Time Out of Mind by John R. Maxim Page B

trying to reason this out is not the way. Perhaps what you must do is go along with it and follow it where it leads.”
    He shook his head blankly. Gwen put down the plates she'd been gathering and stood up, stepping closer to him.
    “ Whatever is happening here,” she told him, “is very real to you. And yet you fight against believing that it's real. At times you even feel that you are being possessed and yet it's at those very times that you are the least fright ened. My suggestion, Jonathan, simple-minded though it may be, is that you make up your mind that you are not mad, that all of this is quite real, or was, and that you begin trusting and following your feelings until we are able to trace down their source.”
    “ You believe this?” he asked. “You think it could really have happened?”
    “ How the hell do I know?” She threw up her hands. “But as for finding out, you're certainly not short on clues. Tomorrow, we can try to retrace this route you keep taking during the storm. We can just walk around midtown in the light of day until you see a part that strikes a chord. Or we can go over to the New York Historical Society and look at old photographs, or to the library and look at old news papers. And if that doesn't work, we can go up to Green wich and do the same things. And why are you grinning at me like a bloody imbecile?”
    He took her to her bedroom, where they made love until the blackness outside her window had softened to a pearl gray. He made love to her, fighting sleep, until he knew that he would sleep without dreams. He made love to her in all the ways he could think of that would keep Margaret away.
    Lesko had not planned to follow Dancer. Too easy to get spotted. All Dancer would have to do was turn a corner anywhere in Grand Central and wait, and he'd see Lesko, who was not easy to miss, and that would be all she wrote. What Lesko had planned to do was walk up to the Ticketron outlet in the Pan Am Building and see what Knicks tickets he could get and then maybe get a steak next door in Charley Brown's before he took the subway home to Queens. But the Ticketron window had closed down early and Charley Brown's was packed, so Lesko walked on to the newsstand past the public phones, where he could at least get a couple of Milky Ways to tide him over. He'd just passed the first phone booth when he smelled the Ar amis. He kept on moving.
    Could it really be Dancer? he wondered as he paid for his candy bars. What are the odds against finding two peo ple in the same station who sponge on enough of that fruit juice to penetrate a phone booth door? Lesko eased himself down the row of telephones and peeked quickly into the last. There was the haircut. It was Dancer all right. And he was making a report.
    Lesko couldn't hear the words very clearly but he heard the tone. It was respectful enough but not really deferential. As in, Don't worry, I'm handling it. This mildly surprised Lesko, who had pegged Dancer as your basic toady with whoever held the high cards. And now he was trying to end the conversation. Sir. Lesko heard him say sir. But not like he meant it. Later, sir. Something like, I'll get back to you later when I have more time. Lesko braced himself to get quickly out of sight if Dancer touched the phone booth door.
    He heard Dancer break the connection but the receiver remained in his hand, held high as if he were about to dial again. Lesko took a chance and craned his head so he could see through the glass. No coins this time. Lesko knew he'd used one before because he heard the little metallic clack of a finger checking the return slot. But this was a credit card call. Out of town. Chicago, maybe? Lesko saw a man icured finger tap a button on the top row, then on the bot tom row, then back up to the top. Not Chicago. Probably the 203 area code. Connecticut. He could not make out the exchange, but Lesko would have given attractive odds that the number was in Greenwich. Lesko waited as