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.

“No. You were quite famous.”

“They get new ones every year.” I wished we could get back to the car trade. You can’t eat six-year-old football scores.

“Why didn’t you join the pros?” She took a puff on the cigarette she was smoking and tossed it into a flower bed without taking her eyes from my face.

“I did,” I said. “But it didn’t jell.”

“What happened?”

“Bum knee.” I squatted on my heels. “How about the car? You really want to buy one?”

“I think so. But why do you want to sell it?”

“I need the money.”

“Oh,” she said.

“It’s out front, if you’d like to drive it.”

“All right,” she said. “But I’d have to change. Would you mind?”

“Not at all. I’ll wait in the car.”

“Oh, come on up. It’s cooler inside.”

“O.K.,” I said. We stood up. She was tall, all right. I picked up the suntan lotion and the book and towel.

“I’m Diana James,” she said.

She saw me glance down at her left hand, and smiled. “You’ll only have to make one sales talk. I’m not married.”

“I’d have given you odds the other way.”

“I was, once. But, as you say, it didn’t jell.”

We went up the outside stairs at the rear of the building and in through the kitchen. She pulled a bottle of bourbon out of a cupboard and set it on the drain.

“Mix yourself a drink, and go into the living room. Soda and ice cubes in the refrigerator.”

“I hate to drink alone this early in the day,” I said. “It scares me.”

She smiled. “All right. If you insist.”

I mixed two and handed her one. We went on through to the living room, looking out over the Gulf.