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Jesus! How did some of those slow-thinking freaks who bad cars ever get

drivers' licenses? She was second in line at a traffic light which had gone

to green, but the guy in front hadn't moved yet. Was be asleep? She sounded

her horn impatiently. Shit! The traffic light winked to amber, then red as

Nancy reached it. But the cross street seemed clear so she took a chance

and ran the red.

After a few more minutes she could see that crummy bar ahead, where she had

been last week. How late was she? As she came level with the bar, Nancy

glanced at her Piaget watch. Eighteen minutes. And wouldn't you knowl-there

was no parking space today. She found a spot two blocks away and, after

locking the Mercedes, burried back.

Inside the bar it was dark and mildewy, as before. As Nancy paused, letting

her eyes adjust, she had the impression that nothing had changed in seven

days, not even the customers.

Yvette had waited, Nancy saw. She was seated alone, a beer in front of her,

at the same corner table they bad occupied previously. She glanced up as

Nancy approached, but gave no sign of interest or recognition.

"Hil" Nancy greeted her. "Sorry I'm late."

Yvette shrugged slightly, but said nothing.

Nancy signaled a waiter. "Another beer." She waited until it came, in the

meantime covertly inspecting the girl, who had still said nothing. She

appeared to be in even worse shape than a week ago-her skin blotchy, hair

a mess. The same clothes were dirty and looked as if they bad been slept in

for a month. On her right band was the improvised glove, presumably

shielding a deformity, which Nancy had noticed at their first encounter.

Nancy took a swig of her beer, which tasted good, then decided to come to

the point. "You said you'd tell me today what goes on in that house on

Crocker Street, and what Davey Birdsong does there."

Yvette looked up. "No, I didn't. You just hoped I would."

"Okay, well I'm still hoping. Why don't you start by telling me what it is

you're afraid of?"

4' I'm not afraid any more." The girl made the statement in a flat, dull

voice, her face expressionless.

Nancy thought: She wasn't getting anywhere and maybe it bad been a waste of

time coming. Trying again, she asked, "So what happened between last week

and this to make the difference?"

Yvette didn't answer. Instead she seemed to be considering, weighing

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something in her mind. While she did, as if instinctively and unaware of

what she was doing, she used her left hand to rub the right. First with

the glove on, then she slipped it off.

With shock and horror Nancy stared at what was exposed.

What had been a hand was an ugly red-white mess of weals and scars. Two

fingers were gone, with uneven stubs remaining and loose flesh

protruding. The other fingers, while more or less complete, had jagged

portions missing. One finger was grotesquely bent, a dried yellow piece

of bone exposed.

Nancy said, sickened, "My God! What happened to your hand?"

Yvette glanced down, then realizing what she had done, covered the hand

hastily.

Nancy persisted, "What happened?"

"It was . . . I had an accident."

"But who left it like that? A doctor?"

"I didn't go to one," Yvette said. She choked back tears. "They wouldn't

let me."

"Who wouldn't?" Nancy felt her anger rising. "Birdsong?"

The girl nodded. "And Georgos."

"Who the hell is Georgos? And why wouldn't they take you to a doctor?"

Nancy reached out, gripping Yvette's good hand. "Kid, let me help you!

I can. And we can still, do something about that hand. There's time."

Ile girl shook her head. The emotion had drained from her, leaving her

face and eyes as they had been earlier-empty, dull, resigned.

"Just tell me," Nancy pleaded. "Tell me what it's all about."

Yvette let out her breath in what might or might not, have been a sigh.

Then, abruptly, she reached down beside her to the floor and lifted up

a battered brown purse. Opening it, she took out two recording tape

cassettes which she put on the table and slid across to Nancy.

"It's all there," Yvette said. Then, in a single movement, she drained

what remained of her beer and stood up to go.

"Heyl" Nancy protested. "Don't leave yet! We only just got started.

Listen, why not tell me what's on those tapes so we can talk about it?"

"It's all there," the girl repeated.

"Yes, but . . ." Nancy found she was talking to herself. A moment later

the outer door opened, briefly admitting sunlight, then Yvette was gone.

There seemed nothing to be gained by going after her.

Curiously, Nancy turned the tape cassettes over in her band, recognizing

them as a cheap brand which could be bought in packets for a dollar or

so each. Neither cassette was labeled; there was just a penciled 4 27 3,

4 on the various sides. Well, she would play them on her tape deck at

home tonight and hope there was something worthwhile there.

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She felt let down and disappointed, though, not to have got some

definite information while Yvette was with her.

Nancy finished her beer and paid for it, then left. A half hour later

she was in the Examiner city room, immersed in other work.

3

When Yvette told Nancy Molineaux, "I'm not afraid any more," the statement

was true. Yesterday Yvette had reached a decision which relieved her of

concern about immediate affairs, freed her from all doubts, anxiety and

pain, and removed the overwhelming fear-which she had lived with for

months-of her arrest and life imprisonment.

The decision yesterday was simply that, as soon as she had delivered the

tapes to that switched-on black woman who worked for a newspaper, and who

would know what to do with them, Yvette would kill herself. When she left

the Crocker Street house this morning-for the last time-she carried with

her the means to do so.

And now she had delivered the tapes, those tapes she put together,

carefully and patiently, and which incriminated Georgos and Davey

Birdsong, revealed what they had done and what they planned, and

disclosed the scenario of destruction and murder intended for tonightor

rather 3 A.M. tomorrow morning-at the Christopher Columbus Hotel. Georgos

hadn't thought she knew about that but all the time she bad.

Walking away from that bar, and now that it was done, Yvette felt at

peace.

Peace, at last.

It bad been a long time since she bad known any. For sure there had been

none with Georgos, though at first the excitement of being Georgos'

woman, of listening to his educated talk and sharing the important things

he did, had made everything else seem not to matter. It was only later,

much later, and when it was too late to help herself, that she began

wondering if Georgos was sick, if all of his cleverness and college

learning had become in some way . . . what was that word?

perverted.

Now she truly believed it had been, believed that Georgos was sick, maybe

even mad.

And yet, Yvette reminded herself, she still cared about Georgos; even

now, when she had done what she had to. And whatever happened to him, she

hoped he wouldn't get hurt too badly, or be made to suffer

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much, though she knew both things could happen after the black woman

played those tapes today and told whoever she decided to-the police most

likely-what was on them.

About Davey Birdson, though, Yvette didn't give a damn. She didn't like

him, never had. He was mean and hard, never showing any of the little

kindnesses Georgos did, despite Georgos being a revolutionary and not

being supposed to. Birdsong could be killed before today was out or rot

in jail forever, and she wouldn't care; in fact, she hoped one of the two

would happen. Yvette blamed Birdsong for a lot of the bad scenes that had

happened to her and Georgos. 'ne Christopher Columbus Hotel thing had

been Birdsong's idea; that was in the tapes too.

Then she realized she would never know what happened to Birdsong, or

Georgos, because she would be dead herself.

Oh God-she was only twenty-twol She had hardly started her life and

didn't want to die. But she didn't want to spend the rest of it in prison

either. Even dying was better than that.

Yvette kept on walking. She knew where she was going and it would take

roughly half an hour. That was something else she had decided yesterday.

It was less than four months ago-a week after that night on the hill

above Millfield when Georgos killed the two guards-that she realized just

how much trouble she was in. Murder. She was guilty of it, equally with

Georgos.

At first she hadn't believed him when he told her. He was merely trying

to frighten her, she thought, when, on the way back to the city from

Millfield, be had warned, "You're in this as much as I am. You were

there, a part of it all, and you killed those pigs just as if you pulled

the knife or fired the gun. So whatever happens to me happens to you."

But a few days later she read in a newspaper about the California trial

of three men charged with first-degree murder. The trio had broken into

a building together and their leader shot and killed a night watchman.

T'hough the other two were unarmed and did not participate actively in

the killing, all three were found guilty and given the same sentence-life

imprisonment without possibility of parole. It was then Yvette realized

that Georgos had been telling the truth and, from that moment, her

desperation grew.

It grew, based on the knowledge that there was no going back, no escaping

what she had become. That had been the hardest thing to accept, even

while knowing there was no alternative.

Some nights, lying awake beside Georgos in the darkness of that dreary

Crocker Street house, she had fantasized that she could go back, back to

the farm in Kansas where she had been born and lived as a child. Compared

with here and now, those days seemed bright and carefree.

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Which was bullshit, of course.

The farm was a rocky twenty acres from which Yvette's father, a sour,

cantankerous, quarrelsome man, barely scratched enough of a living to

feed the family of six, let alone meet mortgage payments. It was never

a home of warmth or love. Fierce fights between the parents were a norm

which their children learned to emulate. Yvette's mother, a chronic

complainer, frequently let Yvette-the youngest-know she hadn't been

wanted and an abortion would have been preferable.

Yvette, following the example of her two older brothers and a sister,

left home for good as soon as she was able, and never went back. She had

no idea where any of the family were now, or if her parents were dead,

and told herself she didn't care. She wondered, though, if her parents,

or brothers and sister, would hear or read about her death, and if it

would matter to them in any way.

Of course, Yvette thought, it would be easy to blame those earlier years

for what had happened to her since, but it would be neither true nor