man?"

"Ducky. Just ducky."

Porter laughed. "Just called to say, 'Good job well done.'"

"Thanks."

"Want to give you a little tip, too. They want you upstairs. A
commendation. Not generally known, though. And you deserve it. You'll be
called up tomorrow."

"You never know the day or the hour."

The laugh came again. "You're humor is priceless, old man."

"Isn't it?"

"Another thing--I got pretty hot when I got wind of how the ground was
being cut out from under you. I made it my business to do something
about it. I hate to see a good man pushed around. Of course I okayed the
orders cutting you down--a matter of routine--I had to follow through.
But then I got busy. A thing like that won't happen again."

"Thanks, Porter. It warms a man to know he's got a friend--a friend like
you."

"Just between us, old man, I'm one of your admirers." Porter laughed and
sprayed charm through the phone like perfume from an atomizer. "But if
you quote me, I'll deny it."

"Oh, I wouldn't think of quoting you, old man," Taber replied in a
kindly voice and put down the phone.

He sat back and closed his eyes. Three people dead. One person maimed.
Blood in the streets.

Good job well done.

He opened a drawer of his desk and reached for the Scotch bottle.

* * * * *

At the Newark Airport he would not trust his suitcase to a porter
because the leather loop holding one side of the handle was very thin
and he was afraid it would break.

Once he had been ashamed of the shabbiness of the bag and had planned to
buy a new one, but now there was an affinity between them, a kind of
warmth.

Were they companions in misery?

He asked the question with a quick smile and then realized he was not
miserable. A little bleak of mind, perhaps, with Minnesota and what lay
ahead affording no glow of anticipation in his mind. But that would
pass. No, he had relegated the hurt to a mental pigeonhole; maybe he
would bring it out and look at it once in a while, after enough time had
passed.

But he was not miserable.

He went to the counter, checked in, and they told him his plane would
take off on time. He glanced at his watch. Thirty-two minutes.

He went back to the bench and found Rhoda Kane sitting beside his
suitcase.

She wore a plain, black suit with a ridiculous little black hat and she
was so beautiful he was angry with her. He hated her. This good-bye
wasn't necessary. Why had she come?