Vivian Regan put her head back and laughed triumphantly.
The croupier lifted his rake and slowly pushed the stack of thousand-dollar bills across the layout, added them to the stake, pushed everything slowly out of the field of play.
Eddie Mars smiled, put his wallet back in his pocket, turned on his heel and left the room through the door in the paneling.
A dozen people let their breath out at the same time and broke for the bar.
I broke with them and got to the far end of the room before Vivian had gathered up her winnings and turned away from the table.
I went into the large quiet lobby, got my hat and coat from the check girl, dropped a quarter in her tray and went out on the porch.
The doorman loomed up beside me and said: "Can I get your car for you, sir?"
I said: "I'm just going for a walk."
The scrollwork along the edge of the porch was wet with the fog. The fog dripped from the Monterey cypresses that shadowed off into nothing towards the cliff above the ocean.
You could see a scant dozen feet in any direction.
I went down the porch steps and drifted off through the trees, following an indistinct path until I could hear the wash of the surf licking at the fog, low down at the bottom of the cliff.
There wasn't a gleam of light anywhere.
I could see a dozen trees clearly at one time, another dozen dimly, then nothing at all but the fog.
I circled to the left and drifted back towards the gravel path that went around to the stables where they parked the cars. When I could make out the outlines of the house I stopped.
A little in front of me I had heard a man cough.
My steps hadn't made any sound on the soft moist turf.
The man coughed again, then stifled the cough with a handkerchief or a sleeve.
While he was still doing that I moved forward closer to him. I made him out, a vague shadow close to the path.
Something made me step behind a tree and crouch down.
The man turned his head.
His face should have been a white blur when he did that.
It wasn't.
It remained dark.
There was a mask over it.
I waited, behind the tree.
23
Light steps, the steps of a woman, came along the invisible pathway and the man in front of me moved forward and seemed to lean against the fog.
I couldn't see the woman, then I could see her indistinctly. The arrogant carriage of her head seemed familiar.
The man stepped out very quickly.
The two figures blended in the fog, seemed to be part of the fog.
There was dead silence for a moment.
Then the man said:
"This is a gun, lady.
Gentle now.
Sound carries in the fog.
Just hand me the bag."
The girl didn't make a sound.
I moved forward a step. Quite suddenly I could see the foggy fuzz on the man's hat brim.
The girl stood motionless.
Then her breathing began to make a rasping sound, like a small file on soft wood.
"Yell," the man said, "and I'll cut you in half."
She didn't yell. She didn't move.
There was a movement from him, and a dry chuckle.
"It better be in here," he said. A catch clicked and a fumbling sound came to me. The man turned and came towards my tree.
When he had taken three or four steps he chuckled again.
The chuckle was something out of my own memories.
I reached a pipe out of my pocket and held it like a gun.
I called out softly: "Hi, Lanny."
The man stopped dead and started to bring his hand up.
I said: "No.