I gave a half-smile wondering why she commented on that. We walked up to the Maître d’ and asked for our names. I gave him mine and he found it on ...he reservation list.“It is a pleasure to have you and your lovely wife here to dine with us tonight. “ He said reaching for her hand then bowing at the hip and kissing the back of it gently. My eyebrows launched upward then I frowned and she gave me a firm look and barely perceptible shake of her head. When the Maître d’ risen from his bow at the. It is warm there. Buy her something warm to drink with a lot of sugar in it.” Then he looked like he did that day when he took me from Raul and he said, “I have to talk to Herr Dunkler.”I walked with him as he went over to where the Dark Lord was paying off bets. He waited patiently until everyone had been paid off, then stepped up and held out his hand so that two fingers were touching Herr Dunkler’s chest. He was smiling, but the rest of his face was dead. And his eyes looked like they could. The sun is in your eyes and you hold up your hands to block it. The man is standing a few feet away and he asks you “Did you see the sign at the top of the stairs?” He doesn’t sound angry but you start to feel like he’s probably a jerk. “It’s just a beach and there was no one on it”, you say. You are startled when he moves quickly and grabs your wrists with one hand, steps to your side and pulls your bikini bottom down to the bottom of your ass. “Count”, he says and smacks your right cheek. Recorded in 1976. How extraordinary. And you say that mother explicitly said she wanted it to go to me?’ ‘Yes, and I’m sure it was very important to her, it was.’ ‘Did she say so?’ Ally was still quite perplexed. This was a conundrum she really didn’t need on top of the shocks she’d had this afternoon already. ‘Not in words, no, but in action.’ ‘In action?’ ‘It was lucky that I was coming to do some housework for her the day of that fire. If I hadn’t come in in time, who knows what would have.