Watchers

looked nothing like the dignified silver-haired barrister known by everyone in the city’s courts. His hair was wet, dirty, and matted. His face Was smeared with dirt. Sand, bits of grass, and threads of seaweed were stuck
    to his bare skin and tangled in his gray chest hair. He grinned happily at himself.
    “There’s a phone in here,” Tommy said from the den.
     
     
    After preparing dinner, eating, cleaning up, and then worrying about Einstein’s loss of appetite, Nora and Travis had forgotten about calling Garrison Dilworth and thanking him for the care with which he had packaged and shipped her paintings. They were sitting in front of the fireplace when she remembered.
    In the past, when they had called Garrison, they had done so from public phones in Carmel. That had proved to be an unnecessary precaution. And now, tonight, neither of them was in the mood to get in the car and drive into town.
    “We could wait and call him from Carmel tomorrow,” Travis said.
    “It’ll be safe to phone from here,” she said. “If they’d made a link between you and Garrison, he’d have called and warned us off.”
    “He might not know they’ve made a link,” Travis said. “He might not know they’re watching him.”
    “Garrison would know,” she said firmly.
    Travis nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure he would.”
    “So it’s safe to call him.”
    She was halfway to the phone when it rang.
    The operator said, “I have a collect call for anyone from a Mr. Garrison Dilworth in Santa Barbara. Will you accept the charges?”
     
     
    A few minutes before ten o’clock, after conducting a thorough but fruitless search of the park and beach, Lem reluctantly admitted that Garrison Dilworth had somehow gotten past him. He sent his men back to the courthouse and harbor.
    He and Cliff also drove back to the harbor to the sport yacht from which they had based their surveillance of Dilworth. When they put in a call to the Coast Guard cutter pursuing the Amazing Grace, they learned that the attorney's lady had turned around well short of Ventura and was heading north along the coast, back to Santa Barbara.
    She entered the harbor at ten thirty-six.
    At the empty slip belonging to Garrison, Lem and Cliff huddled in the crisp wind, watching her bring the Hinckley smoothly and gently into its mooring. It was a beautiful boat, beautifully handled.
    She had the gall to shout at them, “Don’t just stand there! Grab the lines and help tie her up!”
    They obliged primarily because they were anxious to speak with her and could not do so until the Amazing Grace was secured.
    Once their assistance had been rendered, they stepped through the railing gate. Cliff was wearing Top-Siders as part of his boater’s disguise, but Lem was in street shoes and not at all sure-footed on the wet deck, especially as the boat was rocking slightly.
    Before they could say a word to the woman, a voice behind them said, “Excuse me, gentlemen—”
    Lem turned and saw Garrison Dilworth in the glow of a dock lamp, just boarding the boat behind them. He was wearing someone else’s clothes. His pants were much too big in the waist, cinched in with a belt. They were too short in the legs, so his bare ankles were revealed. He wore a voluminous shirt.
    “—please excuse me, but I’ve got to get into some warm clothes of my own and have a pot of coffee—”
    Lem said, “God damn it.”
    “—to thaw out these old bones.”
    After a gasp of astonishment, Cliff Soames let out a hard bark of laughter, then glanced at Lem and said, “Sorry.”
    Lem’s stomach cramped and burned with an incipient ulcer. He did not wince with pain, did not double over, did not even put a hand on his gut, gave no indication of discomfort because any such sign from him might increase Dilworth’s satisfaction. Lem just glared at the attorney, at the woman, then left without saying a word.
    “That damn dog,” Cliff said as he fell into step at Lem’s side on the dock, “sure inspires one hell of a lot of loyalty.”
    Later, bedding down in a motel because he was too tired to close the temporary field office tonight and go home to Orange County, Lem Johnson thought about what Cliff had said. Loyalty. One hell of a lot of loyalty.
    Lem wondered if he had ever felt such a strong bond of loyalty to anyone as the Cornells and Garrison Dilworth apparently felt toward the retriever. He tossed and turned, unable to sleep, and he finally realized there was no use trying to