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I DON’T KNOW

"If you don’t knohat you need it for, then how do you know you need it at all? Instinct?"

YES

"Just instinct?"

DON’T KNOCK IT

That evening, the three of the-roo to lossy and thick in the firelight As Travis sat with one arht eating grass ood idea because Einstein looked healthy and robust Einstein sneezed a few tihed now and then, but those seeence and to the warm, dry air in front of the fireplace Travis was not for a ’s health

4

On the afternoon of Friday, Nove, Garrison Dilworth was aboard his beloved forty-two-foot Hinckley Sou’wester, A Grace, in his boat slip in the Santa Barbara harbor He was polishing brightwork and, diligently bent to his task, almost didn’t see the twothe dock He looked up as they were about to announce themselves, and he kneho they were- not their names, but who they must work for-even before they showed him their credentials

One was na puzzle off the dock, down onto the deck, the one named Johnson said, "We’d like to ask you a few questions, Mr Dilworth"

"What about?" Garrison inquired, wiping his hands on a white rag

Johnson was a black , yet iency, you say? Surely, you don’t think I’m in the hire of the KGB?"

Johnson smiled thinly "You’ve done work for Nora Devon?"

He raised his eyebrows "Nora? Are you serious? Well, I can assure you that Nora isn’t the sort of person to be involved-"

"You are her attorney, then?" Johnson asked

Garrison glanced at the freckle-faced younger ain raised his eyebrows as if to ask if Johnson was always this chilly Soa his cue from the boss

Oh ht

After his frustrating and unsuccessful questioning of Dilworth, Lein the procedures to obtain a court order allowing taps to be placed on the attorney’s home and office telephones; find the three pay phones nearest his office and the three nearest his house, and arrange for taps to be put on those as well; obtain telephone-co-distance callsin extra eles office to staff an around-the-clock surveillance of Dilworth, starting within three hours

While Cliff was attending to those things, Le the sounds of the sea and the cal water would help clear his hts on his probleet focused Over sixand The Outsider had escaped from Banodyne, and Lem had lost almost fifteen pounds in the pursuit He had not slept well in months, had little interest in food, and even his sex life had suffered

There’s such a thing as trying too hard, he told himself It causes constipation of the ood He was still as blocked as a pipe full of concrete

For three months, since they found Cornell’s Airstrea lot the day after Hockney’s murder, Le, on that August night, frohtclub table cards froasoline credit-card receipts had been found in the trailer and pickup truck, pinpointing every stop of their itinerary He had not known the woirlfriend, nothing more, but of course he should never have assuo, when one of his own agents went to Vegas to marry, Leone to Vegas for that same purpose Suddenly their trip had looked like a honeymoon Within hours, he confirmed that Cornell had, in fact, been ust 11, to Nora Devon of Santa Barbara

Seeking the woo, after she’d vanished with Cornell Looking into the sale, he found she had been represented by her attorney, Garrison Dilworth

By freezing Cornell’s assets, Leitive existence, but now he discovered that Dilworth had helped slip twenty thousand out of Cornell’s bank and that all of the proceeds from the sale of the woman’s house had been transferred to her soh Dilworth, she had closed out her local bank accounts four weeks ago, and thatfor years

Standing on the dock, Leled sea, which slapped rhyths Theseagulls Instead of being caly

Garrison Dilworth was intelligent, clever, a born fighter Now that the link had been made between him and the Cornells, the attorney promised to take the NSA to court to unfreeze Travis’s assets "You’ve filed no charges against the rant the power to freeze his accounts? Your al system to hamper an innocent citizen is unconscionable"

Leainst Travis and Nora Cornell for the violation of all sorts of laws designed to preserve the national security, and by doing so he’d haveassistance to the fugitives But filing chargesmedia attention Then the harebrained story about Cornell’s pet panther-and perhaps the NSA’s entire cover-up-would come down like a paper house in a thunderstoret in touch with the Cornells to tell them that his association with them had been at last uncovered and that contact between them would have to be far more circumspect in the future Then, with luck, Leh their telephone nu out that easily Dilworth was no fool

Looking around at the Santa Barbara yacht harbor, Lem tried to relax, for he knew he needed to be calm and fresh if he was to outthink the old attorney The hundreds of pleasure boats at the docks, sails furled or packed away, bobbed gently on the rolling tide, and other boats with unfurled sails glided Serenely out toward the open sea, and people in bathing suits were sunning on the decks or having early cocktails, and the gulls darted like stitching needles across the blue and white quilt of the sky, and people were fishing froly picturesque, but it was also an ireat and calculated leisure, hich Lem Johnson could not identify To Leerous distraction from the cold, hard realities of life, from the coer than a few hours et back to work Here was leisure measured in days, in weeks; here, in these expensive and lovingly crafted boats, was leisureexcursions up and down the coast, so much leisure that it made Lern break into a sweat, made him want to scream

He had The Outsider to worry about as well There had been no sign of it since the day Travis Cornell had shot at it in his rented house, back at the end of August Threein those three ? Was it dead?

Maybe, out in the wilds, it had been bitten by a rattlesnake, or ht, let it be dead, please, give me that much of a break Let it be dead

But he knew The Outsider was not dead because that would be too easy Nothing in life was that easy The da It had probably suppressed the urge to kill people it encountered because it knew each murder drew Lem and his men closer to it, and it did not want to be found before it had killed the dog When the beast had torn the dog and the Cornells to bloody pieces, then it would once again begin to vent its rage on the population at large, and every death would hang heavily on Lem Johnson’s conscience