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the alarm. It has a nasty bark, but I need it to cut through the morning haze sometimes. Did you sleep well?”
    “Beautifully,” she replied. “And you?”
    “Never better. I guess I was more tired than I realized. Listen, Lorraine, I’m sorry about—”
    “Don’t say it. There’s no need to be sorry. All I wanted was someone to hold me and listen, and you were wonderful.”
    “It’s kind of you to say that. But I don’t generally have this sort of problem, so I don’t know exactly what to say. Maybe it takes a while before the subconscious realizes that a divorce decree is intended to set you free again.”
    Lorraine looked at him as if she were trying to read his mind. “If it’s Walter you’re thinking about, don’t give it another thought. As I said before, Walter can be thoroughly unreliable. I’ve had to learn not to depend on him when I feel the need to be close to someone. It’s not that I don’t love him, because I believe I do, but I also believe a woman is capable of loving more than one man. And right now, Conrad, I find myself growing rather fond of you.”  
    She pulled herself on top of him and sat with her ivory thighs astride his waist, twisting the curly hairs on his stomach around her fingertips. “Why don’t you leave me a message at the Riviera this afternoon and let me know if you’ll be free tonight. Or tomorrow night, for that matter. I’m not going anywhere for a while. Heavens, for all I know, there may not even be a Walter Lukash.”

 
    Chapter 4
     
    Prosser switched on the car radio as he entered the refuse-strewn wasteland opposite the Saint Simon bathing beach, three kilometers south of the city. He turned up the volume and listened carefully for the tone that announced the beginning of the eight o’clock news. The morning broadcasts always carried a complete listing of the hot spots that Beirut’s morning commuters should avoid if they wished to escape sniping, shelling, kidnapping, car bombs, and other local hazards.
    According to Radio Liban, the unofficial casualty figures from last night’s battle were two Phalangist fighters dead and five wounded, and from the National Movement, four fighters dead and eight wounded. The civilian totals would be higher, the announcer predicted, but those numbers would not be available for another twenty-four hours. Meanwhile, civil defense workers were laboring around the clock to collect the remains of the noncombatants who had cowered in cellars and windowless interior rooms until shell, rocket, or bullet had found them.
    With new cease-fire talks not having yet begun, both the port and Sodeco crossings remained closed to morning commuters. Since Prosser knew this generally created mile-long backups at the National Museum checkpoint, he opted for the more distant but less frequented Galerie Semaan crossing, located six or seven kilometers southeast of the city. After a mere twenty-minute delay in the slums of Shiyah before reaching the Syrian checkpoint, he found the crossing open for business and was soon across the Beirut River moving north toward suburban Sinn el Fil, in Christian East Beirut.
    Five years of civil war had stripped away more than a few layers of civilization from Lebanese society, among them the enforcement of speed limits and traffic regulations. The cardinal rule of the road was to trust one’s horn, floor the accelerator, and yield only to superior mass. Prosser merged aggressively into the Sinn el Fil traffic circle and peeled off to the right toward Jdeidé and the coastal autostrade.
    A few moments later he found himself amid a barren tract on the outskirts of suburban East Beirut that was neither agricultural, residential, nor industrial, yet possessed the least attractive features of all three. Half-built warehouses abandoned at the outbreak of hostilities and shabby stone farmhouses with haphazardly tended truck gardens dotted the low hills, each surrounded by rusting carcasses of dead Fiats and