“Just for a moment.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sure.” I turned and stared out the gate, but I could still see her in my mind. I’d called her a girl, but she was probably near thirty.

In a moment she said, “All right,” and I turned around. She was sitting up on the towel with the long legs doubled under her. The halter was tied.

“What kind of car is it?” she asked.

“Fifty-three Pontiac. About fourteen thousand miles on

it.” I wondered again what was on her mind.

“How much do you want for it?”

“Twenty-five hundred,” I said. “Why? You know

somebody in the market for one?”

“Wel-l-l,” she said slowly, “I might be. I’ve been thinking of buying a car.”

“You could go farther and do worse,” I said. “It’s a two-tone job, white sidewalls, radio, seat covers—”

She was studying my face again with that curious intensity. “Is it worth twenty-five hundred dollars, really?”

“Every nickel of it,” I said, ready to go into a sales pitch. Maybe we could make a deal. Then I got the impression that she wasn’t even listening to what I said.

She took off the glasses and stared thoughtfully at me. Her eyes were large and self-possessed, and jet black, like her hair. The hair was long, drawn into a roll at the back of her neck. She looked Spanish, except that even with the faint tan her skin was very fair.

“There’s something about your face,” she said. “I keep thinking I should know who you are.”

So that was it. It still happens once in a while. “Not

unless you’ve got a long memory,” I said.

She shook her head. “Not too long. Four years? Five?”

“Make it six.”

“Yes. That’s about it. I was quite a football fan in those days. Scarborough, wasn’t it? Lee Scarborough? All-Conference left half.”

“You should be a cop,” I said.