e alive or not. Maybe
that's what threw us off. But you don't need friends and relatives to
start wondering, and investigate when you haven't shown up for a
while." He lifted his head and looked at me. "What does that prove,
Mark?"

"That there's something wrong with these cases. I want to find out
what."

* * * * *

I got Lou to take me down to Headquarters, where he let me see the
bankbooks the old woman had left.

"She took damned good care of them," I said. "They look almost new."

"Wouldn't you take damned good care of the most important thing in
the world to you?" he asked. "You've seen the hoards of money the
others leave. Same thing."

I peered closely at the earliest entry, April 23, 1907, $150. My eyes
aren't that bad; I was peering at the ink. It was dark, unfaded. I
pointed it out to Lou.

"From not being exposed to daylight much," he said. "They don't haul
out the bankbooks or money very often, I guess."

"And that adds up for you? I can see them being psychotics all their
lives ... but not _senile_ psychotics."

"They hoarded, Mark. That adds up for me."

"Funny," I said, watching him maneuver his cigarette as if he loved
the feel of it, drawing the smoke down and letting it out in plumes of
different shapes, from rings to slender streams. What a living he
could make doing cigarette commercials on TV! "I can see _you_ turn
into one of these cases, Lou."

He looked startled for a second, but then crushed out the butt
carefully so he could watch it instead of me. "Yeah? How so?"

"You've been too scared by poverty to take a chance. You know you
could do all right acting, but you don't dare giving up this crummy
job. Carry that far enough and you try to stop spending money, then
cut out eating, and finally wind up dead of starvation in a cheap
room."

"Me? I'd never get that scared of being broke!"

"At the age of 70 or 80?"

"Especially then! I'd probably tear loose for a while and then buy
into a home for the aged."

I wanted to grin, but I didn't. He'd proved my point. He'd also shown
that he was as bothered by these old people as I was.

"Tell me, Lou. If somebody kept you from dying, would you give him any
dough for it, even if you were a senile psychotic?"

I could see him using the Stanislavsky method to feel his way to the
answer. He shook his head. "Not while I was alive. Will it, maybe, not
give it."

"How would that be as a motive?"