ate out of cans, and Catell boiled coffee. Lily didn’t know how to cook.

After two days they left the apartment and drove to Santa Barbara. During the day they lay on the beach; at night they stayed in a motel near the pier. It had two tiny rooms, fixed up like a home. Lying in bed at night, they could hear the surf; if they sat up they could see the slow roll of the breakers on the long, empty beach. The little ruffled curtains would move in the breeze.

“Let’s play house,” Lily said.

“We can’t. You don’t know how to cook.”

“You hungry?”

“Nope.”

“Then why’re you talking about cooking?”

“Because you said that about playing house.”

“I may not know how to cook, but I know how to play house.” Lily smiled and let herself fall back on the bed.

There was nobody in Santa Barbara that they knew or that bothered to know them. Either way, they wouldn’t have paid any attention. On the beach they lay in the hot sun, watching the play around them, not caring to join in.

“See those kids with the ball, Lily? High-school kids.”

“They are?”

“Yeah. They’re your age.”

“Maybe. But not really,” and Lily stretched in the sand, like a cat rubbing her back, smiling at Catell with a slow sideways look.

Catell suffered only in the evenings, or early in the mornings. None of his wounds had healed, and sometimes he felt weak, shivery, his body like a rag doll soaked in water.

“How long have you been like this, Tony?”

“I don’t know. A long time, it seems.”

Lily bandaged his hand; the gauze became stained quickly. And once, in the waves, his body froze with a sick terror, a steel vise cramping his chest, and the breath stuck in his throat like a solid thing. This he never told Lily, but the rest of the day he kept still, lying flat, sweat breaking from his pores with each movement.

Sometimes he thought of his gold; each time the hard will that dominated all his acts flashed up like a blinding flame, forging his doubts, his pains, even his pleasures into a sharp steely point, like a weapon. The new start, the new life, the big time. Lily. Did any of this exist without Lily? The gold had been there before Lily, and all his sudden strength that came on him suddenly like a cramp, that too had been with him before Lily. But all this, no different now than it had been before, existed now because of the girl—the woman he had found.

Lily had never spoken of such things. Her face was open and seemed to say nothing, and she gave her body without gesture. Lily had happy days with Catell.

When they left Santa Barbara they moved into an apartment in Santa Monica. Then Catell called Smith.

“I have an office downtown,” Smith said. “The Western Development Company. Look it up in the book. I’ll expect you tonight at eight.”

Lily went to the club to do her job, and Catell went downtown.

The place looked like any other office that used more than one desk. There was a railing with a swinging gate, there were several desks and filing cabinets and a switchboard. In the back an office was set apart by frosted glass. The place looked empty.

When Catell started through the swinging gate, the office door in the back opened and a goon with a face like a tomato came out.

“He’s waiting for ya. Step right in,” and the goon came past Catell and sat down at the switchboard.

Smith looked as he always did, rotund, a little jovial, his mouth busy on a cigar.

“Nice tan you got. Sit down, Catell, sit down.”

Catell sat.

“And how’s the little Lily?”

“She’s—Why do you ask?”

“Just polite, Catell, just a polite inquiry.”

“She’s fine. You know why I’m here, Smith, so let’s—”

“Of course. The gold. What do you think we ought to do, Catell?”

“What’s there to think? We made a deal, we set the price, and this is it. Where do you want it and when? That’s all there is to do, Smith.”

Catell had started to raise his voice, but he controlled himself. He saw a speck of dust on his pants and brushed it off with a short movement. “Our agreement stands, Smith. You’re not dealing with a punk.”

Smith exhaled noisily, letting the sound die down. Then he leaned back and looked at the ceiling.

“You say we have a deal on, Catell, and you are right. You did a job and I paid you. I paid you even though