The picture was lying face up in the sand. I picked it up. It looked fine except for the smear of red he had drawn across it from one corner to the other. He liked his little joke, all right.

One of these days somebody would probably kill him. I wondered who.

Monday evening while I was putting on a fresh shirt the landlady knocked on the door.

“Telephone, Mr. Madox.”

I went down the hall to the phone. “Hello. Madox,” I said.

“Harry,” she said, “why didn’t you call me?”

“You think I’m crazy?”

“I want to see you, Harry.”

“Look—”

“I miss you.”

I started to tell her to go to hell and then hang up, but I didn’t. I began to think about her. She could do that to you, even on the phone. Maybe it was because her voice matched the rest of her.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At the drugstore. I thought I’d go to the movie, but again I may not. I’m sort of restless—you know how it is. So I might go for a ride.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe up the highway about five miles to where a road turns off to the right and goes over to an old sawmill. It’s not hard to find. Once you get on the road you can’t get off.”

I put the phone back on the cradle. She’d said it, all right. Once you got on the road you couldn’t get off.

I tried to eat some dinner, but it was straw and it choked me. I walked restlessly up the sidewalk, going nowhere. Sutton was in front of the pool hall with a handful of numbers from a tip board, reading them and throwing them on the sidewalk. He nodded and we looked at each other. I thought of what he had said to Gloria Harper. He liked his laughs so well, why not shag him one in the mouth and watch him laugh his teeth out? Why not mind his own business? He wasn’t shoving me around, was he? And I wasn’t Gloria Harper’s mother.

I got in the car. Why try to pretend I wasn’t going out there? Did I think I could kid myself? I found the road without any trouble. The moon wasn’t up yet, and it was very dark under the trees. The old sawmill was on the side of a wooded ravine a mile or so from the highway. I saw a dilapidated shed and a pile of sawdust in the headlights, but there was no other car. I cut the lights and sat there, waiting, but I was too restless to sit still very long and got out and walked around.

I heard the car coming then. It stopped under the trees and the lights went off. The ceiling light came on momentarily and I knew she had opened the door to get out.