bed, pulled her body against his again. He felt of her carefully. He smoothed her hair and kissed her lips.
'Mmm, yes,' he said. 'Yes, I'm sure of it. The sale is final, and no exchanges.'
'Here we go again,' she said. 'Out into outer space, before we have our feet on the ground.'
'I mean, I went to a great deal of trouble to find you. A very nice little partridge. Perhaps there are better birds in the bushes, but again there might not be. And-'
'-and a bird in bed is better than a bush. Or something. I'm afraid I'm crabbing your monologue, Roy.'
'Wait!' He held onto her. 'I'm trying to tell you something. That I like you and that I'm lazy. I don't want to look any further. So just show me the price tag, and if! can I'll buy.'
'That's better. I have an idea it might be quite profitable for both of us.'
'So where do we begin? A few evenings on the town? A fling at Las Vegas?'
'Mmm, no, Iguess not. Besides, you couldn't afford it.'
'Surprise,' he said curtly. 'I wouldn't even make you pay your own way.'
'Now, Roy…' She rumpled his hair affectionately. 'That isn't the kind of thing! have in mind, anyway. A lot of girls, glitter and glassware. If we're going some place, it ought to be at the other end of the street. You know. Relaxed and quiet, so that we can talk for a change.'
'Well. La Jolla's nice this time of year.'
'La Jolla's nice any time of year. But are you sure you can afford-'
'Keep it up,' he warned her. 'One more word of that song, and you'll have the reddest butt in La Jolla. People will think it's another sunset.'
'Pooh! Who's afraid of you?'
'And get the hell out of here, will you? Go crawl back under your culvert! You've drained me dry and got me to splurge my life's savings, and now you want to talk me to death.'
She laughed fondly, and got up. When she was dressed, she knelt again at his bedside for a good- bye kiss.
'Are you sure you're all right, Roy?' She smoothed the hair back from his forehead. 'You look rather pale.'
'Oh, God,' he groaned. 'Will this woman never leave? She puts me through a double shift, and then she says I look pale!'
She left, smiling smugly. Very pleased with herself.
Roy arose wearily, his legs wobbling as he made the round trip to the bathroom. He dropped back down on the bed in a heap, a little worried about himself for the first time. What could be the cause of this, anyway, this strange overpowering fatigue? Not Moira, surely; he was used to her. Not the fact that he had eaten very little during the past three days. He often had spells when he didn't feel hungry, and this had been one of them. Whatever he ate bounced back, in a brownishcolored liquid. Which was strange, since he'd eaten nothing but ice cream and milk.
Frowning, he leaned forward and examined himself. There was a faint purplish-yellow bruise on his stomach. But it didn't hurt any more-unless he pushed on it very hard. He'd had no pain since the day he was slugged.
So…? He shrugged and lay back down. It was just one of those things, he guessed. He didn't feel sick. If a man was sick, he
He piled the pillows on top of one another, and reclined in a half-sitting position. That seemed to be better, but tired as he was he was restless. With an effort, he reached his trousers from a nearby chair, and dug a quarter from the watch pocket.
Offhand, it looked like any other quarter, but it wasn't quite. The tail side was worn down, the head was not. Holding it back between the fleshy part of his first two fingers, hidden edgewise by them, he could identify the two sides.
He flipped it into the air, caught it and brought it down against his other hand with a
'Tails,' he murmured, and there was tails.
He tossed the coin again, and called for heads. And heads came up.
He began closing his eyes on the calls, making sure that he wasn't unconsciously cheating. The coin went up and down, his palm deceptively smacking the back of his hand.
Heads… tails… heads, heads…
And then there was no smack.
His eyes closed, and stayed closed.
That was a little after noon. When he opened them again, twilight was shading the room and the phone was ringing. He looked around wildly, not recognizing where he was, not knowing where he was. Lost in a world that was as strange as it was frightening. Then, drifting back into consciousness, he picked up the phone.
'Yes,' he said; and then, 'What, what? How's that again?' For what the clerk was saying made no sense at all.
'A visitor, Mr. Dillon. A very attractive young lady. She says'-a tactful laugh-'She says she's your mother.'
5
At seventeen going on eighteen, Roy Dillon had left home. He took nothing with him but the clothes he wore-clothes he had bought and paid for himself. He took no money but the little in the pockets of his clothes, and that too he had earned.
He wanted nothing from Lilly. She had given him nothing when he needed it, when he was too small to get for himself, and he wasn't letting her into the game at this late date.
He had no contact with her during the first six months he was away. Then, at Christmas time, he sent her a card, and on Mother's Day he sent her another. Both were of the gooey sentimental type, dripping with sickly sweetness, but the latter was a real dilly. Hearts and flowers and fat little angels swarmed over it in an insanely hilarious montage. The engraved message was dedicated to Dear Old Mom, and it gushed tearfully of goodnight kisses and platters and pitchers of oven-fresh cookies and milk when a little boy came in from play.
You would have thought that Dear Old Mom (God bless her silvering hair) had been the proprietor of a combination dairy-bakery, serving no customer but her own little tyke (on his brand-new bike).
He was laughing so hard when he sent it that he almost botched up the address. But afterward, he had some sobering second thoughts. Perhaps the joke was on him, yes? Perhaps by gibing at her he was revealing a deep and lasting hurt, admitting that she was tougher than he. And that, naturally, wouldn't do. He'd taken everything she had to hand out, and it hadn't made a dent in him. He damned well mustn't ever let her think that it had.
So he kept in touch with her after that, at Christmas and on her birthday and so on. But he was very correct about it. He just didn't think enough of her, he told himself, to indulge in ridicule. It would take a lot better woman than Lilly Dillon to get to him.
The only way he showed his true feelings was in the presents they exchanged. For while Lilly could obviously afford far better gifts than he, he would not admit it. At least, he did not until the effort to keep up with or outdo her not only threatened his long-range objectives, but revealed itself for what it was. Another manifestation of hurt. She had hurt him-or so it looked-and childishly he was rejecting her attempts at atonement.
She might think that, anyway, and he couldn't let her. So he had written her casually that gift-giving had been over-commercialized, and that they should stick to token remembrances from then on. If she wanted to donate to charity in his name, fine. Boys' Town would be appropriate. He, of course, would make a donation in her
