"Leak-proof," he said. No one smiled. Harris Feinstein avoided the other men's eyes.

"Well, goodbye," he said.

"You going to Washington?" asked Dourn Rucker.

"Tonight," said Harris Feinstein.

"Oh!" said Sonny Boydenhousen. "Look. Those things I said about your family being welcomed here in San Aquino, like we were doing you a favor ... well, you know what I mean."

"I know," said Feinstein.

"I guess you're going to do it," said Curpwell.

"Yes."

"I wish I could say I thought you're doing the right thing," said Boydenhousen. "And I wish I could say I would want to do it with you. But I think you're doing a very wrong thing."

"Maybe, but...." Harris Feinstein did not finish his sentence. When he had shut the large brass-studded door to the most hallowed sanctum of power in San Aquino, the Curpwell office, Sheriff Wyatt made a suggestion.

He did so fingering the notches on his gun.

Les Curpwell didn't bother to answer and Dourn Rucker told Sheriff Wyatt that Feinstein would probably pound him into dentifrice anyway, so Wyatt might as well put away the gun.

Curpwell noted that Feinstein might be right. So did Rucker. So did Boydenhousen. But they all agreed that they all had families, and hell, weren't they all really doing enough-paying for everyone who lived in the town and county of San Aquino?

"I mean we're acting like damned philanthropists. Two thousand dollars from each of us, every goddamned month. We didn't ask anyone else to chip in, not even the sheriff because he doesn't have the money," said Rucker. "So shit, nobody's got any right to point a finger at us. Nobody."

"All I know," said Boydenhousen, "is that we've got a chance to be quakeproof. Now going to Washington may louse it up. And that's just not right. We should just pay up and keep quiet."