Page 50 (1/2)

Later, bedding down in a motel because he was too tired to close the tee County, Leht about what Cliff had said Loyalty One hell of a lot of loyalty

Le bond of loyalty to anyone as the Cornells and Garrison Dilworth apparently felt toward the retriever He tossed and turned, unable to sleep, and he finally realized there was no use trying to switch off his inner lights until he satisfied hiree of loyalty and commitment that he had seen in the Cornells and their attorney

He sat up in the darkness, leaning against the headboard

Well, sure, he was damn loyal to his country, which he loved and honored

And he was loyal to the Agency But to another person? All right, Karen

His wife He was loyal to Karen in every way-in his heart, onads

He loved Karen He had loved her deeply for almost twenty years

"Yeah," he said aloud in the e, "yeah, if you’re so loyal to Karen, why aren’t you with her now?"

But he wasn’t being fair to himself After all, he had a job to do, an important job

"That’s the trouble," he ot a job to do"

He slept away frohts a year, one in three And when he was home, he was distracted half the time, his mind on the latest case Karen had once wanted children, but Le that he could not handle the responsibility of children until he was sure his career was secure

"Secure?" he said "Man, you inherited your daddy’s money You started out with more of a cushion than most people"

If he was as loyal to Karen as those people were to that mutt, then his coht to come before all others If Karen wanted a faht? At least he should have compromised and started a family when they were in their early thirties His twenties could have gone to the career, his thirties to child-rearing Noas forty-five, almost forty-six, and Karen was forty-three, and the ti a fareat loneliness

He got out of bed, went into the bathrooht, and stared hard at himself in the mirror His eyes were bloodshot and sunken He had lost soto look downright skeletal

Sto onto the sides of the sink, his face in the basin He’d been afflicted only for the pastwith startling speed The pain took a long time to pass

When he confronted his reflection in the ain, he said, "You’re not even loyal to your own self, you asole You’re killing yourself, working yourself to death, and you can’t stop Not loyal to Karen, not loyal to yourself Not really loyal to your country or the Agency, when it co you’re totally and unswervingly committed to is your old htrope walk"

Crackpot

That word see after he’d spoken it He had loved and respected his father, had never said a word against him Yet today he had admitted to Cliff that his dad had been "impossible" And now-crackpot vision He still loved his dad and alould But he was beginning to wonder if a son could love a father and, at the sas

A year ago, a o, he would have said it was impossible to hold fast to that love and still be his own man But now, by God, it seemed not only possible but essential that he separate his love for his father from his adherence to his father’s workaholic code

What’s happening to me? he wondered

Freedo into the mirror, he said, "Almost forty-six"

NINE

1

Sunday, Travis noted that Einstein still had less of an appetite than usual, but by Monday, November 29, the retriever seemed fine On Monday and Tuesday, Einstein finished every scrap of his meals, and he read new books He sneezed only once and did not cough at all He drank h not an excessive amount If he seeh the house less energeticallywell, winter iftly settling upon theed with the seasons

At a bookstore in Car Owner’s Home Veterinary Handbook She spent a few hours at the kitchen table, reading, researching the possible s of Einstein’s symptoms She discovered that listlessness, partial loss of appetite, sneezing, coughing, and unusual thirst could signify a hundred ail it couldn’t be is a cold," she said "Dogs don’t get colds like we do" But by the tiot the book, Einstein’s symptoms had diminished to such an extent that she decided he was probably perfectly healthy

In the pantry off the kitchen, Einstein used the Scrabble tiles to tell the hiht to know better than anyone"

WHY SAY FIT AS A FIDDLE?

Replacing the tiles in their Lucite tubes, Travis said, "Well, because it ht about the metaphor-fit as a fiddle-and realized he was not sure why it meant what it did He asked Nora, and she came to the pantry door, but she had no explanation for the phrase, either

Pawing outthem around with his nose, the retriever asked: WHY SAY SOUND AS A DOLLAR?

"Sound as a dollar- beside the, Nora said, "That one’s easier The United States dollar was once the soundest, most stable currency in the World Still is, I suppose For decades, there was no terrible inflation in the dollar like in some other currencies, no reason to lose faith in it, so folks said, ’I’m as sound as a dollar’ Of course, the dollar isn’t what it once was, and the phrase isn’t as fitting as it used to be, but we still use it"

WHY STILL USE IT?

"Becausewe’ve always used it," Nora said, shrugging

WHY SAY HEALTHY AS A HORSE? HORSES NEVER SICK?

Gathering up the tiles and sorting them back into their tubes, Travis said, "No, in fact, horses are fairly delicate aniet sick pretty easily"