'What sort of car did Kemp drive? Do you know?'

'I don't think he had a car. He had a van.'

'Color?'

'I don't know.'

'Mr. Trenton, I'm going to suggest you come on up from Boston.

I'm going to suggest that if you rent a car, you take it easy. It would he one hell of a note if your people turned up just fine and you got yourself killed on the Interstate coming up here.'

'Yes, all right.' He didn't want to drive anywhere, fast or slow. He wanted to hide. Better still, he wanted to have the last six days over again.

'Another thing, sir.'

'What's that?'

'On your way up here, try to make a mental list of your wife's friends and acquaintances in the area. It's still perfectly possible that she could be spending the night with someone.'

'Sure.'

'The most important thing to remember right now is that there are no signs of violence.'

'The whole downstairs is ripped to hell,' Vic said. That sounds pretty fucking violent to me.'

'Yes,' Banner said uncomfortably. 'Well.'

'I'll be there,' Vic said. He hung up.

'Vic, I'm sorry,' Roger said.

Vic couldn't meet his old friend's eyes. Wearing the horns, he thought. Isn't that what the English call it? Now Roger knows Im wearing the horns.

'It's all right,' Vic said, starting to dress.

'All this on your mind ... and you went ahead with the trip?'

'What good would it have done to stay at home?' Vic asked. 'It happened. I ... I only found out on Thursday. I thought ... some distance. . time to think ... perspective ... I don't know all the stupid goddam things I thought. Now this.'

'Not your fault,' Roger said earnestly.

'Rog, at this point I don't know what's my fault and what isn't. I'm worried about Donna, and I'm out of my mind about Tad. I just want to get back there. And I'd like to get my hands on that fucker Kemp. I'd. . .'His voice had been rising. It abruptly sank. His shoulders sagged. For a moment he looked drawn and old and almost totally used up. Then he went to the suitcase on the floor and began to hunt for fresh clothes. 'Call Avis at the airport, would you, and get me a car? My wallet's there on the nightstand. They'll want the American Express number.'

'I'll call for both of us. I'm going back with you.'

'No.'

'But --?

'But nothing.' Vic slipped into a dark blue shirt. He had it buttoned halfway up before he saw he had it wrong; one tail hung far below the other. He unbuttoned it and started again. He was in motion now, and being in motion was better, but that feeling of unreality persisted. He kept having thoughts about movie sets, where what looks like Italian marble is really just Con-Tact paper, where all the rooms end just above the camera's sight line and where someone is always lurking in the background with a clapper board.

Scene #41, Vic convinces Roger to Keep On Plugging, Take One.

He was an actor and this was some crazy absurdist film. But it was undeniably better when the body was in motion.

'Hey, man

'Roger, this changes nothing in the situation between Ad Worx and the Sharp Company. I came along after I knew about Donna and this guy Kemp partly because I wanted to keep up a front - I guess no guy wants to advertise when he find out his wife has been getting it on the side - but mostly because I knew that the people who depend on us have to keep eating no matter who my wife decides to go to bed with.'

'Go easy on yourself, Vic. Stop digging yourself with it.'

'I can't seem to do that,' Vic said. 'Even now I can't seem to do that.'

'And I can't just go on to New York as if nothing's happened!'

'As far as we know, nothing has. The cop kept emphasizing that to me. You can go on. You can see it through. Maybe it'll turn out to have been nothing but a charade all along, but ... people have to try, Roger. There's nothing else to do. Besides, there's nothing you can do back in Maine except hang out.'

'Jesus, it feels wrong. It feels all wrong.'

'It's not. I'll call you at the Biltmore as soon as I know something.'

Vic zippered his slacks and stepped into his loafers. 'Now go on and call Avis for me. I'll catch a cab out to Logan from downstairs.

Here, I'll write my Amex number down for you.'

He did this, and Roger stood silently by as he got his coat and went to the door.

'Vic,' Roger said.

He turned, and Roger embraced him clumsily but with surprising strength. Vic hugged him back, his cheek against Roger's shoulder.

'I'll pray to God everything's okay,' Roger said hoarsely.

'Okay,' Vic said, and went out.

The elevator hummed faintly on the way down - not really moving at all, he thought. It's a sound effect. Two drunks supporting each other got on at lobby level as he got off. Extras, he thought.

He spoke to the doorman - another extra - and after about five minutes a cab rolled up to the blue hotel awning.

The cab driver was black and silent. He had his radio tuned to an FM soul station. The Temptations sang 'Power' endlessly as the cab took him toward Logan Airport through streets that were almost completely deserted. Helluva good movie set, he thought. As the Temptations faded out, a jiveass dj came on with the weather forecast. It had been hot yesterday, he reported, but you didn't see nuthin yesterday, brothers and sisters. Today was going to be the hottest day of the summer so far, maybe a record-breaker. The big G's weather prognosticator, Altitude Lou McNally, was calling for temperatures of over 100 degrees inland and not much cooler on the coast. A mass of warm, stagnant air had moved up from the south and was being held in place over New England by hands of high pressure. 'So if you gas gonna reach, you gotta head for the beach,' the jiveass dj finished. 'It ain't goan be too pretty if you hangin out in the city. And just to prove the point, here's Michael Jackson. He's goin "Off the Wall".'

The forecast meant little or nothing to Vic, but it would have terrified Donna even more than she already was, had she known.

As she had the day before, Charity awoke just before dawn. She awoke listening, and for a few moments she wasn't even sure what she was listening for. Then she remembered. Boards creaking.

Footsteps. She was listening to see if her son was going to go walking again.

But the house was silent.