I sighed, hung up the phone, turned, took another deep breath, and pushed the door open.  Sara Lundgren was standing there.  You couldn't make out the unorthodox color of her hair in the dim light.  It just looked soft and bright under her little tweed hat.  She looked rather pretty and feminine to me now, after an evening in the company of the taut, shorn, dark leanness of Lou Taylor.  I suppose the fact that I hadn't been quite sure I wasn't opening the door to violence, or even death, also tended to operate in her favor.

"All clear?" I asked.  My voice was steady enough, I was I glad to hear.

She nodded.  "As far as I can tell.  My car is parked on the other side of the trees.  We can sit there and talk."

I don't like parted cars any more than I like phone booths.  All it takes is a small amount of explosive, properly activated, or a single burst from an automatic weapon.  There's no place you can go that can't be predicted and covered beforehand.  But I was just a hick photographer, or, on a different level, a superannuated retread reluctantly put back into service; I wasn't supposed to be thinking of such things.

"You took your time with dinner," Sara said, guiding me into a path I hadn't seen in the dark.  Her heels made small clicking sounds against the invisible pavement.  "Did you have to let the woman tell you the whole story of her life?  Or tell her the whole of yours?  At least you could have refrained from spending an hour over the brandy!  You might have realized, if you'd bothered to think, that I haven't had my clothes off since I started for Gothenburg at midnight last night!"

It was kind of like being married again, although Beth had never been the nagging type.  I found myself wondering how Beth and the kids were getting on in Reno.  It wasn't much of a place for kids.  I said, "You didn't have to follow us.  You knew we'd be coming back to the hotel."

Sara said irritably, "How do you know what I have to do?  Any more than I know what you have to do.  All I know is that I'm supposed to watch out for you while you're here, at the request of your superiors, confirmed by mine.  When I get an order, I obey it!"

I listened to her sharp voice, and the rapping of her smart, slim, pointed little heels, and subtracted these sounds from the total sounds of the night.  I subtracted the distant traffic murmurs and the soft whisper of a vagrant breeze.  That still left a little more sound than there should have been.  It wasn't anything as definite as a cracking branch or even a rustling leaf.  It was just the old hunter's instinct warning me that we shared this park with someone, or something.

Sara stopped abruptly.  "Did you hear something?  I thought I did."

"No," I said.  "I didn't hear anything."

She laughed uneasily.  "When I'm tired, I get nervous.  I've just got the wind up a bit, I guess.  Heavens, I've been overseas so long I'm beginning to talk like a Britisher!  Come on."

The car was a little Kharmann-Ghia, a Volkswagen with sex appeal.  It was the only vehicle in the parking area, which was located just off a wide street carrying considerable traffic, even at this hour of the night.  I hadn't realized civilization was so close.  As I watched, a motor scooter went past.  A boy was driving, and a girl, nicely dressed, her skirt rippling in the wind of their motion, was perched gracefully sideways on the rear cushion: two kids on a date.  I could imagine the scornful reaction of an American girl offered this breezy transportation after dolling herself up in high heels, nylons, and little white gloves.  Behind me, the park was silent.  Whoever was there was no longer moving around.  Well, neither were we.

"Come on, get in!" Sara said impatiently.  She had already seated herself behind the wheel.