Oliver looked as if he would burst out in tears if I asked for an explanation.

Jonathan said, fortunately in an undertone directed to me, "By the by, Daisy, I was reading one of my books this morning. I often do, you know, and I happened to come across an interesting Chinese curse. 'May my enemy,'" he quoted, "'live in interesting times.'"

Jonathan does have a knack for seeing through to the essence of a situation. I was resisting a slightly hysterical impulse to reply to Oliver - 'Nonsense, the Compound's right here.' But I didn't. For the first time since I'd known him, Oliver's smooth, pink face was showing real stress lines around the eyes. I revised my remarks. "What do you mean? Please?" I coaxed.

Oliver took a big swallow of tea, then spilled half the rest of the cup into the saucer as he returned the china to the table. "I've told you how I built the Craft Compound, haven't I?" he murmured, pulling the window curtain aside for a long fond glance into the courtyard. Outside, the trees were stark in the early dusk, the custom ceramic lanterns casting interesting shadows among the branches. "This property was all I inherited from my father - one city block. One small city block. Those two old apartment houses across the alley ... and this place. It was 1972," he finished.

Jonathan and I exchanged glances. We had heard, many times - of course, the story of Oliver Fulton's one and only achievement. Still, in my opinion, Oliver had every right to be proud of what he'd done ...

"This was just a motel then," Oliver resumed. "A vacant motel. Spanish Nights, Dad had named it. Little, run-down stone cottages ... the courtyard with the tiled fountain ... the big trees ... but Dad couldn't make a go of it. He let the plumbing and wiring fall below city code standards and, finally, they closed him down - license revoked. The year before he died, the City was trying to get him to raze the lot. That was in 1971 ..."

Jonathan stirred, impatient. "Oliver, what ..."

A bomb might have interrupted him - Jonathan didn't. "Taco Bell made me an offer for the land," Oliver continued dreamily, unheeding. "Long John Silver's, Hot Dog Castle, even McDonald's. But ... I wouldn't sell! The apartments made enough to pay the taxes. I'd just received my B.A. in Art ... I went to craft shows, I advertised in the trades ... 'Handcrafters', I said, 'you fix up your cottage - you get free rent. One year - two years, depending on who buys the materials' - and it worked!" he informed us - an eternal note of wonder in his voice. He leaned forward and put his be-ringed hands on his knees, as though his astonishment had not worn off, even after ten years. "It really worked. People pitched in ... we bartered our work for building materials ... we bartered with a lawyer to handle the red tape ... and we made it! Most of the old crowd moved on before you two came," he was remembering, "Santa Fe, La Jolla, ..."

Jonathan pounded the arm of his wheelchair. "Oliver, will you just tell us what's happened?"

Oliver came out of his reverie with a pained look. "I'm trying to. You see, the Compound worked so well that, a few months ago, I decided to try to expand. Those two apartment houses across the alley?" he paused to be sure that we knew the ones he meant. "I hated them being so scroungy." Oliver wagged his shoulders in disgust. "It made me feel like a slum lord! But to fix them up really nice was going to take a lot of money and the banks wouldn't loan me any. Interest rates were high. They said commercial money was tight ... whatever that meant! I shopped around ... Savings and Loans, credit agencies, everything. I couldn't raise any capital anywhere!" Oliver paused for a moment.

"Then Mr. Jarvis wrote me," he resumed. "Said that he was a private investor from New York. He loaned me enough to fix up one of the apartment houses ... in return for a mortgage on the whole property, including the Compound."

I raised my eyebrows. I'd known, of course, that Oliver was improving an apartment house - not the Belair where Mrs. Arriola lived but the Bonneview, next to it to the west - but he'd never told me the details of his financing.

"But Jarvis insisted on choosing the contractors," Oliver continued. "He's flown back and forth half a dozen times, overseeing. I figured it was his money, so I let him. But those people he chose did a terrible job. They went way over their estimates and they kept the building uninhabitable for months. Anyway ..." he gulped down the rest of his tea, "the long and the short of it is, last week I missed a payment."

After a long pause, Jonathan said: "Well? Go on!"

Oliver spread his hands wide. "But ... I just told you. I missed a payment ... and he's foreclosing! He flew in this afternoon."

I was incredulous. "For being one week late? On one payment?"

Oliver shrugged, helpless. "It's in the contract!" From his hip pocket, he produced a long, blue, much-folded legal document. "At least, Jarvis says it's in the contract ... and Snyder, my lawyer, is out of town."

I leaned over Jonathan's shoulder as Oliver showed us the pertinent clause, circled in red pencil:

"... It is understood and agreed that failure to pay this note; or failure to pay any installment as above promised; or any interest thereon when due; or to comply with any other provision herein, shall, at the election of the holder of said note, mature said note, and it shall at once become due and payable, and the Deed of Trust Lien herein mentioned shall become subject to foreclosure proceedings as the holder may elect ..."

"But ... this is absolutely ridiculous!" I said. "How much is the monthly payment?"

"Nine hundred and forty-two dollars and eighty-three cents," Oliver offered mournfully.

I rang up "No Sale" on the cash register and counted. "Here's $175.00. How much do you have on hand, Jonathan?"

"Huh? Oh, about two hundred," Jonathan muttered, still frowning over the contract.

"That's three-seventy-five. Okay Oliver, how much have you got?"

Oliver started looking through his pockets.

"No, I mean in your shop," I explained, "for change? And in the bank?" I added.

Oliver spread his hands, helpless. "About $35.00 at my shop ... and I'm overdrawn."

"Um ... So, who all else is coming to the Tenants' Meeting?"

"Oh. I ... I'm not sure," Oliver sighed. "It was kind of short notice. Most people I just had to leave messages for."

Well, that didn't really matter ... "Is there a set of master keys in the maintenance room?" I asked Oliver. "Or will Charlie be here tonight?" Charlie Ruggles, I meant, our part-time maintenance man.

"Daisy ..." Jonathan's voice was ominous. "Just what exactly are you thinking of?"

I didn't know why he was asking - he sounded like he already knew. "Just until the banks open tomorrow," I explained. "Look, Jonathan. Put yourself in the other tenants' place. Would you rather come in tomorrow and find out that I'd borrowed from your till or would you rather come in and find out you'd been foreclosed on?" I tapped a foot while I gave him a moment to think on it. "Now, I've got about $100.00 in the bank and I can borrow $300.00 on VISA tomorrow ... Jonathan, how much do you have in the bank?"

Jonathan looked up at me, his head shaking slowly. "Daisy, I will refrain . . . and you know what an effort of self-control it costs me ... from pointing out that you are not only arguing in a circle but also proposing to pay me back out of my own bank account. However, I must be certain that you understand that what you are contemplating is referred to in the statutes as 'felonious entry with intent to commit burglary'."

"Nonsense," I replied. "It's all in our leases. Oliver, or his authorized agent, has the right to enter anyone's premises at any time, if he has any reason to suspect illegal activity ..."

"I know, I know, spare me," Jonathan interrupted in one of those rare flights of originality that make me value his friendship so highly ... in spite of everything. "Your breaking and entering would, otherwise, be an illegal activity and, therefore ..."

"Whatever," I agreed pleasantly. As a matter of fact, I had been rather wildly thinking of Jarvis' swindle and that ridiculous contract ... which I certainly hoped would turn out to be illegal. "Oliver? What do you think? Okay?"

Oliver was beaming happily. "I'd never have thought of that," he said dreamily. "Everybody pitching in. Why," he added like Saul on the Damascus road, "it will be just like Old Times ..."

I thought Jonathan was really worrying for nothing. We were all friends and neighbors here - most of us anyway - but, just to make him feel better, I suggested that he call the other tenants and formally request the loans.

While Jonathan made the calls, Oliver and I went ahead and borrowed.

Neither of us had a set of master keys - Oliver's were in his office - where Jarvis was and, if I needed them, I normally used Charlie's ... so, first, we went to the maintenance room.

The maintenance room had once been a utility room and storage shed. Next to it was the passage leading to the Compound's parking lot. Charlie Ruggles, the Compound's maintenance man, also did a florishing part-time business repairing small appliances, bicycles and toys. The corner behind his workbench was piled high with dismembered bicycles. Charlie was nowhere in sight but the lights were on and Charlie's coffeepot was still hot. "Must be out locking up," Oliver suggested and I nodded.

At five-thirty - or thereabouts - every night, the three heavy wooden gates - one at the east and one at the west sides of the front and the single rear gate leading to the parking lot. Tenants who wanted to stay late or visit their shops after hours had to unlock and lock both doors through the maintenance room. Only The Shed, our gourmet/health-food restaurant, had an outside door ... and, after five, kept their side door to the courtyard locked.

Charlie kept his regular set of master keys hanging from a retractable chain on his belt. Presumably, he was using them to lock up with right now. The heavy gates leading to the back parking lot were already closed. Oliver, using a small key from his own key ring, unlocked the metal cabinet next to the fuse box and found another set of masters. "Here are the spares," he said, "let's go."

I stopped to leave a note for Charlie: 'We're burglarizing - don't worry. Come to Oliver's office ASAP. VERY IMPORTANT! D & O'. Then, remembering why we were burglarizing, I checked Charlie's cash box. Charlie hadn't bothered to lock it - trusting soul. I took fifty in bills, leaving about as much and adding an I.O.U.

Then we set out, Oliver happily jingling the master keys.

Despite my brave words to Jonathan and Oliver's delight in the whole adventure, I sure didn't want to hit anyone who might object. Not all the tenants here were part of our 'one big happy family'. While I was hesitating in the courtyard, we saw lights appear behind the two big shop windows at the far west end. "Oh, good," I said. "Steven's still here. We can go ask him."

By the time we'd crossed the two hundred feet to the west end of the long, narrow courtyard, the front windows of Steven McCoy's pottery shop were dark again. But, now, a light was shining from around the corner of his shop and we could hear Steven whistling, off-key, from the kiln yard back behind the building.

Steven's shop, the Pot Emporium, runs most of the length of the west end of the courtyard, occupying three of the original stone cottages plus the connecting breezeways he'd added between them. The remainder of the west end, a single cottage, houses the Needle and Haystack.

Between Steven's northernmost cottage and the Needle, a narrow, stone-flagged passage runs to a small, cement-floored courtyard which Steven has more or less staked out as his private property. Following the sound of the whistling, Oliver and I walked through the passage and found Steven arranging dull-surfaced, unfired pieces of pottery on a trestle table a few feet away from his kiln. The tables filled the center of the small court they occupied. Steven stopped his tuneless whistling only long enough to look up and nod at us, his hands never ceasing their smooth, efficient movements.

"Hi, Steven," I greeted him. "How goes?"

After a long pause, he looked up from his work again. "Huh? ... Oh, okay."

I didn't like to interrupt too rudely, so I watched for a few minutes, sidling around to get a good view of the slogan on his sweatshirt. Steven was tall, black, muscular and thirtyish and, if he could read, I'd never discovered it. His Pot Emporium was one of the more successful businesses in the Compound. Along with selling his own work, teaching classes and selling his student's work on consignment, Steven also handled a lot of what Jonathan would doubtless call 'the superfluous' ... including a full line of craft-related T-shirts and sweat shirts, which he was always pulling out of stock to wear himself - without regard to their relevancy. This one, I saw when he finally straightened up, read simply, 'Potters do it in the mud'.

"Huh?" he repeated finally, seeing us still there. "Did you want something?"

"Yes," I said firmly. "Two hundred dollars."

Steven was frowning at a tall stoneware piece, obviously the work of a student. You know those Coke bottles some people partially melt, then draw the necks out real long and skinny? This appeared to be a handmade replica of one of these distorted bottles, carefully constructed of clay with 'COKE' lettered neatly on it in a whitish glaze. "Way too tall ..." he muttered. "Have to wait for the next firing ..."

I tried again. "Steven, how much cash have you got?"

Carefully, he placed the Coke bottle statue on the floor under the table and returned to sorting smaller pieces. "Dunno. Everything's unlocked. Help yourselves."

Oliver trotted inside the cottage while I stood and watched Steven setting out his 'kiln furniture'. A pottery kiln is nothing but a huge, free-standing oven. Steven's was roughly square and stood about as high as my shoulder - without any racks inside. Each time Steven wanted to fire, he had to assemble his own shelves out of an assortment of slabs of silicon carbide and pillars of hard-fired clay. The kiln, when fully heated, could reach a temperature of 2500 degrees - too hot for most metals.

"Are you coming to the Tenants' Meeting?" I asked finally, wondering if it was worth trying to break through Steven's absorption to tell him about Jarvis and the foreclosure.

Without looking up from his work, the big black man shook his head. "Dunno. Got a class coming at 8:30. We're going to load the kiln and fire tonight. And, before then, there's something else I've got to do ... Yeah, I got to get something to eat."

Oliver rejoined us, beaming. "Two hundred-ten!" he said. "Listen, Steven, you don't know how great this makes me feel ..."

"I thought I paid the rent last week," Steven muttered. "How come it went up? I thought I had a damn lease here?"

"I'll explain later," I answered quickly, hoping Oliver hadn't heard. "Try and come to the meeting ..." I followed Oliver out the passage.

Oliver now had $635.00 in one pocket or another. We performed two more successful and uneventful burglaries. I was good friends with the proprietors of both the Toy Box and the Candle Waxworks and anticipated little trouble when they found out. That netted us $250.00, making a total - including Oliver's $35.00 - of $920.00. Enough I figured to cover any reasonable penalty or interest for the odd week.

"This is great!" Oliver said as we made our way back toward his office at the east end of the courtyard, just across from my shop and Jonathan's. "I'll get a receipt ... I'll have witnesses ..."

The lights were still on in my shop, so we stopped there first. Jonathan was still on the phone, busily making notes on a pad of my sales slips.

"We got it ..." I began.

But Jonathan waved for silence. After a moment, he spoke to the phone: "Well, I thank you very much. We'll keep you posted." Hanging up, he maneuvered his chair to face us.

"Well," I said, "who all did you get?"

Jonathan looked smug. "If you mean tenants, which I presume you do, I called none. But, I have been learning some interesting facts about one Mister J. D. Jarvis."

Oliver was sorting money on my counter: twenties, tens, fives, ... The greenbacks clashed oddly with the marbled orange Formica countertop.

"You see," Jonathan went on, "after you two had departed so precipitously on your career of crime, I indulged myself in a few minutes of quiet thought. I do this occasionally, you know ..."

I knew enough about Jonathan's 'occasionallies'. I looked pointedly at the clock. It now read 5:30. "Oliver," I said, "do we really have time to listen to Jonathan expound right now? If Jarvis is waiting for us at your office . ."

"The Tenants' Meeting," Oliver told me with unexpected firmness, "is scheduled for six. We will all talk to Mr. Jarvis then, together." He resumed his counting, accompanying himself with a whistled "Stout Hearted Men".

Jonathan continued, obviously savoring some private triumph. "J. D. Jarvis ... New York ... It rang, you might say, a bell. As it might have done with you too, Daisy, were you in the habit of actually reading the 'Handcrafter's Quarterly Newsletter', to which Oliver has kindly subscribed for all of us. Ah, Oliver. May I ask, are you aware of Mr. Jarvis' own involvement in the handicraft field?"

"Hm?" Oliver looked up from the stack of bills which he was counting for the second - or maybe third - time. "I think he runs a chain of craft outlets, doesn't he? And his granddaughter does batik. She showed me a piece. Beautiful work."

"So, Oliver," Jonathan accused, "you did not read the Newsletter's feature on Mr. Jarvis either?" Jonathan reads anything ... and everything ... and expects - or pretends that he expects - everyone else to do the same.

"Well," Oliver replied meekly, "I've been kind of busy."

Wordlessly Jonathan passed us last January's copy of the 'Newsletter', which, in spite of its name, is a quite well-produced magazine on glossy paper and illustrated with excellent color photographs.

I spread the magazine on the counter on top of Oliver's money and we read it together.

According to the 'Newsletter', J. D. Jarvis was the worst disaster to hit the craft world since thermo-setting plastic. Cashing in on the growing interest in handmade products, he had proceeded to apply conventional mass marketing techniques in his nationwide chain of 'Treasure Galleons'. The results, according to the article, "must be seen to be believed, though we would we might do neither ..."

I had to look twice at the full page color photograph of Jarvis' original New York store before I figured it out. To the front of a conventional metal prefab building had been attached the replica of the rear end of a sailing ship - made, according to the caption, of C/D plywood. The ship's rear-end, in turn, was embellished with numerous false doors and gable windows, complete with painted-on shutters, scalloped window boxes sprouting plastic daisies and hand-hewn timbers "made from acrylic-painted fiberglass."

"We forebear," the article continued, sounding as though it might have been written by some pompous great-uncle of Jonathan's, "from describing the content of the network television commercials which Mr. Jarvis has has chosen to employ - not motivated from mere considerations of action for libel - but to spare the sensitivities of our readers. Let us rather suggest, as mildly as possible, that both the pirate-costumed six year olds and the lyrics they lisp are quite in keeping with both the facade of the building and the practices indulged within? Within, did we say? Within, amid a decor of plastic fishnets capturing plaster fish and badly recorded and bolderized sea-chanties boomed from innumerable loudspeakers, the atmosphere remains incorrigibly that of the super-discount house ..."

I skimmed the rest of the article. The 'Newsletter's prose style has always given me a headache - one reason I seldom read it.

"In the judgement of the Newsletter," the article went on, "perhaps one third of the items stocked by the Treasure Galleon do, in fact, deserve the name of 'handicrafts' - notably in the areas of jewelry, ceramics and fur and leather goods. Most of these items, we must reluctantly admit, are very good indeed. Also, there is a thin smattering of quite good antiques ... However, the great majority of the Galleon's stock consists of jewelry made from standardized settings and stones and porcelain 'pottery' of the slip-cast variety with low-fire commercial glazes. The latter - so saith rumor, present despondent saith not - is often misrepresented - at least by implication - as true wheel-thrown wares ... It might be mentioned, in retrospect, that a lawsuit brought by the New England Artists Association has forced the discontinuance of the sale of production-line oils as artist's originals ..."

I skimmed further, then came to something a bit juicier.

"Unfortunately, it is not within the province of this magazine to comment upon rumors currently circulating in connection with Mr. J. D. Jarvis' real estate investment dealings - rumors that have arisen on account of that gentleman's choice of business associates - nor on the subject of other rumors more sinister yet. In conclusion, it may only be hoped that those legitimate craftsmen who have suffered the grave misfortune to become associated with these self-styled 'Treasure Galleons' may, in the course of time, be allowed to repent this sullied association and restore themselves and their good names to the honorable company of artists and craftworkers and that others may hereby be forewarned of the dangers of such association."

The only positive note in the article was a sidebar on Lucy Jarvis and her batik, which showed a close-up picture of the pretty dark-haired girl holding a red and yellow canvas tote bag. Its design was elegant and original, showing all the qualities of good taste and integrity that her grandfather seemed so sadly to lack.

"You will note," Jonathan said as I looked up from the article, "the author's guarded reference to 'rumors more sinister yet'?"

"Well? Go on," I supplied the expected request. "Did you find out something else?"

"Oh, yes. Quite a bit," Jonathan was smugly satisfied. "While you two were out chasing about, I took the liberty of placing a long distance call on your telephone, Daisy. Luckily for us, the editorial offices of the 'Newsletter' are located in Los Angeles. Their time is two hours behind ours and I was able to contact the associate editor responsible for the article before he left for the day." Jonathan paused, self-satisfaction oozing from every pore.

"And," he added, "he was all too happy to fill me in on the more libelous details."

"Real estate swindling, too?" I hoped Jarvis hadn't actually had practice in foreclosing on people like Oliver.

"No ..." Jonathan assumed an expression of judicious accuracy. "No, he's sometimes dealt a bit sharply in acquiring the properties to locate his outlets but, no, nothing quite along this line. However, what the 'Newsletter' feared to print was that the New York police are convinced that Jarvis' chain of outlets is, in fact, a front for a nationwide fencing operation."

"Dueling?" Oliver picked up on that last.

"Fencing?" I blinked. Aside from an occasional shopkeeper who neglects to pay his consigners or an occasional studio tenant who gets behind on the rent and decamps to Mexico, craft people in general tend to be a ridiculously honest lot. "You mean ... as in stolen goods?"

Jonathan prepared to expound. "Consider a moment, Daisy, and you will see that a craft and antique emporiums - a chain of emporiums - is the ideal cover for disposing of stolen goods. Not suitable for TV sets and guns, of course, but for antiques, jewelry, art works, one-of-a-kind items ..."

It made a weird kind of sense. "He could ship things around that way pretty easily," I agreed. "He'd be rotating unsold craft items from one location to another anyway, so he could send stolen goods to some other part of the country to sell them. And they wouldn't have to match factory invoices because he wouldn't have any factory invoices anyway - not on the good stuff." Invoices from craftworkers tend to be scribbly and informal. An investigator would go quite mad trying to verify them.

Jonathan nodded approval. "Not only that. You're missing the big point. He can farm the items out to certain craftsmen for reworking. Melting down jewelry, resetting the stones, altering furs beyond recognition ..."

"Well," I said, "that's nice to know. But, I don't see how it helps us much right now."

"Nor do I," Jonathan admitted. "But, the editor mentioned another matter which may be rather more promising ..."

The phone rang and I reached for it. "Hello, Daisy." The voice was young, male and familiar. "Is Uncle Jonathan there? I've got the information he wanted."

"Hi, David," I responded. I've fed Jonathan's nephew, David Bell, quite a few dinners in the last two years, ever since he received his B.A. in Journalism from the University of Missouri and came here to work for the Brazos City Gazette. I reached automatically for a pencil. "You want to just give it to me?" I asked. "About Jarvis, I assume?"

"Yeah, right," he said. "Uncle Jonathan called a few minutes ago. Asked me to see what I could find out, off the record. So, I called a friend on the Trib in New York. Lots of dirt if you know which carpets to look under. According to my informant - that's how they phrase it in the big city ..."

"David!" I snapped, "Either give or get off the line."

"As I was saying," his voice was grinning, "according to my informant, aside from the fencing operation, Jarvis' criminal activities seem to be pretty small time. No known or suspected mob connections ..."

Thank God for small favors, I thought while making notes in my personal shorthand.

"But," David continued, "Jarvis does appear to do a profitable sideline in laundering money."

"Pardon?"

"What that means," David explained patiently, "is that Jarvis accepts 'hot money' - illicit income - and reinvests it ... most likely at usurious interest rates. The income from such investments returns to the investors as earnings from legitimate sources which can be reported to the IRS, taxes paid and no embarrassing questions asked. Ergo: laundering. My contact at the Trib has it from a source at Jarvis' bank that he never uses his own money in his real estate investments. He only acts as a front for people who have unreportable income - if you follow me. The gossip suggests that most of the sources are other independent fences."

I grinned at Jonathan across the receiver. "The light begins to dawn." I returned to the phone. "Ah, David, I don't guess by any chance you would happen to know ... Does he have a different backer for each deal or what?"

"Like I said," David repeated, "Jarvis is strictly small-time. He handles laundry accounts that are too small to go through regular mob channels. He might handle twenty grand from one source, thirty from another and fifty from a third, either together or each in a separate property."

"Have the police traced any of his, er, laundry customers," I asked. "Any leads on who might be backing him on this business?"

"Sorry, Daisy," David regretted. "That's all I could get. I could call them back and suggest some inquiries ... if there's a chance that it would blow up to anything interesting," he added hopefully.

I glanced at the clock again. Five-fifty five. "We really don't know at this point," I told him. "I'll call you back later, okay? Thanks, honey."

I hung up the phone and relayed the information to Jonathan and Oliver - in considerably fewer words than Jonathan would have chosen if he'd taken the call. "You know, Jonathan," I finished, "there can be times when you are positively useful!"

Oliver looked puzzled. "What difference does it make where Jarvis got his money? I've already spent it!"

"Maybe none," I admitted. It would all depend on how well Jarvis' anonymous backer had covered his tracks and I knew nothing about how such things were managed. "But, if Jarvis gives any more trouble, we could try to find out who his backer is on this deal, then go to the backer and threaten to reveal his indentity unless he calls Jarvis off. Or something ..." I finished.

"Oh! Okay," Oliver replied. "You mean like if I miss another payment." Somehow I did not quite like the look on Oliver's face. It was as though grand new vistas were dawning ...

But Jonathan distracted him just in time. "The first thing to do," he instructed, "is offer to make payment, in cash, of the amount in which you are delinquent. If this is refused, before witnesses," Jonathan raised a pontifical hand, "then we proceed to the suggestion of, er, blackmail. I would suggest that you do not consider missing future payments - our threats can only stretch so far ... Now children," Jonathan finished, "shall we proceed to the Tenants' Meeting?"