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discern my presence after the fact. I lifted my head. Had I heard a noise or not? I checked the fish-eye again.
    Wendell and the woman had just emerged from the elevator and were heading in my direction. She was visibly upset, voice shrill, her gestures theatrical. He was looking grim, his face stony and his mouth set, slapping a newspaper against his leg as he walked.
    One of the things I've learned about panic is that it inspires gross errors in judgment. Events take place in a blur in which the instinct for survival-winged flight, in this case--overrules all else. Suddenly you find your- self on the far side of a crisis in worse shape than you were to start. The instant I spotted them, I tucked all my personal items in my pants pocket and slid the security chain off the slide track. I reached for the bathroom light and flipped it out, flipped out the overhead light in the bedroom, and then moved speedily to the sliding glass door to the balcony. Once outside, I glanced back to assure myself that I'd left the room just as I'd found it. Shit! They'd left the bathroom light on. I'd flipped it out. As though with X-ray vision, I could picture Wendell approaching on the far side of the door, room key at the ready. In my imagination he was moving faster than I was. I calculated rapidly. It was too late to correct. Maybe they'd forget or imagine that the bulb had burned out.
    I crossed to the edge of the balcony, swung my right leg over, secured my foot between the pales, swung the other leg over. I reached for the railing on the next balcony, crossing the distance just as the light in Wendell's room came on. I was acutely aware of the adrenaline that had juiced my pulse rate up into training range, but at least I was safe on the adjacent balcony.
    Except for the guy standing out there smoking a cigarette. I don't know which of us was more surprised. He was, no doubt, because I knew what I was doing there and he did not. I had an additional advantage in that fear had accelerated all my senses, giving me an exaggerated awareness of his persona. The truth about this man began to flash through the air at me like the subliminal messages suddenly made visible in a sports training film.
    The man was white. The man was in his sixties and balding. What hair he had was silver and combed straight back from his face. He wore glasses with the kind of dark frames that looked like they'd house hearing aids in the stems. The man smelled of alcohol, fumes pouring from his body in nearly radiant waves. He had blood pressure high enough to make his flushed face glow, and his pug nose had a ruby cast that gave him the kindly look of a K mart Santa Claus. He was shorter than I and therefore didn't seem that threatening. In fact, he had a puzzled air about him that made me want to reach out and pat him on the head. I realized I'd seen the guy twice in my constant cruising of the hotel in search of Wendell and his lady friend. Both times I'd spotted him in the bar--once alone, his elbow propped up, his cigarette ember weaving as he orchestrated his own lengthy monologue, once in a party of bawdy guys his age, overweight, out of shape, smoking cigars, and telling the kinds of jokes that inspired sudden martini- generated guffaws.
    I had a decision to make. I slowed myself to a leisurely pace. I reached over and lifted his glasses gingerly from his face, folding the stems so I could tuck them into my shirt pocket. "Hey, stud. How are you? You're lookin' good tonight."
    His hands came up in a helpless gesture of protest. I unbuttoned my right sleeve, while I gave him a look of lingering assessment.
    "Who are you?" he asked.
    I smiled, blinking lazily as I unbuttoned my left sleeve. "Surprise, surprise. Where have you been all this time? I been lookin' for you since six o'clock tonight."
    "Do I know you?"
    "Well, I'm sure you will, Jack. We're going to have us a good old time tonight."
    He shook his head. "I think you've made a mistake. My name's not