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CHAPTER ONE

She came down the train aisle with a mink stole draped over her shoulders, hips moving fluidly in a tight print dress. Her black hair made a frame for a pert face in which boldly mascaraed eyes regarded the world with amused confidence. The men on the Saturday afternoon 1:11 to White Plains rumpled their newspapers, eyes moving downward from the tilt-brim straw hat to her swinging skirt. 

Dave Walters let his own eyes roam. A trifle gaudy but my, my, he thought. She met his stare and smiled. Almost unconsciously he straightened to make room for her. It was then that he saw blonde Toby Finch right behind her. 

Toby smiled and nodded, reaching forward to touch the woman in the mink stole. "In here, Jill. This is David Walters, our new neighbor." 

"Well, hi,” said Jill with an expansive smile, waiting for Dave to push back the car seat in front of him. He heard the swish of an underskirt as she seated herself across from him, wriggling her knees against his, saying, "Come on now, Dave. Give a girl a little leg room." 

Then Toby Finch was beside him, leaning back and closing her eyes a moment before opening them wide and sighing, "My, the more I come into New York the more I dread it. It takes something out of me. Oh, David, this is my sister, Jill Eckhard. Jill's staying with us a while. She got her divorce two months ago." 

"Oh,” Dave said, aware that Jill's legs were between his own and that her skirt had crept an inch above very pretty knees. 

Jill smiled at him. "I've been blue lately. Toby thought it'd be better if I came up to Coldstream Hills for a while. Maybe a few weeks or so. Sort of take my mind off my loneliness." 

"Sounds wonderful to me," he said earnestly. "Nothing like new scenery, new faces, to give you a different outlook on life.” 

Like Beth and himself, he thought, moving from their apartment after their own personal tragedy and buying that new farmhouse type house they could just about afford, so Beth could straighten herself out. His eyes touched Toby, seeing her very tanned face, the deep bosom pressing into her pleated bodice, the thick yellow hair she wore down to her shoulders. His glance moved on to Jill, found her less the outdoor type but just as lovely, with gamin-cut black hair and a full red mouth. Toby was a beautiful woman, but Jill excited him more. It might have been the deviltry in her smoky eyes; they had a way of making a man think he was very desirable. 

Toby was saying, "I hope you don't mind our sitting with you, David.” She turned to Jill. “Dave's new at the Sunset Knoll development. Moved in only a couple of weeks ago. I haven't even met his wife yet. It's Beth, isn't it? I spoke to her on the phone a few days back. Called up to introduce myself. You'll meet her tonight, Jill. At the Poindexters' cocktail party. You're going, aren't you?" 

"Wouldn't miss it for worlds,” Dave said. “Especially since I know two very lovely women who'll be there." 

Jill said, "I'm going to enjoy my stay in Coldstream Hills if all the men are as gallant as Dave." Her eyes caressed him and he felt a slight pressure from her knee. 

The train was moving out of Grand Central terminal, picking up speed. Dave Walters had the eerie feeling that he was beginning a journey, not the usual normal homeward trip to Beth but one which would take him into an entirely new world filled with challenge and excitement, maybe even danger. 

He was in his early thirties, a stocky man of slightly better than medium height, his crew-cut hair showing light brown under a snap-brim felt. Never much concerned about his looks, he began to glow a bit under Jill Eckhard's admiring glances. As he reached for his commutation ticket, he let his legs tighten about her knees, holding them, squeezing them just enough so that Toby Finch would not notice. 

Toby said, "I didn't know you worked Saturdays, Dave." 

"I had to get a deposition from a witness for a trial that's coming up next week. I'm a trial lawyer for Endicott, Peake and Breen. I don't make it a regular practice, though. I like to putter around the house-just like all husbands, I suppose. Matter of fact, I have some junipers to put in this afternoon. 

I promised Beth I'd take care of them." 

"We suburbanites," Toby sighed. "It's either bushes or babies." 

Now what made her say that about babies? She didn't know Beth had lost their child. She couldn't know it hadn't even been a baby, but something out of nightmare that had been born to them. Beth couldn't seem to shake off her depression about it, even though she thought it just an ordinary miscarriage. Everyone had agreed to let her go on assuming that, but she'd taken it so hard he thought it best for them to get away from the city and out to the suburbs. 

Jill leaned forward, opening her handbag, rummaging inside it, holding it up to the early September sunlight streaming in the window. "I have a pack of cigarettes somewhere here." 

Dave offered her his Old Golds and when he snapped his lighter, felt her cool hand cup his as if to hold it steady. Above the smoke he read invitation in her eyes. Then she sat back with a little laugh and the spell was broken. 

If Toby noticed anything, she covered it up by talking about the Sunset Knoll families. "I might as well explain about them now I have you both together. The Poindexters who're giving the party are Gwen and Cliff. Cliff's a moneymaker, a real business man. With him the dollar comes first, last and in between. But he's a good egg, just the same. Gwen's a darling. Merle and Hank Gordon live over on Watchmaker Road. He drinks too much." 

They all laughed and Dave listened to Toby chatter on with a corner of his mind but mostly sliding glances at Jill. It might be very interesting having a manless divorcee around, especially if the people on The Knoll, which is what they called the Sunset Knoll development, gave as many parties as Toby Finch said they did. 

Dave was honestly surprised when he heard the conductor bellow, "Coldstream Hills next stop." He was even more surprised when he found his legs were slightly cramped from the grip he'd had on Jill's thighs. If she didn't know how he felt about her by now, she never would. 

Toby got up first and moved into the aisle. Jill rose, fluffing her mink stole, smiling down at him, just showing the tip of a red tongue between her lips. Then she followed Toby with Dave right behind. There was a little wait as the train slid into the station. Dave put his hand on Jill in a friendly gesture but each of them knew it was something more than friendly as his palm moved a little over her firm hip, finding no girdle but just a wisp of silk—slip or panty?—beneath the print sheath. 

“Glad you're going to be with us, Jill,” he whispered, leaning over her shoulder, the mink tickling his chin, breathing in her perfume. 

She backed into him, smiling brightly, letting him feel her against him for an instant. "I am too, Dave. Real glad." 

Then they were walking along the wooden platform with the railroad station looking like a big toy in a shop-window setting, its red slate roof tiles washed clean by a recent rain, a trailing green ladder of Virginia creeper covering most of its white brick walls. A dozen cars stood with their front bumpers against the cedar rail fence of the macadamed parking lot. 

Dave caught sight of his three-year-old Chevy and guided Jill and Toby toward it, walking between them with his hands on their upper arms. "Don't often drive to the station but I was late this morning," he explained. 

Jill slipped in first and sat between him and Toby, her thigh against his leg all the way up Knob Hill Road to the turn-in at Peppermint Lane. The Finches lived a few houses down from the Walters. Dave swung in to the grassy curb. Toby opened the door. As she was sliding out, Jill patted his leg, saying, "See you at the party, Dave.” He watched them move along the curving flag-stoned walk to the white ranch house. 

"The party," he said to himself. "Yeah man!" 

He drove down to Coldstream Boulevard, swung right, then right again onto Old Farm Road and back down Knob Hill to his driveway. The Chevy slid into the big two-car garage that was fitted out with worktable and a suspended cabinet which held the few tools he owned. 

He walked through the breezeway to the family room. "Beth?" he called, opening the door. 

There was a deep, muted sound from the living room, harsh and discordant. Dave felt his heart drop. Oh my God, she's having another attack! He ran across the vinylite floor and came to an abrupt stop beside the double fireplace. 

Beth stood with her back to him, facing a corner of the paneled living room, arms held rigid by her sides, head thrown back and her body as erect as if she stood at attention. The dry sobbing was coming from her closed mouth and distended nostrils like the working of a bellows in some lost segment of hell. 

His hair stood up on the nape of his neck. 

She had never given way so completely before. She cried often enough, face down on their bed or clinging to him, working her tear-stained cheeks against his chest while her long nails dug into his arms. This was more than sorrow, though. It was hysteria. 

He ran to her, catching her elbow, swinging her about to face him. Her eyes were wide open and staring blankly. Her lips worked in and out. She tried to keep them shut tightly but the driving power of her lungs as they sought release for the screams building in her throat was too much to fight. His fingers felt a strange, muscular rigidity in her arms, but the wide eyes that looked at but did not see frightened him more. 

"Beth honey—my God, what's got into you?" 

The muffled screaming went on and on while he stared helplessly at those blank eyes, knowing his flesh was crawling. His tongue inched across his lips. A muscle in his throat began a spasmodic jump. 

His hand lashed out across her face. 

The force of the blow drove her backward. Her shoulders rammed into the pine-paneled wall and her body jerked all over. The staring eyes closed and tears came out from under their lashes. Beth half turned and leaned a cheek and a shoulder against the wall and began to cry softly, almost to herself. 

"Honey, I didn't mean to—look, you were in pretty bad shape. If I hadn't—” 

Her head nodded slowly. "I know—oh, I know. Sometimes I think I'm going mad." 

His hands lifted and moved a little up and down as if they sought for words to put on his tongue. "Beth, listen to me. Other women have had miscarriages. You aren't the first and only one. Doctor Abell told us all about them, remember?" He drew a deep breath. “Do you think we ought to see him again?” 

"What for? What for? So he can quote statistics at me? A miscarriage. It wasn't any miscarriage, was it?" 

The room was silent. Beth had stopped crying. She lifted her head now and turned to look at him. Say something to her, you fool! Anything! Just say some words to keep her quiet, to keep that dazed look out of her eyes. His tongue was locked in his mouth. 

"Was it, David?" she whispered harshly. "Was it a miscarriage?” 

She leaped at him, fists raised and pounding on his chest. Her voice lifted to a scream. "Say something. Tell me it wasn't what I think it was. Tell me, tell me! Why was the coffin cover locked at the funeral? Why? Oh God Jesus above, why, why, why?" 

He caught her wrists and held them. "Get hold of yourself," he rasped. "You aren't a child any more. You're an adult." 

For long moments hysteria hung in the balance. He could see it in her eyes waiting to come out through the blank stare, the rigidity of muscles, the muffled screaming. 

"It was my child too, you know. Not only yours.” 

The eyes cleared a little. Her slack features firmed, became pretty again. As if his reminder was a psychic scalpel severing some ganglion that held her chained to hysteria, she stirred slowly and drew a deep breath. She closed her eyes and shook her head back and forth. 

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "It just came over me, the moving and all. I got to thinking about a nursery and how I would have fah—fixed it up a—and—” 

"Beth, forget that!" 

Her eyes opened and regarded him. Her palm cupped his cheek. 

"I should forget it, shouldn't I? Because I'm making your life miserable carrying on this way." 

"We both agreed to move to Coldstream Hills. We said it might make things better for you to get out of the apartment where you carried the child, away from all the hopes and memories." 

"It is better, Dave. Oh, it is! Really it is. I know it will work out. Just be patient with me a little longer. Please?" 

"Sure, sure. Now perk up. I want my old Beth back. Let's see you smile. Ah, that's better." 

He studied this pretty woman who was his wife, seeing her with an inward eye as if for the first time, finding her face pert and vivid, framed in brush-banged black hair. Her eyes were wide and bold; when they closed, long lashes made fairy fans against her white flesh. She came a little above his heart in height. It may have been her lack of real height or the delicate structure of her bones that made her seem so fragile to him, though she was solid enough in his arms, with a surprising amplitude to breasts and hips. 

Her nose wrinkled as she laughed. "Which Beth do you want, honey-kins? The housewife? The gay companion ever ready for a drink and a laugh? The seductive Beth in black underwear and high heels? The tired Beth needing a hot shower and a bed? The good worker, ex-secretary to Meredith Dillon Blake of Wall street? The—" 

His hand clapped her rump. "That good worker Beth sounds pretty good, considering what we've got to do. You can give me a hand getting those junipers put in." 

"I must look a mess. Give me fifteen minutes to wash my face and powder my nose." 

"Why sure, ma'am. Only I'd better come with you to sort of speed things along. We don't have much time before dark." 

She pressed against him, hugging him. "David, David, what would I ever do without you? If it weren't for you, I'd go off my rocker." 

"The powder room, madam." 

She laughed almost gaily and stuck out her tongue. With a burlesque strut she moved across the room inviting him to follow with her swaying hips. Sadness moved in David Walters at that moment. He and Beth had planned so many things for that child. If it had been a girl they intended to name her Lizbeth and make her wear pigtails until she was twelve. Then, Beth assured him repeatedly, she would rebel and demand the very latest in hair fashions. She would wear frills and bows and at least five crinolines to make her skirt stand out. She would like cocoa and crackers, ice cream and fudge, and hate spinach. Boys would be mad over her, of course. She would have Beth's good looks and his common sense. 

Beth was wearing a shirtwaist and black panties when he came to the powder room door, bent over and rolling down her stockings. 

"Well now," said Dave, and thought of Jill Eckhard. 

"You stay away from me, David Walters. I'm being the hard worker, changing into some old things so I can go out and plant those juniper bushes. So don't change my trend of thought." 

His eyes roved up her shapely white legs to the lace edges of the panties. "Hard workers shouldn't be so sexy." 

"Maybe later,” she said as she tossed the stockings over the shower door. "Maybe to celebrate our first Saturday night in our new house." Her hands lifted a pair of blue dungarees. "I'm busy becoming a farmerette as you can see.” A leg went out of sight and then another. She buttoned the fly, looking at him. “Be a good idea if you changed your clothes, too. Do you know how much it costs to dry-clean them?” 

"Okay, I'll go change." For a moment he stood there and watched her run lipstick over her pouting mouth. He grinned, "We're going to plant bushes, not go nightclubbing." 

"Mmmm. Never does a wife any harm to keep herself looking attractive. If not for her husband then for her neighbors." 

They were putting the last juniper into its bed when a white Thunderbird drew up to their macadam drive. Beth straightened. A smudge of dirt streaked the tip of her nose and her left cheek. She brushed hairs out of her eyes. 

"Wonder who that—oh my God!”

"Huh? What?" 

"It's Gwen Poindexter! And I'm a fright! An utter fright Oh, David." 

A woman with brown hair under a saucy scoop-brim straw hat was leaning from the open window of the low white car, calling brightly, "Hi there, new people. I just stopped by to remind you not to forget you're coming over to our place tonight. It's on Old Farm Road, remember." 

Beth said cheerily, "As if we could forget! We've been looking forward to it all week. Oh—you two haven't met, have you? This man with the dirty clothes is my husband David. Come on out and talk." She was walking toward the Thunder bird as she spoke in what Dave called her putting-on-a-brave face-against-tragedy voice. "We've been so busy—" 

The woman laughed and opened the door, sliding from the leather seat with a display of what Dave decided were very handsome legs as her white sharkskin skirt rode back on her thighs. “I don't dare stay. I've got to see Donna gets fed—Donna's my little girl—and that Mamie has the best cocktail shaker out. Bye now." 

She swung back into the car and the door slammed. Seconds later the Thunderbird was gone around the bend behind a clump of dogwood trees. 

Beth said, "I like her in spite of her legs."

"Her legs?" 

"Darling, don't be obtuse. The display of stockinged calf and dimpled knee was for your benefit. Still, I've done the same thing" 

"You have?” 

"So I can't dislike her for something I've done myself, now can I? Yes, I like her, Dave. I hope the other neighbors are as nice.” 

As she bent over the last bush Dave asked, "When did you go about displaying your nether extremities, Mrs. Walters?" 

"At last year's Christmas party, lover. When you introduced me to your boss, that nice old Mr. Peake." 

"Oh?" 

"My, how he did stare." Beth was troweling a channel around the shrub. "You got your raise the middle of January, I think." 

"Old Peake interested in legs? I can't believe it."

"Darling, he's a man." 

When the six junipers stood upright in their beds below the living room picture window, Beth straightened and said, “The black velvet." 

“What?” Dave asked. 

“The black velvet gown. What I'll wear tonight to the party. I ought to make an impression, oughtn't I?" 

"Why, for Pete's sake? Everybody knows we just moved in and that our house is a mess. If you wore a housecoat I'm sure they'd understand." 

"Donna, she said. Her little girl. I wonder what she's like?"

"Beth—” 

He saw she was not listening, walking toward the breezeway. A tide of elation ripped through him. Already she was emerging from her shell of sorrow, planning her clothes, eager to meet and make an impression on the Poindexters and whoever else they were inviting to their house. Oh, it would take time, he told himself as he put away the spade and trowel, but there was hope. Very definitely there was hope. 

As he came out of the garage, he fumbled in his slacks for the crumpled pack of cigarettes. He struck a match and breathed deeply, letting the smoke drift out between his lips. The early September air had a faint touch of chill in it, a forerunner of brightly metallic autumn. It made a man feel good to be alive. 

The glare of sunlight on metal caught his eye. He turned to look up at the gilded weather-vane atop the garage cupola. From the metal arrow his glance went to the white shingles of the house itself, joined by the breezeway to the garage. The house had been given a country home look by its builders, low and rambling and faintly suggesting a farmhouse, shaped in an ell, the long front facing northeast. Not as pretentious as some of the other Knoll houses, it was big enough to suit him. Close to an acre of ground gave him ownership of part of the woods behind the house. Someday he would build a patio off the breezeway which would look out over those woods. 

He walked along the flagged path toward the drive. Right now David Walters would have to hump his back to carry the mortgage payments. He made good money as an assistant trial lawyer with Endicott, Peake and Breen. Old Peake would retire someday, and Dave figured things were set for him to take his place. When that happened, they could afford a second car. 

He knew a gentle satisfaction as he turned in the driveway to gaze at the house from this new angle. The Walters family was moving up in the world. From the apartment to The Knoll was a big step. Sometimes as he lay awake nights Dave was frightened by the burden he was taking on. Life had been so easy in the apartment with just the rent to pay. Here, fuel bills lay ahead, tools had to be bought, a lawn and shrubbery kept up, possible repairs figured in. 

Dave shook his head as he flipped the cigarette into the street. If a man wanted the luxury of The Knoll, he paid for it. It cost money to live in a community where there were no sidewalks but only trim green lawns stretching down to meet the road, with whitewashed stones to mark the driveway en trances. You got nothing for nothing. You wanted The Knoll in Coldstream Hills and your pocketbook shrank. His gaze touched other houses he could see from his driveway: a stone and redwood building set back among beech trees belonging to the Finches, a red brick and white shingle house just beyond it. He didn't know who owned the red brick and shingle house, but he would know in a week or two. He would grow to be a proper suburbanite, he supposed, easily roused to fighting pitch by mention of an added school tax. He might even become a member of the town council. 

Or a volunteer fireman, he thought. 

A window went up behind him. He turned to see Beth waving an arm. "What about dinner?" she wanted to know as he came nearer. "Care to run to town for something?" 

"Let's eat out. Sort of celebrate."

"Well, we ought to save our money."

"Give you a chance to wear the black velvet." 

"Mmmm. You twisted my arm. Shower'll be ready in fifteen minutes." 

The window closed but Dave Walters went on staring at it just staring blindly and letting the good feeling run through his body. 

ii

Gwen Poindexter said, “Damn it, Clifford. Oh damn it all." 

The voice over the telephone was metallic with distance. "Gwen, I honest to God can't help it. Olmstead himself came into town this morning. We've got a big deal cooking, something about a plastics division, and maybe I'll get Eastern Seabord manager. Keep your fingers crossed, angel." 

"You knew I'd planned this party for a month!”

"I knew. Olmstead didn't.”

Gwen muttered under her breath.

“What'd you say?" 

"I was telling your precious J. T. Olmstead what he could do with his surprise visits. When can I expect you?" 

"Not before ten, certainly. We'll eat at the Louis Quatorze. J. T. will want full reports about our sales during the summer. And they're good, Gwen. They're real good if I say so myself. I haven't been raising sweatbands for nothing. Now this plastics thing is in the air and I'm right in line for it." 

"Don't count on it, Cliff.”

"You do understand, don't you? About tonight?" 

Gwen sighed. She understood only too well. "All right," she murmured in resignation. "Try to make it home before midnight." 

Her hand cradled the phone. For a brief moment her fingers tightened spasmodically as she stared around the bedroom. You wanted all this, Guenevere Poindexter. This fine house and the white Thunderbird all your own are only two reasons why you married Clifford Charles Poindexter III. The third reason was money. Cliff Poindexter was an only child of a wealthy widower. More important, he had his father's knack of turning one dollar into five. As assistant sales manager for The Automotive Rubber Corporation of American he was already in the top one percent of the national income group. One month from tomorrow Cliff would be thirty-four years old. Inside ten years he could be a millionaire. 

Gwen plucked at the frilly lacing of her black nylon peig noir. She would be the wife of a millionaire, then. With plenty of money to spend on herself, to buy more pretties like this expensive bit of fluff in which to look like the modern young wife waiting the return of her lord and master to his bed and board. 

To his board, yes. To his bed—ha! 

She amended her thoughts. To his bed, yes; but only to sleep. Not to take his young wife in his arms and make wild, mad love to her. Her scowl disappeared in a giggle. Wild, mad love! Now whatever put that crazy notion in her head? She was no lush dish the way Toby Finch was, with her too-short shorts showing her long legs and the too-tight sweaters revealing everything about her breasts to anyone who cared to look. and the men looked; all of them, that is, except Cliff. Cliff was always too busy talking up a projected sales campaign to bother about Toby Finch's upper balcony. Maybe she should be content with the fact that he looked only at his wall-maps with their colored pins stuck into them at crucial spots. 

"Green pins for good sales, yellow for the very best, exceeding expectations," he was in the habit of saying. He would scowl then and mutter in a lower voice as if he were saying something obscene, "Red for poor. Honestly, angel, I wish to God there were no redheaded pins!" 

No, she was no Toby Finch. Still... 

Gwen swung around on her vanity bench to inspect her mirrored reflection. What was it Cliff called it. Ah, yes, chart the sales pitch. Maybe she ought to chart her own sales pitch where it came to Guenevere Poindexter as a woman. Not too tall, not too short; just about right for most men. And curvy enough in the very best places. Her hands parted the black nylon peignoir so she could study the black brassiere and its B cups. At last measurement she had been 37 in the bumper department with a neat if not gaudy twenty-eight around her middle. Her hips were an even thirty-six. Enough woman, she guessed, for any man. Maybe too much woman for Clifford Charles Poindexter III. 

"Oh, Gwen, come on," she told her reflection. "What are you griping about? If he weren't interested in business it would be something else like golf or whiskey or other women. Be glad it's what it is. After all if he's going to neglect you, let him make money while he's doing it." 

The clatter of dishes in the kitchen roused her. Gathering the peignoir around her waist she went to the door and opened it. 

"Mamie?" she called.

“Yes'm, Miz Poindexter. Donna wants an ice cream tart." 

An eight year old girl in grimy corduroy coveralls came careening down the hall, long blonde hair bouncing in all directions. A pert face stared up at her as Donna grinned her widest grin—the one which showed the missing tooth—with her head tilted to one side. Pleading made her blue eyes seem very dark. Gwen noted that a splash of grime lay across the little throat. 

"Donna, you didn't wash your neck."

"I will, I will. Only can I have an ice cream tart, please?"

"They're for the party tonight. You know that.” 

"Oh.” Disappointment clouded the little face. Slowly she lowered her head and turned back toward the kitchen. 

"Donna, Daddy will be home late,” Gwen called out suddenly. "I don't think he'd mind if you ate his ice cream tart." 

"Ohhh! Mamie, did you hear? Did you hear that? I can have Daddy's tart. Mommy said so." Her voice faded in the echo of her running feet. 

Gwen sighed and closed the bedroom door. The ormolu clock on the wall bracket beyond her vanity table showed twenty minutes to seven. A little more than an hour remained to shower and dress and get ready for her guests. As she crossed the thick Savonnerie carpet, letting the peignoir slide from her shoulders, she found herself remembering the new neighbor, Beth Walters. A pretty woman even in those dungarees and ripped shirtwaist, with the brush of dirt across the tip of her nose. Gwen smiled, reaching behind her to unhook bra straps. 

Bet she could have dropped into one of those holes along with her juniper plants when she saw me pull up. Sweet as pie about it, though. Too sweet. As good as told me that I'd caught her in an unguarded moment but to watch out. I wonder what she'll wear tonight...? 

iii

The Indian clubs whirled and looped. Stripped to his waist and breathing easily, William Bradford Finch stared straight ahead while his powerfully muscled arms went through the rhythmic, routine movements. He neither saw the knotty pine paneling of the family room—this corner was his exercise bar—nor the sporting prints neatly framed and hung beside the shelves holding his athletic trophies. He heard the excited babble of voices from the front hall where Jimmy and Karen were running to meet and hug Aunt Jill. The clubs went on whirling steadily but now Bill was grinning, thinking how it might be to have Jill here in the same house with him, Jill who'd gone through three husbands in a dozen years, Jill who used to live with him and Toby those years ago when her second husband had been a Marine captain in Korea. 

He had never gotten to Jill the way he'd gotten to some others: secretaries and file girls in the office at Mechanical Writing, a few lady buyers he took to dinner and the theater, one or two housewives when opportunity presented itself. Bill Finch was well aware that he was big and handsome. Sometimes a girl told him he was too arrogant, too damned sure of himself, but he let such criticism slide off his back. A man had a right to have himself a ball from time to time. He was a good provider, a good father. He owed it to himself. 

Now Jill was here, the way she'd been with them in Great Neck before he made general manager, running around in pajamas with her knockers bouncing under the sleazy jacket, kissing him sometimes when Toby wasn't around, standing with her mouth open and her legs apart or walking to the bath room with open terrycloth robe, winking as they passed in the hall. She had teased him plenty in those days. Bill chuckled. He was kind of glad now that she had. It gave him something to dream about, to look forward to, this visit. 

"—eight, and nine, and ten!" 

Finch flipped the clubs one after another in an under—the wrist—and—over motion at the padded wall. They thudded against the painted red target and fell to the floor. He let them lie as he moved to the small louver window and opened its catch, rubbing big hands over his chest and breathing in the cool, late summer air. 

Upstairs, the front door slammed crisply shut. He heard heels tapping down the hall, two feminine voices babbling in twin torrents. Jill was here. Toby had just brought her in. 

Bill Finch picked up the Indian clubs and hung them on the rack. He lifted his sweatshirt and slipped it over his head, and his heart pounded harder than when he had been exercising. 

Jill was here. Oh, boy!