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As the plane lifted into the sky, heading for California and Disneyland, Karen said, "He's so happy. Do you think he'll be all right by himself?"

"He's very mature," Fred said. "He has his hotel arrangements, plenty of money, a snack in his lunchbox and lots of common sense. Hell be all right."

At the end of the week, when it was time for Bob to return, Fred and Karen were not available to pick him up at the airport. They made arrangements with their next-door neighbor, Sally, to do the job for them. When they got home, they could hear Bob playing the stereo in the study, and they went down to see him.

The music was loud and heavy metal and Bob had never listened to that sort of thing before. The room smelled of smoke, and not cigarettes. Bob was lying on the floor reading, and at first, Fred and Karen thought it was the Disney brochures, but then they saw those wadded up in the trashcan by the door.

Bob was looking at a girlie magazine and a reefer was hanging out of his mouth. Fred looked at Karen and Karen was clearly shaken.

"Bob?" Fred said.

"Yeah," Bob said without looking up from the foldout, and his tone was surly.

"Did you enjoy Disneyland?"

Bob carefully took the reefer out of his mouth and thumped ash on the carpet. There was the faintest impression of tears in his eyes. He stood up and tossed the reefer down and ground it into the carpet with his foot.

"Did. did you see Mickey Mouse?" Karen asked.

"Shit," Bob said, "there isn't any goddamn mouse. It's just some guy in a suit. The same with the duck." And with that, Bob stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door and they couldn't get him out of there for the rest of the day.

The Steel Valentine

This is another of those stories that I thought was a good standard tale. I wrote it for a Valentine anthology, and the editor of the anthology accepted it, but the editor at the publishing house was upset with it. The dog business got her goat. Okay. But what about the human business? Folks are weird. Anyway, for a while it was certainly one of my more popular stories, and to be quite honest, I've grown pretty fond of it myself.

EVEN BEFORE MORLEY TOLD HIM, DENNIS knew things were about to get ugly.

A man did not club you unconscious, bring you to his estate and tie you to a chair in an empty storage shed out back of the place if he merely intended to give you a valentine.

Morley had found out about him and Julie.

Dennis blinked his eyes several times as he came to, and each time he did, more of the dimly lit room came into view. It was the room where he and Julie had first made love. It was the only building on the estate that looked out of place: it was old, worn, and not even used for storage; it was a collector of dust, cobwebs, spiders and dessicated flies.

There was a table in front of Dennis, a kerosene lantern on it, and beyond, partially hidden in shadow, a man sitting in a chair smoking a cigarette. Dennis could see the red tip glowing in the dark, and the smoke from it drifted against the lantern light and hung in the air like thin, suspended wads of cotton.

The man leaned out of shadow, and as Dennis expected, it was Morley. His shaved, bullet-shaped head was sweaty and reflected the light. He was smiling with his fine, white teeth, and the high cheek bones were round, flushed circles that looked like clown rouge. The tightness of his skin, the few wrinkles, made him look younger than his fifty-one years.

And in most ways he was younger than his age. He was a man who took care of himself. Jogged eight miles every morning before breakfast, lifted weights three times a week and had only one bad habit — cigarettes. He smoked three packs a day. Dennis knew all that and he had only met the man twice. He had learned it from Julie, Morley's wife. She told him about Morley while they lay in bed. She liked to talk and she often talked about Morley; about how much she hated him.

"Good to see you," Morley said, and blew smoke across the table into Dennis's face. "Happy Valentine's Day, my good man. I was beginning to think I hit you too hard, put you in a coma."

"What is this, Morley?" Dennis found that the mere act of speaking sent nails of pain through his skull. Morley really had lowered the boom on him.

"Spare me the innocent act, lover boy. You've been laying the pipe to Julie, and I don't like it."

"This is silly, Morley. Let me loose."

"God, they do say stupid things like that in real life. It isn't just the movies. you think I brought you here just to let you go, lover boy?"

Dennis didn't answer. He tried to silently work the ropes loose that held his hands to the back of the chair. If he could get free, maybe he could grab the lantern, toss it in Morley's face. There would still be the strand holding his ankles to the chair, but maybe it wouldn't take too long to undo that. And even if it did, it was at least some kind of plan.

If he got the chance to go one on one with Morley, he might take him. He was twenty-five years younger and in good shape himself. Not as good as when he was playing pro basketball, but good shape nonetheless. He had height, reach, and he still had wind. He kept the latter with plenty of jogging and tossing the special-made, sixty-five pound medicine ball around with Raul at the gym.

Still, Morley was strong. Plenty strong. Dennis could testify to that. The pulsating knot on the side of his head was there to remind him.

He remembered the voice in the parking lot, turning toward it and seeing a fist. Nothing more, just a fist hurtling toward him like a comet. Next thing he knew, he was here, the outbuilding.

Last time he was here, circumstances were different, and better. He was with Julie. He met her for the first time at the club where he worked out, and they had spoken, and ended up playing racquetball together. Eventually she brought him here and they made love on an old mattress in the corner; lay there afterward in the June heat of a Mexican summer, holding each other in a warm, sweaty embrace.

After that, there had been many other times. In the great house; in cars; hotels. Always careful to arrange a tryst when Morley was out of town. Or so they thought. But somehow he had found out.

"This is where you first had her," Morley said suddenly. "And don't look so wide-eyed. I'm not a mind reader. She told me all the other times and places too. She spat at me when I told her I knew, but I made her tell me every little detail, even when I knew them. I wanted it to come from her lips. She got so she couldn't wait to tell me. She was begging to tell me. She asked me to forgive her and take her back. She no longer wanted to leave Mexico and go back to the States with you. She just wanted to live."

"You bastard. If you've hurt her —»

"You'll what? Shit your pants? That's the best you can do, Dennis. You see, it's me that has you tied to the chair. Not the other way around."

Morley leaned back into the shadows again, and his hands came to rest on the table, the perfectly manicured fingertips steepling together, twitching ever so gently.

"I think it would have been inconsiderate of her to have gone back to the States with you, Dennis. Very inconsiderate. She knows I'm a wanted man there, that I can't go back. She thought she'd be rid of me. Start a new life with her ex-basketball player. That hurt my feelings, Dennis. Right to the bone." Morley smiled. "But she wouldn't have been rid of me, lover boy. Not by a long shot. I've got connections in my business. I could have followed her anywhere. in fact, the idea that she thought I couldn't offended my sense of pride."

"Where is she? What have you done with her, you bald-headed bastard?"

After a moment of silence, during which Morley examined Dennis's face, he said, "Let me put it this way. Do you remember her dogs?"