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slightly warm every time I thought about it. And so far my response to that and his phone calls to my house hadn't been equally thoughtful.
    He rubbed at his chin, lightly scraping the blue- stubble. "You haven't forgotten about Christy?"
    "No," I said, giving in with a smile. "Haven't forgotten one bit. Yeah, come on in, Felix. But I've got to take a shower first."
    I walked past him and started running to the front door as the rain tumbled forth. He followed behind me and yelled, "What's the matter, you been swimming?"
    "Fishing," I said as I scrambled through the rain and to my front door, key in hand. ''And you wouldn't believe what I caught.”
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    Behind us came a flash of light and that awful crack-boom that seems to flutter up your heart valves, and which means that a lightning bolt has struck close, very close indeed, and Felix murmured, "Jesus Christ," as I slammed the door behind him.
    We were in the living room of my house, which has an old and slightly murky history. I've gone through old maps and deeds at the town hall in Tyler and in the county courthouse in. Exonia, and have learned that my house was built about a century and a half ago. It first served as a home for the supervisor of it. Lifeboat Station that was operating at Samson Point sometime in the middle part of the 1800s. When the War Department took over the land and built the Samson Point Coast Artillery Station, the house became junior officers' quarters. Over the succeeding years, it was expanded and contracted, parts of it torn down and added on, until it was turned into a residence and ended up still being owned by the U.S. Government, when the mistake of a dead man in Nevada brought me here to own it.
    "I'm going to grab a shower," I said. "You're welcome to root around and get a beer."
    "Thanks," Felix said, heading for the kitchen. "I'll just make myself at home."
    Making one's self at home or not, I noticed that he kept his leather jacket on. Something was disturbing him, and I hoped whatever it was hadn't followed him here. Felix's problems usually came well armed and angry. I went through the small living room and ran upstairs to the second floor. Before me was the door to the bathroom, and to the left was my study and to the right was my bedroom. The rain was hammering down fairly heavily and I hesitated for a moment before going into the bathroom. I felt cold for a moment, and I thought of the weapons that I had here on the second floor and which were within easy reach: the 12-gauge Remington pump action with extended magazine under the bed, the 8 mm FN assault rifle in the closet, and the 9 mm Beretta in my study.
    Other weapons were downstairs, but these would certainly do. I was tempted for a moment to go into the study and bring the Beretta with me into the bathroom, but there was no reason to do it. I was home. I was safe. The doors were locked. And although our relationship certainly couldn't be easily explained through a Cosmopolitan magazine survey, I knew that Felix would come to my aid if need be.
    Another rumble of thunder. "Stop being a chickenshit," I said aloud, and so I went to take my shower.
    The sneakers and the clothes came off and all were dumped in a blue plastic garbage pail that served as a clothes hamper. I flipped on the shower, and in a few short seconds I started feeling better, just letting the warm water wash away the sweat and grit of the sand that seemed to settle in each fold of my skin. In my infrequent trips to the beach, I'm always amazed at the number of people who wallow around in the wet and sticky sand, building intricate castles, tossing mud balls at each other or letting themselves get buried by children. And this type of sandy misery is called fun? As I showered, I was careful washing on my left side, just above the kidney, for the skin there was still sore, and I remembered.
     
     
    One day last month, I was reading the Boston Globe and taking notes on the Petro Star