It wasn’t quite hostility—or was it? I had a feeling they all knew her, although not one had spoken to her. But she had poise.

I didn’t know whether it was because of her story or because the officer finally got close enough to Frankie to pick up some of his muscadel fall-out, but the picture changed somewhat in my favor. He cut Frankie down to size with a couple of parade-ground barks, and wrote up the report, but didn’t issue any tickets. The damage to the panel truck wasn’t extensive. We exchanged insurance company information, and a wrecker came along and picked my car up. I rode to the garage with the driver. It was back the way I’d come, near the river on the west side of the business district.

It was hot and still, around two in the afternoon of a day in midsummer. Shadows were like ink in the white sunlight, and I could feel perspiration soaking my shirt. I’d left New Orleans early that morning and had planned to go on through to St. Petersburg and have a dip in the Gulf before dinner. Well, it couldn’t be helped, I thought sourly. Then I thought of the girl again and tried to remember just what she’d looked like. The only thing I could come up with was that she was tall and quite slender. Attractive? Somewhat, but no real dish. About thirty, I thought. But there’d been something about her face, a quality that escaped me now—Well, it didn’t matter.

The garage was a big place on a corner, with a showroom in front and some petrol pumps in the driveway. We towed the car on into the repair department, and the foreman looked it over. He was a thin slat of a man with a cold face.

“You want a bid, is that it?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’ll pay for it myself and let the insurance companies fight about it later.”

“Day after tomorrow’s the best we can do. We haven’t got that radiator in stock, but we can get it out of Tallahassee on the bus.”

”Okay,” I said. I didn’t look forward to spending thirty-six hours or more in the place, but there was no point in griping about it. I lifted the two cases out of the boot. “Where’s a good place to stay?”

“One of the motels would be your best bet,” he replied.

“Fine. Where’s the nearest one?”

He wiped his hands on a piece of rag and thought about it.

“Only one on this side is about three miles out. East of town, though, there’s a couple of good ones fairly close in. The Spanish Main, and the El Rancho.”

“Thanks. Can I call a cab?”

He jerked his head towards the front office. “See the girl.”

A big blond kid in a white overall had come in to get something off a work-bench. He turned and looked at us. “If he wants a motel, Mrs.