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to him even to look for one until the long gray ash at the end of his cigarette was ready to fall. Even then Sully was not the sort of man to panic. He simply held the cigarette upright, as if its vertical position removed the threat of gravity. When the ash eventually fell anyway, he was sometimes quick enough to catch it in his lap, where the ash would stay until, having forgotten about it again, he stood up.
    By the time Miss Beryl arrived back with the crystal ashtray she’d bought in London five years before, Sully already had a pretty impressive ash working. “So,” Sully said, “you decide where you’re going this year?”
    Every winter for the past twenty, Miss Beryl had sallied forth, as she called it, around the first of the year, returning sometime in March when winter’s back was broken. Her flat was crowded with the souvenirs from these excursions—her walls adorned with an Egyptian spear, a Roman breastplate, a bronze dragon, tiki torches, her flat table surfaces crowded with Wedgwood, an Etruscan spirit boat, a two-headed Foo dog, the floor with wicker elephants, terra-cotta pots, a wooden sea chest. In the months preceding her safaris, she read travel books on her destination. This year she’d checked out books on Africa, where she hoped to find a companion for Driver Ed, who had been purchased in Vermont, actually, and might or might not have been authentic Zamble. Vermont had been about as far as she’d ever been able to convince Clive Sr. to sally forth. He didn’t like to go anywhere people wouldn’t recognize him as the North Bath football coach, which put them on a pretty short leash.
    â€œI’m staying put this winter,” she told Sully, surprised to discover that she’d come to this decision just a few minutes before while looking up into the trees.
    â€œThat must mean you’ve been everywhere,” Sully said.
    â€œThe early snow convinced me that this is our winter. God’s going to lower the boom. One of those limbs is going to come crashing down on us.”
    â€œSounds like a good reason to head for the Congo,” Sully offered.
    â€œThere’s no such place as the Congo anymore.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œNo. And besides,” Miss Beryl reminded him, “God finds Jonah even in the belly of a whale.”
    Sully nodded. “God and the cops. That’s how come I stay close to home. So they know where to find me. Maybe that way they’ll go easy.”
    Miss Beryl frowned at him. “You’re not in Dutch with the police again, are you, Donald?” Her tenant did wind up in jail occasionally, usually for public intoxication, though when he was younger he’d been a brawler.
    Sully grinned at her. “Not to my knowledge, Mrs. Peoples. These days I try to be good. I’m not a young man anymore.”
    â€œWell,” she said, “you were a bad boy far longer than most.”
    â€œI know it,” he said, taking another drag on his cigarette and noticing for the first time how hazardously long the gray ash had become. “You going out for Thanksgiving, at least?”
    Miss Beryl took the cigarette from him, put it into the ashtray, and then put the ashtray on the side table. With Sully, you didn’t just set the ashtray down nearby and expect him to recognize its function. “Mrs. Gruber and I are going to the Northwoods Motor Inn. They’re having a buffet. All the turkey and trimmings you can eat for ten dollars.”
    Sully exhaled smoke through his nose. “Sounds like a hell of a good deal for the Northwoods. You and Alice couldn’t eat ten dollars’ worth of turkey if they gave you the whole weekend.”
    Miss Beryl had to admit this was true. “Mrs. Gruber likes it there. It’s all old fogies like us, and they don’t play loud music. They have a big salad bar, and Mrs. Gruber likes to try everything on it. Snails even.”
    â€œSnails