Harry shook his head sympathetically. “All the horses cross the finish line eventually. Who cares which one is first?”
“I do. I finally have a life of my own, Harry. I love my husband. I wanted a future—kids, an old age maybe.”
Harry threw up his hands in despair. “That’s why I’m scared for you, honey. A perfect example.”
“Of what?”
“You don’t even know what game you’re playing. Your personal life is not on the table tonight.” He sighed mightily, then gave a little shiver to shake off the topic. “Somebody’s in a business you happen to know a lot about. They got a client’s face changed. They killed all the people who saw both the old face and the new face except one. They got the murders blamed on the one that’s left.”
“How do I stop them?”
“You don’t stop them. Their guy is vanished, resettled somewhere. Yours is a murder suspect. The hand’s over. Hear that clicking noise? It’s the sound of them raking all the chips over to their side of the table.”
“If it’s over, why are you coming into my dream?”
“Me?” said Harry. “I’ll be with you forever. I’m your mistake.”
“And now Dahlman too.”
“Don’t count him until it’s over.”
“But you said it was over.”
“I said that hand was over,” Harry corrected her. “It’s not you and Dahlman against them and their client. Dahlman and the client are just stakes. The game is between players, not chips.”
Harry walked toward the other side of the bandstand, and as he approached the steps, she reached out toward him.
“Wait, Harry,” she said. “Don’t go.”
Harry stopped and turned to her. “I never really was much use to anybody. I should have left your sleep alone.”
“What do I do?”
“You win, and Hawenneyu, the Right-Handed Twin, gets a point. Or you lose, and Hanegoategeh, the Left- Handed Twin, gets a point, and the brothers grow another player to take your place.”
“How do I keep Dahlman alive?”
Harry’s brow furrowed, as though he were trying to formulate a way to divulge a secret he wasn’t supposed to. “Why can’t just any yokel fan the deck face-down and pick out the king of spades?”
Jane awoke, trying to answer, but Harry was gone. She sat up. “They’re all the same.” She got out of bed and began to pack Dahlman’s suitcase.
It was nine-thirty in the morning three days later when Jane walked Richard Dahlman into the front entrance of the complex in Carlsbad, California, for their appointment. The architecture of the place was an artifact of a Spanish California that had sprung spontaneously from the imagination of an architect sometime during the 1920s and had taken hold. Certain parts of the state looked as though the Spanish colonists had left behind not just a few missions, but an array of shopping malls, restaurants, and office buildings.
The stylized script embedded in the far wall of the lobby said “Senior Rancho,” and Jane remembered that what Los Angeles County called its big prison in the sparse hills above the city was Honor Rancho. She whispered to Dahlman, “How does it look so far?”
“It looks comfortable, like a campus … if a bit impersonal.”
She used the time as they walked. “Remember. You’re Alan Weems. You’re not a doctor. You know nothing. I’ll tell all the necessary lies. I’m your daughter Julia Kieler. And don’t keep looking at your hair in the reflections of the windows. White hair makes you look distinguished.”
The receptionist directed Julia Kieler and Alan Weems into the office for the appointment with the “intake counselor,” who introduced herself as Mrs. Paxton but called Dahlman “Alan” from the instant she saw him. After a few seconds she had the receptionist usher Alan through the lobby into a large garden. Mrs. Paxton told him, “We want to be sure this is a place where you’ll feel at home. Why don’t you make contact with the other guests while Mrs. Kieler and I talk some girl talk?”
Jane sat at a table in a small office while Mrs. Paxton went out and returned with some forms. It was the sort of office where customers answered questions and the counselor interpreted and compressed their answers to fit on lines.
“Tell me about your father,” said Mrs. Paxton. “What sort of medical care does he need?”
“None that we know of,” said Jane. “He’s pretty healthy.”
“I could see he’s ambulatory; no obvious problems. Is he forgetful?”
“No more than I am. Here’s our situation. He retired three years ago. Since my mother died about ten years ago he’s lived alone in the old house. He’s cooked and cleaned for himself, shopped, and so on. But he knows that might not always be possible, and right now he doesn’t especially want to. He’s still physically active—likes to walk and swim. But he had a bad experience a few months ago, and he doesn’t want to live alone anymore.”
“What sort of bad experience?”
“I guess you could call it a carjacking. The man wanted his car, and when my father resisted, he shot him. He’s okay now, but it’s been hard for him.”
Mrs. Paxton’s eyes were wide with exactly the right mixture of shock and sympathy, as though she had a recipe. “I should say so. The poor man.”
Jane shrugged philosophically. “He wants to sell the house, and go live somewhere where he can spend time with people his own age.” She added, “He won’t live with me. To tell you the truth, I think my friends and I bore him.”
Mrs. Paxton nodded. “He’s definitely a fit for our Level One,” she said. “We have many people in similar circumstances. Each person lives in what amounts to a condominium right here on our grounds. There’s a swimming pool, golf course, square dances and social dancing, exercise groups, all supervised by our professional staff.” She looked conspiratorial as she said, “Many of our guests feel agitated and depressed if they spend too much time watching the news and reading unpleasant stories in the papers: they want to forget those things. So we try to keep them busy.”
“What’s Level Two?”
“Two?”
“Yes, you said he was Level One. What’s Level Two?”
“Those are people who need some nursing care or who need a helper because they’re not capable of living on their own. Level Three would be people who need a greater degree of attention. Some are no longer ambulatory, and some need constant supervision.”
“Where are they?”
“The fourth building over.” Mrs. Paxton spun in her chair and pointed out the window with her pen. “The one that looks like a hospital.”
Jane picked out the building. It looked modern and well-designed, and she could see a few white-coated attendants pushing white-haired people in wheelchairs onto a lawn. The whole operation looked clean, efficient, and humane, but seeing it gave her chills. She told herself it was the air-conditioning.
“We’ll tour the whole facility in a few minutes, but I want to wait for your father.” Mrs. Paxton gave her a conspiratorial smile. “Old people detest being rushed. Do you have any questions about the fee schedule?”
Jane said, “Let me see if I have it right. The fee is a fixed monthly charge.”
“Yes. For your father that would be this figure.” She held up a glossy brochure and pointed to a number with her pen. “It will remain the same as long as he’s at Level One. If he were to move to Level Two, he would incur an additional charge.” She pointed to a second figure. “That pays for a companion. At Level Three, the charge is the same. It won’t increase during his stay.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You see, our typical guest is on a fixed income. He wants to know that the Rancho isn’t going to pull the rug out from under him.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, how can you do that?”
“I’m just talking about our fees. You have to remember that a patient who reaches Level Three probably
