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hand as an impromptu weapon, he thrust the door swiftly open and quickly switched on the ceiling light inside.
    The 200-watt glare showed his room empty and undisturbed. From the inside of the still-tousled bed, his colorful “scholar’s mistress” seemed to wink at him humorously. Nevertheless, he didn’t feel secure until he’d rather shamefacedly peered in the bathroom and then opened the closet and the tall clothes cabinet and glanced inside.
    He switched off the top light then and went to the open window. The green drapes were lined with a sun-faded tan, all right, but if they’d been blown halfway out the window at some point, a chance of wind had blown them neatly back into place afterward. The serrated hump of CoronaHeights showed up dimly through the advancing high fog. The TV tower was wholly veiled. He looked down and saw that the windowsill and his narrow desk abutting it and the carpet at his feet were all strewn with crumbles of brownish paper that reminded him of Gun’s paper-shredding machine. He recalled mat he’d been handling some old pulp magazines here yesterday, tearing out pages he wanted to save. Had he thrown the magazines away afterward? He couldn’t remember, but probably—they weren’t lying around anywhere nearby, at any rate, only a neat little stack of ones he hadn’t looted yet. Well, a thief who stole only gutted old pulp magazines was hardly a serious menace—more like a trashman, a helpful scavenger.
    The tension that had been knotting him departed at last. He realized he was very thirsty. He got a split of ginger ale from the small refrigerator and drank it eagerly. While he made coffee on the hot plate, he sketchily straightened the disordered half of the bed and turned on the shaded light at its head. He carried over his coffee and the two books he’d shown Cal that morning, and settled himself comfortably, and read around in them and speculated.
    When he realized it was getting darker outside, he poured himself more coffee and carried it down to Cal’s. The door was ajar. Inside, Cal’s shoulders were lifting rhythmically as she played with furious precision, her ears covered with large padded phones. Franz couldn’t be sure whether he heard the ghost of a concerto, or only the very faint thuds of the keys.
    Saul and Gun were talking quietly on the couch, Gun with a green bottle beside him. Remembering this morning’s bitter words he’d overheard, Franz looked for signs of strain, but all seemed harmony. Perhaps he’d read too much into their words.
    Saul Rosenzweig, a thin man with dark hair shoulder-length and dark-circled eyes, quirked a smile and said, “Hello, Calvina asked us down to keep her company while she practices, though you’d think a couple of window dummies could do the job as well. But Calvina’s a romantic puritan at heart. Deep inside she wants to frustrate us.”
    Cal had taken off her headphones and stood up. Without a word or a look at anyone, or anything apparently, she picked up some clothes and vanished like a sleepwalker into the bathroom, whence there came presently the sound of showering.
    Gun grinned at Franz and said, “Greetings. Sit down and join the devotees of silence. How goes the writer’s life?”
    They talked inconsequentially and lazily of this and that. Saul carefully made a long thin cigarette. Its piney smoke was pleasant, but Franz and Gun smilingly declined to share, Gun tilting his green bottle for a long swallow.
    Cal reappeared in a surprisingly short time, looking fresh and demure in a dark brown dress. She poured herself a tall thin glass of orange juice from the fridge and sat down.
    “Saul,” she said quietly, “you know my long name is not Calvina, but Calpurnia—the minor Roman Cassandra who kept warning Caesar. I may be a puritan, but I wasn’t named for Calvin. My parents were both born Presbyterians, it’s true, but my father early progressed into Un-itarianism and died a devout Ethical Culturist. He