risen long before the late summer sunset. In the west, the night kissed the last rouge off the cheek of the day, and in the east the full moon hung high, the lamp of romance.

Precisely at nightfall, Ling reappeared to lead them, and Shep, down through previously unseen passages and chambers, and finally out of the house to the dock. The ordinary dock lights had been turned off. The path was charmingly illuminated by a series of tapered candles floating in midair, eight feet above the planking.

Apparently, Parish enjoyed finding other uses for the power with which he had deflected and then redirected speeding bullets.

The great house stood on ten wooded acres, fenced against the uninvited, and the trees guaranteed seclusion. Even from far across the lake, with binoculars trained on the candles, no curious soul would quite know what he was seeing. The lark seemed worth the risk.

As though he himself were drifting a fraction of an inch off the dock planks, Ling led them through the lambent candlelight, under the levitated tapers, along the dock and down the gangway. The sound made by water lapping at the pilings might almost have been music.

Ling gave no indication that he found the levitating candles to be remarkable. By all appearances, nothing could disturb either his mental calm or his balletic equilibrium. Evidently, his discretion and his loyalty to his employer were beyond question, to a degree that seemed almost supernatural.

This, too, was as it should be.

At the bottom of the gangway, in the slip, rested a forty-five-foot cabin cruiser from an age when pleasure boats were not made from plastic, aluminum, and fiberglass. White painted wood, decks and trim of polished mahogany, and bracelets and necklaces of sparkling brass brightwork made this not merely a cabin cruiser, but a vessel that had sailed out of a dream.

When all were aboard, the candles on the dock were extinguished one by one and allowed to drop to the planking.

Parish piloted the boat out of the slip and into the lake. The waters would have been everywhere as black as aniline if the generous moon had not scattered silver coins across the wavelets. He dropped anchor far from shore, relying on the amber-paned ship's lanterns to warn other night travelers of their presence.

The spacious afterdeck of the cruiser allowed a table for four and sufficient room for Ling to serve a candlelight dinner. The wild-mushroom ravioli, as an appetizer, were nicely square. On the entree plate, the