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way. But who the hell are you?”
    “That doesn’t matter. We don’t have time for it anyway.” He stepped behind the counter and stooped in front of Laura, face to face with her. “Did you understand what I told your father? If the police ask you what happened—”
    “You were with that man,” she said, pointing in the general direction of the corpse.
    “That’s right.”
    “You were his friend,” she said, “but then you started arguing about me, though I’m not sure why, ‘cause I didn’t do anything—”
    “It doesn’t matter why, honey,” the stranger said.
    Laura nodded. “And the next thing you shot him and ran out with all our money and drove away, and I was very scared.”
    The man looked up at Bob. “Eight years old, huh?”
    “She’s a smart girl.”
    “But it’d still be best if the cops didn’t question her much.”
    “I won’t let them.”
    “If they do,” Laura said, “I’ll just cry and cry till they stop.”
    The stranger smiled. He stared at Laura so lovingly that he made Bob uneasy. His manner was not that of the pervert who had wanted to take her into the storeroom; his expression was tender, affectionate. He touched her cheek. Astonishingly, tears shimmered in his eyes. He blinked, stood. “Bob, put that money away. Remember, I left with it.”
    Bob realized the wad of cash was still in his hand. He jammed it into his pants pocket, and his loose apron concealed the bulge.
    The stranger unlocked the door and put up the shade. “Take care of her, Bob. She’s special.” Then he dashed into the rain, letting the door stand open behind him, and got into the Buick. The tires squealed as he pulled out of the parking lot.
    The radio was on, but Bob heard it for the first time since “The End of the World” had been playing, before the junkie had been shot. Now Shelley Fabares was singing “Johnny Angel.”
    Suddenly he heard the rain again, not just as a dull background hiss and patter but really heard it, beating furiously on the windows and on the roof of the apartment above. In spite of the wind rushing through the open door, the stink of blood and urine was abruptly far worse than it had been a moment ago, and just as precipitously, as if coming out of a trance of terror and regaining his full senses, he realized how close his precious Laura had come to dying. He scooped her into his arms, lifted her off the floor, and held her, repeating her name, smoothing her hair. He buried his face against her neck and smelled the sweet freshness of her skin, felt the pulse of the artery in her throat, and thanked God that she was alive.
    “I love you, Laura.”
    “I love you, too, Daddy. I love you because of Sir Tommy Toad and a million other reasons. But we’ve got to call the police now.”
    “Yes, of course,” he said, reluctantly putting her down.
    His eyes were full of tears. He was so unnerved that he could not recall where the telephone was.
    Laura had already taken the handset off the hook. She held it out to him. “Or I can call them, Daddy. The number’s right here on the phone. Do you want me to call them?”
    “No. I’ll do it, baby.” Blinking back tears, he took the phone from her and sat on the old wooden stool behind the cash register.
    She put one hand on his arm, as if she knew he needed her touch.
    Janet had been emotionally strong. But Laura’s strength and self-possession were unusual for her age, and Bob Shane was not sure where they came from. Maybe being motherless made her self-reliant.
    “Daddy?” Laura said, tapping the phone with one finger. “The police, remember?”
    “Oh, yeah,” he said. Trying not to gag on the odor of death that permeated the store, he dialed the police emergency number.
     
Kokoschka sat in a car across the street from Bob Shane’s small grocery, thoughtfully fingering the scar on his cheek.
    The rain had stopped. The police had gone. Neon shop signs and lampposts lit at nightfall, but the macadam streets