His calling card didn't say so, but the old man's specialty was repairing broken romances.

By ROBERT F. YOUNG

14 Sycamore Street

Tompkinsville, N. Y.

April 3, 1959

Bluebird Houses, Inc.

P. O. Box 2244

Cove City, N. Y.

Gentlemen: Two weeks ago I sent for one of your build-it-yourself bluebird houses. I followed the instructions to a tee, but so far all the house has attracted is sparrows. Please let me know what I can do to correct this situation.

Yours truly,

ELMER ADAMS

BLUEBIRS HOUSES, INC.

P.O. Box 2241 Cove City, New York

April 7, 1959

Mr. Elmer Adams

14 Sycamore Street

Tompkinsville, N. Y.

Dear Mr. Adams: I will arrive in Tompkinsville at 3:25 tomorrow afternoon to personally take care of your bluebird problem. Naturally I assume that you will treat me as your guest during toy sojourn in your fair village.

Sincerely yours,

S. SIALIS, President

P.S. I would greatly appreciate it if you will arrange to meet me at the Tompkinsville bus terminal.

Elmer spotted him right away. Not that Mr. Sialis looked like a bird expert —or any other kind of expert, for that matter, but he did somehow suggest a bird. He was on the small side and rather scrawny, and the gray suit he was wearing gave the impression that he was beginning to molt. His neck was long and thin, and his white hair—he wore no hat—had receeded away to his occiput and stuck up like a crest. A pointed nose, plus a pair of far-apart blue eyes, completed the illusion. Elmer went over to where he was standing by the magazine rack and introduced himself. Mr. Sialis beamed and offered a rather clawlike hand. "Sparrows living in your bluebird house, are there? Well, we'll take care of that!"

“I shoo them away every morning,” Elmer said, "but every evening they come back." Mr. Sialis nodded wisely. "You'd be surprised how many of our customers have the same trouble. Keeps us hopping, I'll tell you!” Then "Do you have a car?"

"It's parked out front," Elmer said. "Here, I'll carry your tool kit for you." He picked up the oblong case that was standing by the magazine rack and escorted Mr. Sialis outside, "Ordinarily never travel by bus," Mr. Sialis said, climbing into the car, "but all of the company cars were tied up, so I had no choice. This is our busy season."

Elmer climbed in himself, started the motor and pulled into the afternoon traffic. He turned down Main and, three blocks later, right down Sycamore Street. His house was a rambling American-colonial affair fronted by an unkempt yard; and bordered by overgrown spiraea and forsythia bushes. He bumped into the rutted driveway and turned off the motor. "I hope you'll excuse the looks of the place," he said.

"My grandfather left it to me two years ago, and I haven't had a chance to do anything to it yet." Sialis asked, "Why did he leave it to you? Aren't your parents living?”

"Yes—in Florida. My grandfather never cottoned to people who, pull up their roots. He said if mom and dad wanted to live in Florida, they could, but he was damned if he was going to leave the homestead to them and have them sell it to some stranger. So he left it to me, with the stipulation that I live in it for a minimum of six years. If I move out before that time, it becomes the property of the village. Come on, the bluebird house is out in back. We'll go through the house—it's closer that way." The interior of the house was in a much better state of repair than the exterior. The front door opened into a wide hall that extended straight through to the rear, giving access to the living room, dining room and kitchen on one side, and to the small one-story ell that Elmer had converted into an office, on the other. Just, beyond the door to the office a flight of narrow stairs led up to the second floor. Elmer started down the hall. "This way, Mr. Sialis."

"But my room," Mr. Sialis said. "What about my room?" Elmer stopped in his tracks. In getting out of the car he had again assumed responsibility for Mr. Sialis's tool kit, and now, for the first time, he took a good look at it. The look revealed what he should have perceived in the first place—it wasn't a tool kit; it was a suitcase. Slowly he turned around. Mr. Sialis was regarding him reproachfully. "You didn't really think that so delicate an operation as inducing bluebirds to take up residence could be accomplished in a few hours, did you?" he asked.

Elmer had thought precisely that, but for some reason he couldn't say so. "I hope you're not queasy about your meals," he said instead. "I happen to be my own cook and bottle washer."

"Oh, don't let that worry you. I've washed a few bottles in my own day. As a matter of fact, if your bluebird problem doesn't turn out to be too complicated, I may even be able to give you a hand." Elmer started up the stairs. "I'll show you your room."

It was well after four by the time he got Mr. Sialis settled, and he decided to defer work on his accounts till after supper. He fried steak and potatoes; made coffee and set the kitchen table. It was a rough-and-ready meal, but Mr. Sialis didn't seem to mind—he cleaned up his plate with the best of them. Afterward he insisted on helping with the dishes.

"Odd," he murmured presently, wiping a cup and placing it in the cupboard.

"What's odd?" Elmer asked.

"A young man like you living all alone like this. But then I don't imagine you stick around the house any more that you have to."

"That's where you're wrong," Elmer said. "I'm an accountant and I do all my work here. The only place I ever go is to the supermarket once a week for my groceries and to the barber's once a month for a haircut."

Mr. Sialis wiped another cup and put it away. "Don't you have any friends?"

"No, I don't," Elmer said.

"Not even a girl friend?"

Elmer shook his head. "Not any more." He sloshed around in the dishpan, seeking the last of the silverware. Mr. Sialis' eyes on the back of his neck made him feel uncomfortable. "All right," he said suddenly, "I'll tell you about it. It’s no secret." He fished out the last fork, rinsed it and laid it on the drainboard. Then he dumped the dishwater into the sink, rinsed the dishpan, wiped it and hung it up.

"Come on in the living room," he said. "We can talk better there." He seated Mr. Sialis in the wing-back provincial and took the Morris chair facing it, "Were you ever fired Mr. Sialis?"

"Why—why, no, I don't believe so."

"It's quite an experience,” Elmer went on. "Does wonders for your perspective. I don't know whether you're aware of it, but when you work as a part of a group, you eventually become just like the other members of that group. You more or less have to if you want to keep your job. Your sycophancy must match theirs; you, as well as they, must pay daily homage to the superintendent—especially if the superintendent happens to be a sycophant himself, paying daily homage to the general manager.

"But when you're fired, you're automatically set free; and if you want to badly enough, you can stay free. You can, if you're like me, complete the course in public accounting that you began two years ago and set yourself up in business. And if you have any intelligence at all, you will sever yourself from your old ‘friends' and religiously avoid making any new ones."

"By 'friends' I take it you mean the sort of fellow employee who has ears only for the boss's side of the argument."

"That's precisely what I mean,' Elmer said. "And believe me, that includes a lot of people!"

"In this case I suppose it includes your ex-girl friend too."

"It certainly does. She wasn't one of my fellow employees, but when Watkins and Company gave me the ax, she wanted me to go back and apologize for making a mistake anyone could have made under the circumstances—and beg for my job."

“And that, of course; was unthinkable. When did all this happen, Mr. Adams?"

"'A little over a year ago—last March, to be exact.”

"And this girl you were going with—what was her name?"

"Linda. Linda Thompson.”

"I imagine she's married to someone else by now."

Elmer shook his head. "The last I knew, she wasn't."

"Live here in Tompkinsville, does she?''

"Yes. We went to school together.”

Mr. Sialis's next question came from the left flank. "Why did you buy a bluebird house, Mr. Adams?"

Elmer shifted uncomfortably in the Morris chair, "It was one of those impulses you get, I guess. You sit down to read the Sunday paper on a bright sunshiny morning, and a gay-colored ad catches your eye, and the first thing you know you've ordered some impractical item you don't need any more than you need a hole in the head. In my case it happened to be a bluebird house."

"And it attracts sparrows, you say?"

Elmer nodded. "Every time I get rid of one family, another moves in."

"Sparrows are always giving us trouble," Mr. Sialis said peevishly. "Well, I'll take care of them for you, Mr. Adams. Get right to it first thing in the morning. But right now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to turn in. He stood up, hiding a yawn behind long thin fingers. "I'm a very early riser. In fact, you might say that I get up with the birds."

Elmer listened to his light footsteps on the stairs. When they faded away, he got up and went across the hall to the office.

The Burton-James books still lay on the desktop between the phone and the Webster’s unabridged where he had placed them before driving down to the bus terminal. He picked up the topmost one and riffled its pages. Abruptly he laid it back down again and went out and stood on the front porch. Moonlight softened the ragged outlines of the spiraea and the forsythia bushes, transformed the untrimmed lilac tree by the walk into a tatterdemalion girl and lay upon the unkempt grass like silver dew. Spring tiptoed past with a soft-wind rustle of skirts, leaving behind the smell of ground and the scent of meadow flowers. Down the street, Mrs. Frisby was calling to the youngest of her offspring:

"Jimmmmm-eeee! Time to come innnn!”

He turned slowly and re-entered the house. Again, he picked up the Burton-James books. Again he laid them back down. He returned to the porch and sat down on the steps. He sat there until he heard the clock in front of the National Bank chime ten; then he went to bed.

Next morning when he entered the kitchen, Mr. Sialis, wearing blue denim trousers and a blue chambray shirt, was breaking eggs into the frying pan. Six crisp slices of bacon the hue of goldenrod lay on a nearby strip of absorbent paper, and the coffeepot was perking in a furious finale, adding aromatic flavor to an atmosphere already richly ambrosial.

Elmer took a deep delighted breath and sat down at the table. Presently Mr. Sialas poured the coffee, dished out the bacon and eggs and joined him. Elmer tried the bacon first. It melted on his tongue. He thought he had never tasted anything quite so delicious till he tried the eggs. The coffee evoked a similar reaction, and he had three cups of it.

Mr. Sialis had been watching him thoughout the meal. "How would you like to pick up a little income on the side, Mr. Adams?"

"I'd like it fine," Elmer said. "But I've already taken on all the available accounts in town as well as a few in the neighboring towns, so where's it going to come from?"

"Does the date April fifteenth-mean anything to you?"

Elmer thought for a moment. "Not unless you're referring to the deadline for filing income-tax returns."

"And what else would I be referring to? You, Mr. Adams, are wondering how to abet your income at a time of the year when five-dollar bills arc blooming on trees, just waiting for accountants like yourself to come along and pick them!"

“But the local lawyers employ secretaries to take care of such matters," Elmer objected. "And several of the local accountants already have their fingers in the pie. There just isn't any opportunity there."

"During January, February and most of March, no. Practically the only people who file during that period are those with refunds due them. Almost everybody else waits till the last few weeks, and some hold off till the very last minute. Why, I’ll bet if you ran an ad in this afternoon's paper, you'd have more work than you could handle by tomorrow night!"

"H’m’m," Elmer said.

"The deadline for copy is nine A.M. I took the liberty of phoning the advertising manager."

"H’m’m," Elmer said again. "It might be worth a try at that."

"While you're calling in the ad I'll get started on the breakfast dishes," Mr. Sialis said blandly. The ad began to bear fruit that very afternoon when Ed Burmaster phoned and wanted to know if Elmer could take care of him that evening. Elmer was surprised. He and Ed had been co-workers at Watkins and Company, and the best of friends; but after the ax had descended, Ed had never come near him.

However, five dollars was five dollars. "Sure, Ed," Elmer said. "Make it about seven." Ed hadn't changed much during the year and some odd weeks since he'd seen him—a little thicker around the middle maybe, a little fleshier in the face. He ushered him into the office and seated him by the desk.

Ed seemed ill at case. "Long time no see," he said.

Elmer let the overobvious observation pass without comment. He had Ed's form filled out in short order. After paying him, Ed lingered in the office doorway. Suddenly he said, "I—I never got chance to tell you before, but I'm sorry you lost your job."

Again Elmer was surprised. For some reason he was annoyed too. "There's nothing to be sorry about," he said shortly. "I'm doing all right."

"I know you are," Ed said. "I just wanted to say it for the record." He paused. "I wonder—do you remember those Saturday-night sessions you and Pete and I used to have at Jerry's place? Well, Pete and I still have them, and I was wondering if this Saturday—"

He let the sentence trail away and looked at Elmer expectantly. Pete was another of Elmer's ex-co-workers, and the three of them had dealt with many a weighty problem over many a glass of Jerry's beer. No world-shaking solutions had ever been arrived at, but the time spent had paid off handsomely in camaraderie.

However, all that was a part of the past, Elmer reminded himself. "I'm going to be busy this Saturday," he said.

Ed was visibly disappointed. "Some other Saturday then?"

"I'll let you know."

Ed hadn't been gone five minutes when the phone rang again. Unsuspectingly, Elmer picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Elmer," Linda's voice said. Panic touched him, and he almost hung up. "Hi, Linda." Her voice was tense, and she spoke more rapidly than usual. "I've got problems, Elmer. I decided to itemize my deductions this year, but I had no idea how complicated it would be; and then I saw your ad in today's paper and I thought—I thought—"

The mere sound of her voice had been enough to rattle the chest in which he had locked all their moments together. What would seeing her do, after sedulously avoiding her for more than a year? But he had no choice. Having stuck his neck out—thanks to Mr. Sialis—he would have to suffer the consequences. "I'm free right now if you'd like to come over," he said.

"I'll be there in half an hour."

Linda hadn't 'changed much either—a little thinner and paler, perhaps, a little more nervous. But the new thinness merely enhanced her long legs and her trim waist, while the new nervousness was confined to her eyes and succeeded only in intensifying their blueness and eliciting in greater emphasis the attractive contrast between them and her brown bobbed hair.

"How—how have you been, Elmer?"

"Not bad." He found her eyes too much to bear and he lowered his gaze. There was a tiny scar on her chin that he could not remember having noticed before. "How—how have you been?"

“Fine.”

He escorted her into the office and seated her by the desk. After sitting down himself, he glanced through the small sheaf of receipted bills that she handed him, automatically reaching for a blank form 1040. Abruptly the words 'TOMPKINSVILLE GENERAL HOSPITAL' leaped up at him and, startled, he separated the bill from the others and ran his eyes down the list of services performed. Certain entries stood out glaringly from the others—AMBULANCE ... OPERATING ROOM ... ANESTHETICS …

14 DAYS HOSPITAL CARE. It was dated a little over three months ago, and just beneath the date her name stared back at him accusingly.

The bill slipped from his fingers, and he turned toward her. "I—I didn't know you'd been in the hospital."

She smiled ruefully. "Next time, I'll know better than to try to pass one semi when another one's coming toward me. It doesn't pay—even when you're sure you've got enough time." Waves of shock were washing through him. "Were you hurt bad?"

"Oh, I was banged up a little when we sideswiped; but all in all, I got out if it pretty lucky." He was looking at the scar on her chin, and the waves of shock had given way to waves of anger.

"But why didn't I hear about it? Why would something like that be kept secret?"

"It wasn't exactly kept secret," she said. "It was in the Tompkinsville Times”

"I never read the Tompkinsville Times. But even so, I should have heard about it. Why didn't someone tell me?"

"I—I don't know why," she said.

His anger refused to subside. Some friends he had! Not one of them with enough decency to tell him that his girl had been in an accident. Why, she could have been killed, and he might never even have heard about it!

And then he remembered that he had no friends and that Linda had not been his girl for more than a year now, and his anger congealed into an icy shell around his heart.

He pulled his typewriter toward him, inserted Form 1040 and filled in her name and address. "Social Security number?" he asked. She told him in a small voice. "Number of dependents?"... He was done in less than an hour. Linda paid him and stood up to go. He walked her to the door, annoyed with himself for having accepted her money, but too proud to offer it back. She lingered in the hall, her fingers fumbling with the catch on her purse. Suddenly she raised her eyes. "I know it's kind of late in the day to be making apologies," she said, "but just the same, I want you to know that I'm sorry you lost your job—and that I'm even sorrier that I acted the way I did. At—at the time I didn't realize how you felt. Otherwise I'd never have asked you to—to humiliate yourself." He waited for the feeling of satisfaction that her words should have evoked in him. He waited in vain. Illogically, he experienced a feeling of resentment instead. "It's all right," he heard himself saying. "You couldn't have known how I felt."

Her fingers finally rediscovered the secret of the catch. She lingered only a moment more, then she added, "Thanks for helping me out, Elmer. Good night."

"Good night," Elmer said. He watched her descend the porch steps, and walk down the walk to the curb where her car was parked, each gentle movement of her body sending a poignant chord shimmering through him. When she drove away, he was filled with sad and soundless music and he turned away from the door, seeking reassurance in the prosaic pile of the house.

Sialis was sitting in the living room, scribbling something in a little blue notebook. He looked up when Elmer entered. "That last client of yours was quite attractive," he said. "Who is she, by the way?"

"Linda Thompson, the girl I was telling you about."

"Seemed kind of thin and pale. Has she been ill?"

Elmer told him about the accident. "Funny thing about mistakes in judgment like that," Sialis said when Elmer had finished. "One always wonders whether the person involved really thought he could make it, or knew perfectly well—in the back of his mind—that he couldn't." Elmer was incredulous. "Arc you trying to tell me that Linda smashed up on purpose? Why, she's as normal as they come!"

"Normal people," Mr. Sialis said, "can lose their enthusiasm for living the same as any other kind." He made a final entry in his notebook, slipped it into his Rocket and stood up. "I hope you'll forgive me if I turn in. I've got a busy day tomorrow."

A busy day! Furious, Elmer watched him walk out of the room. A busy day doing what? All he'd done today was trim the forsythia bush by the front steps and rake the front lawn, and he hadn't even so much as gone near the bluebird house. What was he going to do tomorrow? Trim one of the spiraea bushes?

Of course he had prepared a delicious breakfast, not to mention an appetizing dinner and a fabulous supper. But just the same, facts were facts, and Bluebird Houses, Inc., was a front for free-loading if Elmer had ever seen one. Tomorrow the old man would have to go.

However, it wasn't one of the spiraea bushes that Mr. Sialis was trimming when Elmer came downstairs next morning. It was the lilac tree by the front walk. "Oh, good morning," Mr. Sialis called, espying hint on the front porch. "There's a pitcher of pancake batter on the kitchen stove, and I've got the griddle greased and sitting over a low flame. I wanted to get an early start, so I ate before you came down."

The pancakes transmuted magically from bubbly white blobs to crisp golden Sunbursts. On the outside of nine of them, Elmer felt better—until, glancing through the kitchen window, he saw a sparrow fly down from the apple tree and perch on the roof of the bluebird house as though it owned the whole back yard. In swift succession two more followed suit.

Angrily he strode down the hall toward the front door. Just as he was passing the office, the phone rang; and deferring for the moment what he was going to say to Mr. Sialis, he stepped inside and answered it, Mrs. Frisby wanted to know if he would fill out her husband's tax form if she brought his withholding statement over. Elmer said he would and replaced the phone on the cradle. Instantly it rang again.

It was the beginning of a hectic day. Half the citizens of Tompkinsville apparently had postponed confronting 1040, 1040A, separate Schedule C and 1040-ES till the last minute. Elmer forgot all about Mr. Sialis until noon; then, after absent-mindedly devouring the dinner which the old man had prepared, forgot all about him again until supper. When he finished work that evening, he was too tired to remember much, of anything.

The next day was Saturday. The sparrows were still in residence when he got up, but the phone started ringing before he even finished breakfast and shooed them out of his thoughts. Many of his clients were Watkins and Company employees. And by the time he closed up his office for the weekend, his ego should have been in orbit. But it wasn't. For all the apologetic pounds of thrust his ex-co-workers had applied to it, it still squatted miserably on its launching pad, as earth-bound as before. During supper Mr. Sialis swam back into his consciousness, and Elmer wondered what the old man had been doing for the past two days. A glance into the back yard informed him that whatever his list of activities had included it definitely hadn't included the bluebird house. The back yard was fairly swarming with sparrows, and there were so many of them roosting on the roof of the bluebird house that it was a wonder the structure didn't collapse.

For a moment Mr. Sialis's fate hung in the balance. Only the apple pie he'd baked for supper saved him. Tomorrow he'd tell the old man he had to go, Elmer resolved. Right now he had some accounts to catch up on.

In his office, he seated himself behind the desk. The Burton-James books still lay where he had left them days ago. He picked up one of them and stared at its uninspiring cover. He stared at the cover for some time. Presently he realized that he wasn't seeing it any more. He was seeing a sign instead—a big warm neon sign that said, JERRY’S GRILL.

He dropped the book as though it were a live coal and went out on the front porch. He lighted a cigarette and blew smoke into the April dusk. Down the street Mrs. Frisby was talking loudly to one of her neighbors. Next door a child's voice called, "Here I come, ready or not!" The first star came out. In his own front yard the lithe tree stood like a slender girl in a neat green dress. The grass around her feet was neat too, and the spiraea and the forsythia bushes bordering the house didn't have so much as a sprig out of place.

As he stood there, people seemed to begin walking up the walk to the door. The first one was Ed Burmaster. "I’m sorry, Elmer," Ed said. "I'm sorry you lost your job." The next one was Linda—Linda, thin and pale. "I'm sorry, Elmer, I'm sorry I acted the way I did." They kept coming on and on, and all of them were sorry. " We're sorry, Elmer. Sorry for you." He pressed his hands against his temples. Damn it, couldn't they understand? He didn't want them to feel sorry for him. He wanted—he wanted—

For the first time he faced it: He wanted to feel sorry for himself.

After backing his car out of driveway, he headed straight for the outskirts of town. The warm red glow of the sign was a second sunset in the dusk. Ed and Pete were already there, standing at the end of

the bar. Their faces lighted up when he came in. "Hey, Jerry," Pete hollered, "bring our friend here a beer!"

It was an uncivilized hour to I e calling on a girl, but there are some things you have to do before they grow cold in you and doing them becomes impossible.

He thought she would be in bed but she wasn't. She was sitting by the living-room window, reading. She carried the book with her to the door. When she saw him, it slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor, and something happened to her face.

"If you want me to," he blurted, "I’ll ask for my job back Monday."

"I don't want you to ask for your job back," she said. "I want you to ask for me back, but not now. It wouldn't be fair to you. Ask me tomorrow—when you're thinking clearly again." He nodded solemnly. "I'll phone you first thing in the morning."

"And if you don't, I'll understand. Good night, Elmer."

"Good night,” Elmer said.

When he came downstairs next morning, Mr, Sialis's suitcase was standing in the hallway. Mr. Sialis himself was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee.

"Oh, you're not leaving, are you, Mr. Sialis?"

Mr. Sialis finished his coffee anal stood up. "This very moment."

"But you were supposed to fix the bluebird house," Elmer objected—in spite of his better judgment. Mr. Sialis stepped over to the window. "Come here," he said; then; when Elmer complied, "Look." The back yard was bathed in morning sunshine. There wasn't a sparrow in sight. At first glance, the bluebird house seemed empty. Then, as Elmer watched, a blue head emerged from the round doorway. A blue, red-breasted body followed, and presently there was a blue blur of wings as the bluebird circled round the house and came to rest on, the roof. After a moment the process was repeated, and a second bluebird, slightly duller in hue, joined the first.

"But—but you never even went near the house!" Elmer said,

"Of course I didn't. There wasn’t anything wrong with it."

"Then why didn't it attract bluebirds in the first place?"

Mr. Sialis looked at him disgustedly. "You're just like all the rest of our dissatisfied customers," he said, "And believe me, they are legion. Your head is so cluttered with facts and figures that you think like an adding machine. You’ve lost your sense of wonder, and a sense of wonder is as essential in understanding bluebirds as a sense of hearing is in understanding Tchaikovsky. How could d you expect to see them when you opened your back door when your front door was closed to the world? When you had voluntarily shut yourself off from sunshine and laughter and love? The door to a bluebird house is inseparably linked to the door to the owner's heart, and when the one is closed, so too is the other. He left the kitchen and started down the hall. Elmer followed. "Can’t I at least drive you to the terminal?"

Mr. Sialis shook his head. "I phoned for one of the company cars this morning. It's waiting outside now." He picked up his suitcase. "Well, good-by, Elmer."

"You never did tell me your first name," Elmer said. Mr. Sialis smiled. "It's Sialia. But naturally no one ever calls me by it. My nickname is Hap." He opened the door. "Well, good-by, Elmer," he said again:

"Good-by, Hap."'

Elmer watched him walk own the walk to the curb and climb into the company car. The company car was a small blue one with red wheels—a foreign job if Elmer had ever seen one, though what country it came from he could not at the moment imagine. It shot away from the curb and became a blue blur down the street. A moment later it disappeared around the corner.

Sialia Sialis, he thought. Somewhere, sometime, he had run across those words. Suddenly a suspicion took shape in his mind, and he headed for his office and his Webster's unabridged. The pages flew—"blueberry," "bluebill," “bluebird." Abruptly two italicized words leaped up out of the small print and struck him between the eyes —Sialia Salis. Mr. Bluebird? Impossible! And yet—

The words blurred, and he raised his eyes from the page. When he did so, the first thing he saw was the phone. Abruptly he shoved his speculations, aside. He'd come back to them later, he told himself. Right now, he had an important call to make.

THE END