“My appointment-”

“You’ve still got forty minutes,” he says. “With the summer tourists gone, it only takes twenty to drive up to Fryeburg. We’ll take ten minutes to try and find your keys, and if we can’t, I’ll drive you myself.”

She peers at him doubtfully.

He looks past her, into one of the other offices. “Dick!” he calls.

“Hey, Dickie M.!”

Dick Macdonald looks up from a clutter of invoices.

“Tell this lady I’m safe to drive her up to Fryeburg, should it come to that.”

“Oh, he’s safe enough, ma’am,” Dick says. “Not a sex maniac or a fast driver. He’ll just try to sell you a new car.”

“I’m a tough sell, she says, smiling a little, “but I guess you’re on.

“Cover my phone, would you, Dick?” Pete asks.

“Oh yeah, that’ll be a hardship. Weather like this, I’ll be beatin the customers off with a stick.”

Pete and the brunette-Trish-go out, cross the alley, and walk the forty or so feet back to Main Street. The Bridgton Pharmacy is the second building on their left. The drizzle has thickened; now it’s almost rain. The woman puts her new scarf up over her hair and glances at Pete, who’s bare-headed. “You’re getting all wet,” she says.

“I’m from upstate,” he says. “We grow em tough up there.”

“You think you can find them, don’t you?” she asks.

Pete shrugs. “Maybe. I’m good at finding things. Always have been.”

“Do you know something 1 don’t?” she asks.

No bounce, no play, he thinks. I know that much, ma’am.

“Nope,” he says. “Not yet.”

They walk into the pharmacy, and the bell over the door jingles. The girl behind the counter looks up from her magazine. At three-twenty on a rainy late September afternoon, the pharmacy is deserted except for the three of them down here and Mr Diller up behind the prescription counter.