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really that much of a jerk?"
        "You're asking the wrong guy."
        "Why?"
        "Because he was unpleasant to me. He let it be known that he considered me a very weak guest panelist and he treated me accordingly. Plus he made jokes about my height."
        "Oh, yes. They call you 'Yosemite Sam.' I think my wife told me that."
        "I love that name."
        "Are you serious?"
        "What do you think?"
        They walked on a bit. The night was beautiful, the ocean endless, the thrum of powerful engines reassuring evidence of man's illusory dominance over the ocean.
        "You don't think she did it, do you?"
        "No," Tobin said. "And based on how everybody reacted tonight-Sure he was a wife-beating, child-molesting, embezzling sonofabitch but deep down all he needed was old-fashioned love-I'd say there are at least several other equally good suspects."
        "Meaning what?"
        "Meaning that if we look beneath the surface, we'll probably find all sorts of reasons he was killed-by one of them."
        Captain Hackett sighed. "It just wouldn't make sense that she didn't kill him."
        "Of course it would. She'd be the perfect setup."
        They reached Tobin's cabin. "They really didn't seem to be very moved by his death, did they?"
        Tobin smiled. "I remember back in 1953, when I was very young. I was over at a friend's house watching TV-they were the only people on the block with a set-and news came that Stalin had died. They interrupted 'Mr. Peepers.' I've never forgotten it. Everybody was euphoric because Stalin had died. It seemed as if everything in the world was going to be all right." He nodded back toward the lounge. "I kind of had that same sense tonight, didn't you?"
        "Nothing you could prove," the captain said.
        Tobin said, "Not yet, anyway.”
        

10
        
2:47 A.M.
        
        In the dream he sat in a vast dark movie theater and on the screen was Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Dana Wynter, whom he still thought the most beautiful actress of her time, was just about to fall asleep and in so doing become one of the pod people and he was in seventh grade again and watching the movie in the State Theater and held spellbound not only by the beautiful noir writing and directing but mostly there was just Dana Wynter, the luxuriant elegance of that face, the silken dark hair and silken dark gaze, domestic and exotic in equal parts-and now, as always in the dream, he cried out for her to not close her eyes, not to become one of the pod people, cried out to no avail…
        Knocking woke him.
        Disoriented, he had to put his circumstances together one word at a time. Ship. Cabin. Sleep. Dream. Knock. Door.
        "Huh?" he said, peering through the safety chain.
        She wore her white terry-cloth robe again. Her hair looked a bit mussed. Her wonderful mouth looked forlorn.
        "They gave me a new cabin," she said. Moonglow made a nimbus of her blond hair. "Yes."
        "But I couldn't sleep."
        "Ah."
        "I tried."
        "Umm."
        "But I couldn't."
        "Uh."
        "You're not awake, are you?"
        "Mhrmw."
        "What?"
        He shrugged.
        "I'm sorry," she said.
        He shrugged again.
        "I shouldn't have bothered you. I'm just lonely and afraid. Not even telling Aberdeen everything helped. Well, not 'telling her.' Writing her, actually. I mean, I put everything down. Everything he said to me-you know about that really annoying guy-and everything I said to him. I had quite a bit of champagne and even told him about that United pilot and what we did in the bathroom that time. And then how he was stabbed and all and…"
        By now he was sufficiently awake that he could say, "Do you want to come in?"
        "Do you ever sleep with women?"
        "As often as I can."
        "I'm serious, Mr. Tobin."
        "Please don't call me Mr." He