I told him to go sit on the couch and he did. I turned on the lights and he asked me if he could put something on. I said no. I said I had something in common with his girl friends: I liked him better naked.

Actually, he wasn’t much to look at, no matter what sex you were. He was just a narrow-shouldered, skinny man, though he had a spare tire he was working on, and his thick, shaggy head of hair was like a fright wig, his flesh pasty white with occasional dark body hair, and his Nixon-like five o’clock shadow. He looked very worried, and confused, sitting there slump-shouldered, looking up at me like a kid worried about getting grounded by a particularly strict old man.

He waited a long time for me to talk. When I didn’t, he said, “I.. I don’t understand, Quarry. What are you doing here? What’s this all about?”

I went over by the window, leaned against the ledge in front of it, the Browning at my side. I looked out the window, toward my cottage.

“Quarry? Why don’t you say something?”

“Why don’t you?”

“What the fuck you think I been doing?”

“Stalling. Play-acting. Something.”

“Nothing. Nothing like that. I honest to Christ don’t know what this is about. Is it…”

“Is it what?”

“A contract? Somebody took a contract out on me? And… you’re here to fill it? Is… is that it?”

I said nothing.

“Who’d want to kill me? I don’t have an enemy in the world.”

“How about that sixteen-year-old’s aunt?”

“What’s the game, Quarry? I’m not actually supposed to believe you’re morally outraged by me humping some little piece of jail-bait, am I?”