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"I wish," Mark said "No, I was just wondering"

Fifty

He’d been at his desk, working on his own sta If Julia had been home he’d have left it for her to answer, but she was at the playground with Jenny, letting her polish her social skills even as she refined her sandbox technique He debated letting the machine answer it, then picked it up in the

"Lo sientoaccent "Quiero hablar a Pablo, pero yo tengo el nú up before he could respond

"I was beginning to wonder," Dot said "All you said was ‘Hello,’ and it sounded like you, but what if I really did dial a wrong nuive you another ten minutes, and here you are What happened? You couldn’t find the phone?"

"I had to recharge it"

"Nohy the hell didn’t that occur to e ot back from Denver and said no más That’s Spanish, it means--"

"I knohat it means It’s about as hard to translate as el núo"

"I looked it up," she said, "and what I should have said is el núured you’d knohat Ithis anyht"

"And I think that’s fine Nobody should stay too long at the fair, and maybe the stamp business ork out for you, and if it doesn’t, well, sooner or later construction will be good again, won’t it?"

"Probably"

"While I, on the other hand, can’t claiet irlfriends, and when a job comes in I find somebody to do it And then this one came in, and I decided to call you, and all you have to do is tell et it"

"And you’ll find soet it"

Well, she had his interest "Why’s that?"

"A child"

"Fourteen years old, and either I saw an old photograph or he looks young for his years"

"Before all this," he said, "that was a line I always drew I didn’t care who the targets were, and the less I knew about them, the better But no kids"

"It rarely came up," she said "And when it did, I turned the job down I didn’t always tell you I just turned it down and that was that"

"So why is this different? Is this kid some kind of bad seed out of a horror movie?"

"I think he’s a perfectly nice little boy"

"Then I don’t get it"

"Pablo," she said, "the phone rang, and the assignstaff to pick up the first payht out of Leave It to Beaver, and a naood I didn’t have the , because that makes it a little easier to send it back"

"But you didn’t"

"I was about to," she said, "but then I asked myself a question You knohat the question was?"

"What?"

"‘Nohat happens?’"

"Oh"

"Right I don’t knohy that never occurred to me in the past, when somebody wanted us to hit a kid and I told them thanks but no thanks But it dawned onwas you’ll have to find somebody else, and of course that’s exactly ould happen They’d find somebody else, and the kid would still be dead, even if we didn’t wind up with blood on our hands"

"What I always used to tell uy was dead whether I did it or not Because soh to pay the money, and if I didn’t do it somebody else would"

"All of which is true"

"But just because ouldn’t do a kid, that doesn’t mean soe sociopath," she said, "would probably prefer a kid, the saer would prefer a frail old lady"

"Safer and simpler"

"So let ure beca?"

"Jesus Not much fun to think about that"

"Not h If the voice on the phone had letnever would have gotten that far I’d have turned the job down, and I’d have felt good about it, as if I’d just sent in a big donation to Father Flanagan’s Boys Town Let’s hear it for Wilma-Known-as-Dot, who just saved a child’s life And then I’d have gone off to get my hair done"

"How often do you do that?"

"Once a week, whether it needs it or not But there I was, looking at a picture of the kid, and I know I don’t want any part of this one, but if I turn down the job it’s the sa him myself"

"Not exactly"