He listened a moment to the drip of water somewhere in this spongy wilderness. Archer had said the forest ran a long way back, that there was a cedar swamp behind the property. (Archer would know, Tom thought. Archer the car-stalker, trailblazer, rock-climber, truant … these childhood memories had begun to freshen.) A damp breeze tickled the pale hair on his arms. A hummingbird darted up, regarded him querulously, and darted away.

He turned back to the house.

Tony called after lunch with another dinner invitation, which Tom could not gracefully decline. “Come on over,” Tony said. “We’ll stoke up the barbecue.” It was an order as much as an invitation: tribute to be paid.

Tom left the dirty dishes in the sink. At the door he paused and turned back to the empty house.

“You want to clean up, go ahead.” No answer. Oh, well.

It was a long drive to Tony’s place. Tony and Loreen lived in the Seaview district, a terrace of expensive family homes along the scalloped bay hills south of town. The neighborhood was prestigious but the house Tony lived in wasn’t especially flashy—Tony was very Protestant about overt displays of wealth. Tony’s house, in fact, was one of the plainer of these homes, a flat white facade which concealed its real, formidable opulence: the immense plate glass windows and the cedar deck overlooking the water. Tom parked in the driveway behind Loreen’s Aerostar and was welcomed at the door by the entire family: Tony, five-year-old Barry, Loreen with cranky eight-month Tricia squirming against her shoulder. Tom smiled and stepped into the mingled odors of stain-proofed broadloom, Pine-Sol, Pampers.

He would have liked to sit and talk a while with Loreen. (“Poor Loreen,” Barbara used to say. “Playing Tony’s idea of a housewife. All diapers and Barbara Cartland novels.”) But Tony threw an arm over his shoulder and marched him through the spacious living room to the deck, where his propane barbecue hissed and flamed alarmingly.