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philosophical cop. How do you feel when you get a murderer?”
    â€œI feel good, Rolf. Damn good. I feel I’m saving a life, maybe several. Because they don’t generally stop at one. It’s like getting an olive out of a bottle, the first one’s the hardest. After that it becomes a simple and final solution to everything. Even the simplest irritation, a waitress spills a drink on your lap and your first thought is, kill her.”
    â€œBurt,” said Joss. “That’s insane.”
    â€œThat’s my point. A sane man might, under very pressing circumstances, commit one murder. But he wouldn’t stay sane long. Murder’s too big a load to carry. Even your Nazi friends, Rolf, had to keep telling themselves they were just following orders.”
    â€œAnd when a cop kills?” asked Rolf softly.
    Burt felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. “What do you mean?”
    â€œI mean, what kind of fiction does a cop provide himself with when he kills—”
    Joss cut in quickly. “Rolf, I want to show you something.”
    Rolf ignored her. He leaned-forward and fixed his eyes on Burt. “I know what they tell themselves. They say it was an unavoidable accident. I aimed for his legs but somebody jostled my gun. I fired over his head but he jumped up and caught the bullet. He was trying to kill me and I had to stop him.” He leaned back, looking pleased with himself. “I have a theory about cops, Burt. They know, when they go into the racket, that eventually they’re going to find themselves in a position to kill legally—”
    Joss rose. “Rolf, come over here a minute.”
    â€œLet me finish,” said Rolf with sudden peevishness. “You see what I’m getting at, Burt?”
    Burt felt sticky perspiration beneath his clothes. At the beginning of Rolf’s soliloquy he had thought, Well, so Rolf’s hobby is cop-baiting. He’d been over this route before and, rather than anger, had felt only a faint boredom. But now the man was dealing with the subconscious motives of a policeman who kills, and these were the precise questions Burt had been asking himself.
    â€œRolf, joining the police doesn’t get you a license for killing—”
    â€œHow many cops have burned for it?”
    â€œRolf, I want to talk to you,” said Joss.
    Rolf sighed and stood up. “My theory is that cops are instinctive killers who’ve found a socially accepted way of going about it. Think it over.”
    Burt watched Rolf and Joss walk over to the edge and pretend to be looking through the telescope. Joss would no doubt tell him about the boy, and Burt would have preferred that she mind her own business. But of course Joss would say it was her business to see that no misunderstandings arose between guests.
    Well, unfinished business, Mrs. Rolf Keener. “Could I borrow your comb?” he asked.
    She looked up in surprise. “Sure.”
    She delved into her little handbag and came up with a sequinned comb. She wiped it with a napkin and gave it to him. He saw with dismay that it was clean of hair. Scratch one effort.…
    He combed his hair and gave it back. “The temperature has cooled since last night,” he said casually.
    And just as casually she replied, “I threw you the ball and you dropped it. You want to pick it up again?”
    He had only to stir the ashes.
    â€œI just wanted to say, if you need help with anything, tell me before he gets back.”
    He’d been thinking about the letters, but she pointed a finger at the untouched pigeon on his plate. “You can. Slip that under the table to me, quick.”
    There are times when a man gets involved in a scene so bizarre that he must freeze his intellect, numb his mental process, before he can act. It was in this way that Burt passed her the pigeon and sat listening to the hidden crackle of tiny bones and the juicy sound of her mastication. She