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The blue sedan followed. Then I saw the hotel. The same hotel. My feet had taken over, and I was running toward the hotel, my thoughts racing as fast as I was.
    Is this why I’m being shot at? Is this what it’s all about? The hotel? The girl? Is it about her, after all? Is it all about . . . Marnie?
    I raced down a cut-through between two halves of a block while my mind, my silly mind, tried to put the pieces together and flew back again, this time to that very morning, exactly one hour before. . . .
    It was only seven-thirty, but already the air was as heavy as wet wool. My shirt was clinging to me like a new bride. I was just imagining a plate of hot eggs in a cool diner and thinking I’d unstick myself from that street bench I seemed glued to, when there she was again.
    Sure, it was eleven years later, but I had never forgotten the girl from the hotel. How could I? Now she wore a dress the color of pale butter. But when she looked over, I was the one who melted. She saw me, shimmered slowly up to the bench, and smiled.
    “I’ve seen you before,” she said, light flickering in her eyes.
    I stood up, remembering the lobby and her, and my tongue started moving. “You remember eleven years ago? In the big hotel on Central?”
    She smiled that same half smile as the first time, tinged now with something like a blush. “Sorry, no. But I do remember a few months ago. You were running like you needed to catch a train. Only there wasn’t any train. It was at Mirror Lake. You were jumping down the library steps, holding a stack of paper like a serving tray.”
    I laughed. “Deadline. I’m a writer.”
    “What’s your name?” she asked.
    “Falcon,” I said. “Nick Falcon. Yours?”
    “Marnie Blaine.
    “Blaine?” It came to me. “The fat man —”
    “My father, Quentin Blaine,” she said. “He owns that hotel, I suppose. And the Gulf Railroad.”
    “But only about half of Florida,” I said.
    She kept smiling. “Some greyhounds, a hideous new autogyro, and a racehorse or twenty. But really. No more than that.”
    Behind her, a man was doing a pretty poor job of pretending to be invisible. He was so much taller than the palmetto he was standing behind that the upper branches might have tickled his chin. The guy was as tall as a house and as lanky as a stovepipe. If he was Mutt, Jeff stood next to him: a little round barrel with a red beard. Too bad there was no fireplug for him to hide behind; he might have had a chance. I’d seen them both before at the hotel when I was nine, only they’d grown. One up, the other sideways.
    The giant’s face showed no anger or menace. In fact, there didn’t seem much life in it at all. I thought again of what my father had told me about faces like that. Was he someone else without a soul?
    “Maybe this is too risky,” I said, looking at the goons. “Maybe I should send you a postcard.”
    I nearly choked. A . . .
postcard?!
    She laughed. “A postcard. That’s slightly nuts. What for?”
    “With a clue to show you where we can meet. A clue delivered all safe and sound by the U.S. Post Office. I write mysteries, remember?”
    She smiled. “I’ll have to read one someday.”
    “You’ll be in one,” I said. “I’ll write a story just for you, Marnie Blaine.”
    The tall man drifted back into the shadows, satisfied to have seen whatever he was looking for. Redbeard rolled quietly after him. I didn’t like the look of that. Two ghoulish guys making snap judgments, then running off to tell their boss. It was the scenario for a cheap story, and I knew it; I’d written a few of them myself.
    “Never mind the postcard,” I said. “The Pier.”
    “Daddy keeps his autogyro at the Pier. But you don’t want a ride in it. He’s just learning to drive it.”
    “No thanks,” I said. “I leave flying for the birds. And for angels. Like you.” I imagined her at that moment with a pair of bright wings, rose and white and shimmering blue. I liked what I imagined, and