man old enough—”

“Selma!”

“Tony, look at us.” Selma’s voice was getting faster, more urgent. “I’m your kind. Anything you want, I can give you. I can—”

“Selma, I’m sick of your voice.”

“Listen to me, Tony. She’s no good for you. Look what she’s done to you, and look at her. Just a brat. A brat decked out like a woman. Christ, Tony, don’t you see. She’s nothing but a free lay. I know her kind. She’s—”

“Enough, now!”

“—flashy, dolled up, no good. Look at her, Tony. That dumb face, and—and—why, she’s got breasts twice the size of mine! It’s indecent, Tony. She oughta be—”

That’s when he hit her the second time.

She fell. When she jumped up from the floor, her big teeth were bared as if she were going to bite.

“Now you’ve done it, big shot.” She was hoarse. “I told you I wasn’t through and you can bet your last dime this is the straight stuff. You think you can get away with just about anything, huh? Well, I’ve got a surprise for you. And you know who that surprise is? The name wouldn’t mean a thing to you, but it’s Herron.”

Selma was panting now, the words stumbling out, making a mean, clattering sound.

“No, lovin’ cup, I’m not talking about a boyfriend. This is bigger than you, big shot. This guy is the FBI. You hear me? The FBI!”

Nobody moved when Selma stopped for breath, and before Catell had got the full punch of her words, she started again.

“And he’s a friend of mine, lovin’ cup, a real good friend of mine. So you better listen to what I say and do what I say, because one little word, lovin’ cup, one little word outa my sweet lips, and you can kiss the world goodbye!”

The hate that shook him was bigger than the world. It tore at his muscles, pushed through his veins with a roar, and he felt as if his skin were too small for him. Without a sound, like a snake striking, he was at Selma’s throat, shaking her, crashing her head against the mantel of the fireplace, tasting the blood where his teeth sank into his lip. At first, through the brilliant curtain of his rage, he heard nothing, saw nothing but the ugly face that blurred in front of him. Then he heard Lily’s voice, crying with a desperate pleading, “Don’t do it, don’t, Tony, please! We can leave her, Tony! Darling, I’m here, here!”

And he stopped.

The strength of his feeling was still with him, but it no longer had anything to do with Selma.

“Get dressed, Lily. Fast.” He turned the girl around and pushed her toward the door of their bedroom. Trying to follow her, he felt hands clawing at his leg.

“Let go. Damn you, let go!” He was trying to pick himself loose when Selma suddenly released his leg. She rolled back, staggered to her feet. With grotesque movements she lurched toward Catell. Her hair straggled over the contorted face, lipstick a wild smear. One shoe had come off and she limped.

“Let go?” she screeched. “Let go? Let go?”

“Not again, please!” Lily threw herself between Catell and Selma, who was reaching out with crooked nails.

“Let go?” she screeched again. “Let go?” And her nails dug into the soft shoulders of the girl. Before Catell could leap at the crazed woman, she had spun Lily around and tossed her to one side. Lily staggered back, over the shoe, and then there was a curious sound.

Gathering all his rage into the whip of his arm, Catell swung out, but the coiled thing inside him never landed, never exploded.

Lily was on the floor, face up, and yet she was not on the floor. As if suspended in space, her body angled up, gently, toward the side of the dark fireplace. Beneath her neck, where her head tilted, stood the black andiron with the spike.

There was only a slight short twisting, then the soft slump of final surrender to death.

In the first instant of seeing, of knowing, Catell heard the terrible sounds of everything that breaks, bursts, and rips apart beyond repair, and the mad turning of all that moves, speeds, dashes about for a while, turning like a giant wheel, around, around. Then the wheel stopped.

At his side was Lily, still strangely suspended, lax now, and as always her eyes looked out in their quiet, wide way. Catell reached for her hand, then let it drop. The wheel had stopped.

Selma crept forward, staring at the two things there