The Right Jack

While most of the eyes at his table were on the Maintenon's glamorous owner, Tillie noticed that Commander Dixon's attention kept straying to the hospitality table off to the right, or rather to the tall girl in a dark blue gown who seemed to be conferring there with a man Tillie assumed was a headwaiter.

Lucie

The bearded young man next directed their attention to several men and women positioned around the room. All wore navy blue blazers with Graphic Games logos on their breast pockets and toothpaste smiles of helpfulness on their youthful faces.

"If there's any discussion or misunderstanding,, just raise your hand and one of our referees will come over immediately. And now, ladies and gentlemen, you may cut for the deal. Low card deals first and may the best player WIN!"

Amid the flurry of applause, Tillie shyly offered their deck of cards to Commander Dixon. She cut the three of clubs, but he turned the deuce. When he'd finished dealing and their crib cards were lying face down off to the side, she cut the deck again. Tillie turned over the top card. It was a jack.

"His nibs," he murmured happily and pegged the first two points. Maybe he wouldn't get blown out of the water so quickly after all.

The large room settled into a low murmur of voices, the riffle of cards, an occasional burst of laughter, or a smothered oath as the right-or more often wrong-card was cut before the play of each hand.

After two hands, Tillie began to relax. Commander Dixon was a skillful opponent and he sensed that she was probably a better player, but as Lieutenant

Harald had noted earlier, luck was a big part of the game and luck was keeping him slightly ahead of her skill.

Play was brisk and after only five deals, they were heading down the homestretch. She would be ahead of him when she finished pegging this hand; but he'd have first count on the next and if his luck continued, he'd win.

"I'm afraid you have position on me," Commander Dixon said ruefully as she started to peg her points.

Somehow the wooden peg slipped through her fingers, dropped on the lap of her scarlet gown, and skittered under the table.

"I'll get it," Tillie said, pushing back his chair.

Commander Dixon peered beneath the table and nudged the peg toward him with the tip of her neat satin slipper.

At that exact instant, Zachary Wolferman pegged across the finish line with a double-double run and complacently inserted a peg into the game hole to mark his win.

There was an immediate, blinding flash of blue light. The board exploded with a horrendous bang. The table splintered with the impact and Tillie was buried beneath it. Stu

4

IT was a little past nine and Sigrid and her mother were already late when A

They came rushing down from A

They were partially screened by a low hedge, but something in the girl's demeanor triggered a subconscious response and Sigrid hesitated at the top of the steps.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, peering into the shadows.

"N-no," the girl stammered. "N-no thing!"

Her bloodless face belied her words. There was glittering hostility in the young man's upward glance and an even stronger impression of wrongness in the way he gripped the girl's arm.

Sigrid reached into her purse for some ID even as the man was saying, "You heard her, lady, so bug off, huh?"

"I'm a police officer," Sigrid told the frightened girl. "Are you sure there's nothing-"

The filthy obscenities that streamed from the youth's mouth startled her almost as much as the flickering switchblade which suddenly appeared in his hand. Before her own hand could disengage the ID and close around her gun, he had darted up the shallow steps.

She automatically flung her arm out to deflect the slashing blade and, ash e crashed past her, the snub-nosed.38 came free. Deliberately aiming low, Sigrid sent him howling to the pavement with one shot.

Behind her, in the shadows, the girl began to scream hysterically.

With a startled cry, A

"Oh my God!" A

All stiffness drained out of her legs and she sank down on the steps. "My radio," she told A

"I don't believe this!" A

She whirled and ran for Sigrid's car; but for once, as if on cue, a patrol car appeared when needed.

As the uniformed officers fashioned rough tourniquets for her arm and for the wounded man's leg, Sigrid tried to hold onto consciousness, but the girl's terrified cries turned into low sobs that were rather lulling against the street noises and Sigrid lost her tenuous thread of awareness before the ambulance arrived.

As the anaesthesia wore off, there was a memory of violence and pain, then an uneasy disoriented feeling of being in an unfamiliar place.

Even more disorienting was the sound of her mother's voice, angry and intense.

Her eyelids still felt too heavy to open, but returning alertness brought with it the smell of antiseptic and alcohol, so she must be in a hospital. But who else was in the room and why did her mother sound so awkward and harsh? Fear, yes. Sorrow and anger, too; but Sigrid had never heard this particular quality in her mother's voice before.