Then when the ruddy-faced gentleman told him to wear the lifejacket for safety and had insisted on buckling it himself, Remo had thanked him. And when the ruddy-faced gentleman guided the small motor launch to a small cove protected from the sweeping breezes of the Caribbean, told Remo that the life jacket was really weighted and the buckles were really reinforced locks and that one stamp of the ruddy-faced gentleman's foot on a gray plug near the stern of the boat would sink it, Remo showed fear.

He screwed his face to tension, opened wide his brown eyes and made tugging motions at the jacket with his strong hands. It did not budge. Good. Now the ruddy-faced gentleman felt secure. Remo could tell that by the smile.

"You bastard," said Remo. "Why have you done this to me?" The ruddy-faced gentleman in gray Bermuda shorts and a bright tropical shirt crossed his legs and reached into the metal ice container for a bottle of champagne.

Remo made a short move toward the gray plug but the ruddy-faced gentleman lifted a finger indicating Remo had made a naughty. "Uh, uh. Remember the plug. You can't swim with lead weights, can you?"

Remo shook his head and sat back to listen. The man uncorked the champagne, brought out a champagne glass and rested it on the metal container. Then he popped the cork and poured the glass full.

Remo, who was trying to teach himself psychology, assumed that this was the acting out of a fantasy, sort of action-reaffirmation-of-an-event, to reinforce its reality. He liked that analysis, although he wasn't quite sure he understood his own words. He wished he could find someone to try them out on and if they didn't understand them either, he just might have gotten the whole thing right.

"Excuse the libation, if you will," said the ruddy-faced man who had introduced himself as Harry Magrudder, "but you see, it's a little reward I am allowing myself at the culmination of a year and a half's work." The man who called himself Harry Magrudder downed a glass, poured himself another, placed the champagne bottle on the metal shelf, sipped from the glass. The clear tropical sun glistened off the edge of the glass and made the champagne appear as if riddled with sunbeams.