Midnight

sounded as smooth and round as he looked. He seemed unusually eager to please.
    "Would you like it cold or just slightly chilled? I keep it both ways."
    "Very slightly chilled."
    "Good man!" When he returned with a Guinness and a glass, the bartender said, "Name's Burt Peckham. I own the joint."
    Carefully pouring the stout down the side of the glass to ensure the smallest possible head, Sam said, "Sam Booker. Nice place, Burt."
    "Thanks. Maybe you could spread the word. I try to keep it cozy and well stocked, and we used to have quite a crowd, but lately it seems like most of the town either joined a temperance movement or started brewing their own in their basements, one or the other."
    "Well, it's a Monday night."
    "These last couple months, it's not been unusual to be half empty even on a Saturday night, which never used to happen."
    Burt Peckham's round face dimpled with worry. He slowly polished the bar while he talked.
    "What it is—I think maybe this health kick Californians have been on for so long has finally just gone too far. They're all staying home, doing aerobics in front of the VCR, eating wheat germ and egg whites or whatever the hell it is they eat, drinking nothing but bottled water and fruit juice and titmouse milk. Listen, a tipple or two a day is good for you."
    Sam drank some of the Guinness, sighed with satisfaction, and said, "This sure tastes as if it ought to be good for you."
    "It is. Helps your circulation. Keeps your bowels in shape. Ministers ought to be touting its virtues each Sunday, not preaching against it. All things in moderation—and that includes a couple of brews a day." Perhaps realizing that he was polishing the bar a bit obsessively, he hung the rag on a hook and stood with his arms folded across his chest. "You just passing through, Sam?"
    "Actually," Sam lied, "I'm taking a long trip up the coast from L.A. to the Oregon line, loafing along, looking for a quiet place to semi-retire."
    "Retire? You kidding?"
    " Semi -retire. But you're only, what, forty, forty-one?"
    "Forty-two."
    "What are you—a bank robber?"
    "Stockbroker. Made some good investments over the years. Now I think I can drop out of the rat race and get by well enough just managing my own portfolio. I want to settle down where it's quiet, no smog, no crime. I've had it with L. A."
    "People really make money in stocks?" Peckham asked. "I thought it was about as good an investment as a craps table in Reno. Wasn't everybody wiped out when the market blew up a couple years ago?"
    "It's a mug's game for the little guy, but you can do all right if you're a broker and if you don't get swept up in the euphoria of a bull market. No market goes up forever or down forever; you just have to guess right about when to start swimming against the current."
    "Retiring at forty-two," Peckham said wonderingly. "And when I got into the bar business, I thought I was set for life. Told my wife—in good times, people drink to celebrate, in bad times they drink to forget, so there's no better business than a tavern. Now look." He indicated the nearly empty room with a sweeping gesture of his right hand. "I'd have done better selling condoms in a monastery."
    "Get me another Guinness?" Sam asked.
    "Hey, maybe this place will turn around yet!"
    When Peckham returned with the second bottle of stout, Sam said, "Moonlight Cove might be what I've been looking for. I guess I'll stay a few days, get the feel of it. Can you recommend a motel?"
    "There's only one left. Never been much of a tourist town. No one here really wanted that, I guess. Up until this summer, we had four motels. Now three are out of business. I don't know … even as pretty as it is, maybe this burg is dying. As far as I can see, we aren't losing population but … dammit, we're losing something ." He snatched up the bar rag again and began to polish the oak.
    "Anyway, try Cove Lodge on Cypress Lane. That's the last cross street on Ocean Avenue; it runs along the bluff, so you'll probably have a room with an ocean view. Clean, quiet place."

5
    At the end of the downstairs hall, Chrissie Foster threw open the front door. She raced across the wide porch and down the steps, stumbled, regained her balance, turned right, and fled across the yard, past a blue Honda that evidently belonged to Tucker, heading for the stables. The hard slap of her tennis shoes seemed to boom like cannon fire through the swiftly fading twilight. She wished that she could run silently—and