They couldn't tell me if I'd
ever get back to the future. I wasn't taking any chances. As long as
there was a possibility that I'd be stranded in my own time, I wasn't
going to lose my livelihood. Which reminds me, you have anything else
to do here?"

"There'll be a guard stationed around the house and all her holdings
and art will be taken over until she comes back--"

"She won't."

"--or is declared legally dead."

"And me?" I broke in.

"We can't hold you without proof of murder."

"Good enough. Then let's get out of here."

"I have to go back on duty," he objected.

"Not any more. I've got over $15,000 in cash and deposits--enough to
finance you and me."

"Enough to kill her for."

"Enough to finance you and me," I repeated doggedly. "I told you I had
the money before she sent me into the future--"

"All right, all right," he interrupted. "Let's not go into that again.
We couldn't find a body, so you're free. Now what's this about
financing the two of us?"

I put my fingers around his arm and steered him out to the street.

"This city has never had a worse cop than you," I said. "Why? Because
you're an actor, not a cop. You're going back to acting, Lou. This
money will keep us both going until we get a break."

He gave me the slit-eyed look he'd picked up in line of duty. "That
wouldn't be a bribe, would it?"

"Call it a kind of memorial to a lot of poor, innocent old people and
a sick, tormented woman."

We walked along in silence out in the clean sunshine. It was our
silence; the sleek cars and burly trucks made their noise and the
pedestrians added their gabble, but a good Stanislavsky actor like Lou
wouldn't notice that. Neither would I, ordinarily, but I was giving
him a chance to work his way through this situation.

"I won't hand you a lie, Mark," he said finally. "I never stopped
wanting to act. I'll take your deal on two considerations."

"All right, what are they?"

"That whatever I take off you is strictly a loan."

"No argument. What's the other?"

He had an unlit cigarette almost to his lips. He held it there while
he said: "That any time you come across a case of an old person who
died of starvation with $30,000 stashed away somewhere, you turn fast
to the theatrical page and not tell me or even think about it."

"I don't have to agree to that."

* * * * *

He lowered the cigarette, stopped and turned to me. "You mean it's no
deal?"

"No