es when they had
parted. In the eyes of a cat Muldoon had once seen toying with a mouse
the cat had caught....

Deena Savory was a redhead, a green-eyed redhead with a kind of
patrician look about her face that came off very well in the photographs
they took of her. Deena was a model, and made three times the money
Kevin Muldoon made.

It had always been a sore point between them, and more than once the
reason for their worst quarrels.

She was also the worst cook in New York.

Monday evenings were spent in Deena's small apartment on East
Fifty-Sixth Street, and she usually cooked dinner for Muldoon.
Invariably it was steak. Deena had no imagination when it came to food.
Even in restaurants she ordered one or another kind of steak.

They were together on the couch, she stretched full-length, her head in
Muldoon's lap. He was telling her about the Reeger twins and what had
happened that morning. His hands caressed her lightly as she spoke, now
across her cheeks, now more intimately.

"... I don't dig them, Honey," he said, as if in recapitulation. "The
Robert twin, f'r instance. 'You will not be unrewarded, moneywise.'
Madison Avenue and Nineteenth Century English...."

She gently took his hand from where he seemed to find most comfort, and
put it up to her cheek. "What's the difference?" she asked. "So long as
there's money in it?"

"Broker's commission," he said. "No more or less."

"You've been getting so much of that, lately?"

"N-no."

"Okay, then. Stop fighting it. What do you care what kind of English
they use? Or whether they used sign language. The buck, kid, the buck."

"Deena," Muldoon said gravely, "you have the grubbing soul of a
pawnbroker. Or real estate broker," he added. He bent his head and
kissed her lips.

Her lips opened to his with that familiar warmth, a hunger for him which
never failed to thrill. This time she did not remove his hand when it
returned.

"... Kevie, baby--darling ... oh, my darling," she whispered.

Strange, he thought, that at a moment like this, I should be thinking of
those fat twins....

* * * * *

Muldoon hated the pirate prices of midtown parking lots, and so was
late. It had taken him ten minutes to find parking space for the
Plymouth. As he started to open the door of room 657 he heard the voice
of one of the twins. The words or sounds were in a language completely
foreign to him. He thought to knock, but changed his min