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sailers. A calico cat sitting on the bow of a big Chriss stopped washing to stare at me as I walked by.
    There was a big tall lady behind the counter in the office. She had very short black hair and strong features. She was barelegged and barefooted and wore yellow shorts and a white T-shirt and a gold wedding ring. She stood about six feet high, and though the face was strong enough to look just a little bit masculine, there was nothing masculine about the legs or the way she filled the T-shirt. And she was almost as tan as I am. It made her cool blue eyes look very vivid, and it made her teeth look very very white. "Mr. McGee?"
    "Yes. You've got a fine looking marina here."
    "Thank you. I'm Mrs. Birdsong. We've been open exactly two years today."
    "Congratulations."
    "Thank you." Her smile was small and formal. This was an arm's-length girl. With a long arm. Twenty-eight? Hard to guess her age because her face had that Indian shape which doesn't show much erosion from eighteen to forty.
    We made the arrangements. I paid cash for three days in advance, saying we might stay longer: I asked about a rental car, and she walked me over to a side window and pointed to a Texaco sign visible above the roof of the nextdoor motel and said I could get a car there.
    Just as we turned away from the window there was a roar, a yelp of rubber, and a heavy thud as someone drove a dusty blue sedan into the side of the building.
    A big man struggled out from behind the wheel and walked unsteadily to the doorway and paused there, staring at her and then at me.
    "Where have you been? Where-have-you-been?" she asked. Her eyes looked sick.
    He was six and a half feet tall, and almost as broad as the doorway. He had a thick tangle of gray-blond hair, a mottled and puffy red face. He wore soiled khakies, with what looked like dried vomit on the front of the shirt. There was a bruise on his forehead and his knuckles were swollen. He wafted a stink of the unwashed into the small office.
    He gave her a stupid glaring look and mumbled, "Peddle your ass anybody comes along, eh, Cindy? Bangin' dock boys, bangin' customers. I know what you are, you cheap hooker."
    "Cal! You don't know what you're saying."
    He turned ponderously toward me. "Show you not to fool around with somebody's wife, you bas'ard; you rotten suhva bish."
    She came trotting toward him from the side, reaching for him, saying, "No, Cal. No, honey. Please."
    He swung a backhand blow at her face, a full swing of his left arm. She saw it coming and tried to duck under it, but it caught her high on the head, over the ear. It felled her. She hit and rolled loose, with a thudding of joints and bones and skull against vinyl tile floor, ending up a-sprawl, face down.
    Cal didn't look at her. He came shuffling toward me, big fists waving gently, shoulder hiked up to shield the jaw. If he'd left enough room for me to slide past him and bolt out the doorway I would have. Dog drunk as he was, he was immense and seemed to know how to move. I did not want to be in the middle of any family quarrel. Or any wife-killing. She was totally out, unmoving.
    One thing I was not going to do, and that was stand up and play fisticuffs. Not with this one. I was getting a good flow of adrenaline. I felt edgy and fast and tricky. I put my hands out, palms toward him, as though pleading with him not to hit me. He looked very happy, in a bleary way, and launched a big right fist at the middle of my face. I snapped my open palms onto that thick right wrist and turned it violently clockwise, yanking downward at the same time. The leverage spun him around, and his wrist and fist went up between his shoulder blades. I got him started and, with increasing momentum, ran him into the cement block wall. He smacked it, dropped to his knees, and then spilled sideways and sat up, blood running down into his eye and down his cheek from a new split in his forehead. He smiled in a thoughtful way and struggled up and came hunching