Eesidents wondered whether Ernest Walgreen had gone into crime.

"The Mafia," they whispered. But someone pointed out that the men didn't look like Mafia types.

"Shoot," said someone else in a rare bit of wisdom, "the Mafia's probably as American as you and me."

Someone else remembered that Ernest Walgreen had once worked for the government. At least that was the rumor.

"It's easy. Ernie must have become a spy for the CIA. He must be one of those fellas what has to be protected 'cause he shot up so many of them Russians."

Walgreen watched Mildred's white ash coffin being lowered into the narrow hole and thought, as he always did at funerals, how narrow the holes were and how small the last space was. And thinking of Mildred going down into that hole, he broke. There was nothing left but tears. And he had to tell himself it was not his wife disappearing, but the body. She had gone when the life went out of her. And he remembered her one last time, fumbling with her purse at the airport, and he thought: All right, let them end it now. Whoever it is. Let them finish me now.

So deep was his grief, it demolished hate and any desire for revenge.

15

The Paldor security team decided his home was too exposed to risk. Too many blind entrances and exits.

"It's an assassin's delight," said Pruel, who had personally taken over Walgreen's protection.

For Walgreen, it was a relief to leave that house because Mildred was still there, in every part of it, from her potter's wheel to the mirror she had cracked.

"I have a vacation cabin in Sun Valley," said Walgreen. "But I need something to do. I don't want to think. It hurts too much."

"We'll have plenty of work for you," said Pruel.

The Sun Valley house proved to be an ideal fort, with what Pruel called a few modifications. Paldor refused to take any payment. To keep Walgreen's mind occupied, Les Pruel explained the latest techniques in top security.