Despite the office lights, Slade, Altman and Geary didn't impress me as the type of attorneys who would be busy burning the midnight oil. Not that it was anywhere near midnight - my wristwatch said 6:20. Still, it didn't need a detective to figure that the Viscount Services truck - parked in the No Parking 8:00-5:00 zone - meant that the lights were for the cleaners, not the attorneys.

Which suited me fine - I wasn't looking for attorneys.

The brick waterfall at the back of the courtyard was still dripping but the main flow had shut down before I'd arrived.

When I knocked on the door, there was no response. No particular surprise - cleaners don't generally answer their client's doors.

"Mrs. Pratt?" I spoke loudly enough to be heard through the door and, hopefully, over the radio I could hear inside. "Mrs. Grady?" I tried for the second half of the team.

It took several minutes for a response but, finally, the door was opened, allowing me to face two women. "Mrs. Pratt," I nodded to the one I recognized from her daughter's photograph. "I'm James MacPherson," I offered one of my business cards - the ones reading H. D. Agency, not one of my 'specials'. "Has your daughter mentioned my name?"

Mrs. Pratt - clad in levis and a dungaree shirt, her auburn hair tucked under a ballcap bearing the Oakland A's logo - was taller than her daughter, displaying a healthy figure which would not have been out of place in a bathing suit.

Her companion - Mrs. Grady, I assumed - was a few years older and preferred slacks and blouse to levis. Her dark hair was arranged in a lush braid down her back. She was also a few pounds heavier - and maybe an inch or two shorter - but still attractive.

They were both attractive ... and, come to think of it, about my age as well. For that matter, neither the levis or the slacks left a whole lot to the imagination ... and my imagination was doing some fast revisions on my mental images.

I wasn't sure why - assumptions were a detective's worst enemy - but I'd been expecting quite a different picture. I suppose, mentally, I'd added a decade or two to the picture Evelyn had shown me ... that and a few pounds along with gray hair pulled up in a bun and a flowered dress worn under an old sweater with sensible shoes. You know - the cartoon image of a cleaning woman.

Or maybe Mrs. Pratt's so neat apartment had mislead me.

"As a matter of fact," Mrs. Pratt confirmed, "Evie did mention you. Said she'd hired you to check up on her senile old mother."

"Oh, come on, Helen," Mrs. Grady correct. "She said nothing of the sort. So," she addressed me directly, "you're a private eye? You don't look like a Mike Hammer or James Bond. What's up? Evie worried again?"

"No," I admitted. "Nothing like that. But do you have a minute? I'd like to ask you about a couple of things."

The two ladies exchanged glances before Mrs. Pratt answered. "Sure, come on in. I suppose you must be honest - Evie said you'd sent her a partial refund. At any rate, you've got us curious. What's it all about?" She stepped aside to let me into the reception area before offering: "Care for some coffee? The legal beagles keep a pretty decent brew."

"Sure," I agreed. "Sounds good." I picked a set where the two ladies could sit facing me. When you're trying to question someone, if you're seated comfortably - and they are too - it's harder to break off the conversation than if you're just standing around. And the coffee - even though I didn't really want any - is another ploy; it puts things on more of a social footing.

Of course, depending on who you're talking to and why, there are other rules which may apply. But, in this situation, the casual conversational approach was appropriate.

Mrs. Pratt took one end of the couch opposite me while Mrs. Grady vanished for a moment.

"Mary will bring the coffee," Mrs. Pratt offered. "Now, what would you like to know?"

"I'm not sure exactly where to start," I admitted. "I understand you won a trip? Is that right?"

"You mean Disney World," Mrs. Pratt confirmed. "Mary and I had a blast. It was quite a surprise really. You know, I still can't find any record of entering the contest. But they paid all our expenses - airline tickets, rooms at the Disney World hotel, even gave us an extra five hundred each for pocket money."

"Sounded like some kind of a scam to me," Mrs. Grady offered, reappearing with a tray of mugs of coffee, both sugar and diet sweeteners and packets of non-dairy creamer. "Having to leave on such short notice and all. But I've got to admit, we had a great time. Even if Evie did get confused. There something wrong?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Grady," I answered. "I just have a couple of points I'd like to ask about."

"Call me Mary," Mary Grady instructed.

"And I'm Helen," Mrs. Pratt advised. "Cream? Sugar?"

"Sugar, thanks," I accepted a cup. "Mac's fine for me. Tell me, when did you find out you'd won the contest?"

"Wednesday evening," Helen admitted. "When we got back to Viscount. There was a messenger waiting for us. Had a letter from the contest agency; "Clipper Promotions, Inc." was the name - must be a small outfit. I haven't been able to find them listed anywhere." Helen paused to stir creamer in her coffee.

"Anyway," she resumed, "the messenger had two tickets on Delta, a fax confirming the hotel reservations - prepaid, passes to Disney World good for a week. Said a limousine would pick us up at eight in the morning and our cashier's checks would be waiting at the hotel."

"That's right," Mary agreed. "Shoot, it was after midnight and they expected us to be ready to leave at eight? It was okay though, we slept on the plane. We're night people anyway."

"Better at night," Helen contributed. "Fewer kids. Well, fewer young kids anyway. Lot of newly-weds but enough singles and swingers to make it interesting. Great place for pickups." She smiled at the memory.

"Do you have the letter from the contest agency?" I queried. It didn't sound like much but at least it would be a place to start.

"You know, in all the excitement, I don't know what happened to it. I usually keep things like that for my files but I couldn't find it. Don't know where it got to."

"You've won contests before?" I knew she'd entered a lot and that she took them seriously but I didn't know what her win record was.

"Sometimes," she admitted. "I'm a contest freak. I've got probably three - four hundred entries out right now. I win a dozen or more a year; not counting the boobies - sometimes something worth while, sometimes junk. It's a game."

"Boobies?"

"You know. Boobie prizes. The junk stuff they give out to everyone that enters. Packages of cereal, bars of soap, flea powder, stuff like that. Mostly I give it away. Or throw it away. Some of it's not worth the postage. And then there're a lot of scams - contests where you've won but they want something up front - like shipping charges or handling fees - before you get your prize. Those go straight in the trash. Even if you get anything from them - and the odds are lousy - it's worth less that what you pay in fees. If you're going to play the contests, you've got to really watch what's going on."

"Is it usual for prizes to be delivered by messenger?" I tried to get back to the immediate topic.

"Don't you watch the ads on TV, Mac? Some people have prize patrols knocking on your door - if you're lucky, that is. Some come by registered mail, some just by post. The bigger the prize, the fancier the delivery. After all, they aren't doing it just out of generosity - it's all for publicity. Naw, a messenger didn't seem that unusual."

I took them back over the events of the previous week again but there wasn't much. They didn't know how the tickets or hotel had been paid, the cashier's checks were legit but, of course, they'd cashed those immediately.

Helen didn't have the letter from the contest agency and all she remembered was the name; no phone number, no address. "Actually," she admitted, "I'm not even sure that there was one. The letterhead looked real though."

Yeah, and so did my bogus business cards ... as well as a couple of laminated IDs I kept in a hidden compartment in my desk. I made a mental note to be sure I retrieved those before donating the furniture somewhere.

There were two puzzling points: the reservations and airlines tickets had been made in their names: both names - Mary Graves and Helen Platt ... even though, supposedly, it had been Helen who'd entered the contest.

Second, temporary replacements for their jobs at Viscount had also been arranged.

Third, the short notice ...

You ever read a story by Doyle titled: 'The League of Red-headed Men'?

I declined a second cup of coffee but did ask if I could look around the attorney's offices. "You can keep an eye on me," I suggested. "I'm not snooping into any private files or anything. I'd just like to see the layout."

"What do you think," Helen asked Mary.

"Oh, if he gets out of hand, I think we can probably manage him," Mary considered. "Besides, he's kind of cute."

The suite consisted of four private offices - one used for storage - a conference room with a large table, a law library filled with heavy tomes, two secretarial desks, the receptionist's station and the waiting room ... and a small bathroom. Of course, there were computer terminals in each room, telephones and lots of locked file cabinets.

I wasn't there to check for bugs ... or for phone or computer taps or to look for signs of felonious entry to any of the locked cabinets. Just to get an idea of the layout and, mostly, to talk to Mary and Helen.

In the Red-headed League, the ploy had involved decoying a shop keeper while digging a tunnel from his basement into the vault of a bank. But these offices were on the second floor ... and there wasn't anything adjoining that looked worth this much trouble to gain access.

I just had one more question. "Tell me, what kind of a job did your replacements do? Was it satisfactory? Were the clients happy with the work? Any complaints?"

"No complaints here," Helen admitted. "But, personally, I think they did a pretty slipshod job of it. Place didn't look like it had been vacuumed all week.

"Old man Parajan complained," Mary reminded her. "Said somebody tracked dust all over the carpets."

"Yeah but that wasn't here."

"This was at Magic Carpets?" I hazarded a guess.

"That's right," Mary confirmed. "Didn't look like they did a very good job there either. Remember, we worked overtime that first night we were back."

"Right, vacuuming all those carpets and then polishing the floors. That certainly hadn't been done properly. Bunch of grit on the stairs too. It's a wonder Parajan didn't fire us entirely."

"Wasn't our fault," Mary reminded her. "Besides, he complains every time we're off on vacation." She turned to me. "We've been doing Magic Carpets for years. Mr. Parajan always complains about our replacements. But he gives us a generous bonus every Christmas."

It was nearly seven-thirty and I was due to meet Mrs. Zappa for dinner at eight. "What time do you get to Magic Carpets," I asked.

"Uh, well, we're running a little late tonight," Helen admitted. "Probably not until nine, nine-thirty. Why?"

"I'd like to look around there as well," I answered. "How late will you be there?"

"It's a big place," Mary considered. "We should be finished sometime around midnight. Maybe later."

We agreed - tentatively - that I'd try to drop by before the witching hour. And that I'd stand them to a late dinner as a reward.

Then I split to keep my other date.

My social calendar was getting hectic ...

* * *

Jhanthon Banbua - the House of the Golden Dishes - was one of my favorite restaurants. It wasn't the fanciest place in San Francisco and it wasn't located for the tourist trade. Instead, they did a regular business by serving really good food ... and by not catering to American tastes. Still, if you asked, they would prepare milder versions of traditional Thai dishes.

For myself, I liked them moderately spicy but, for Mrs. Zappa, I requested "mai pet mak" - which stretched my Thai to the limits but meant "not too spicy".

Over tom kha gai - a coconut milk and chicken soup flavored with Keffir lime leaves and chili peppers - I filled Mrs. Zappa in on how the surveillance had been accomplished and how the fence's warehouse had been busted. She was paying the bills and I figured she could use a laugh.

And she did. "Crashing a car into the van? It's certainly original. But what if your friend had gotten hurt?"

"He was a professional," I reminded her. "Actually, when I saw him hit, I was more worried about the people in the van. I was afraid he was going to jam them over the embankment and down the hill into the mall parking lot. Which was more damage than I'd planned on. I guess I should have known better."

"Oh, they were pretty shook up," Mrs. Zappa agreed. "But more by being caught than by being hit. The crash jammed the front doors as well as the side - probably when they hit the tree. Otherwise, they'd have tried to run. You know the police found one of them hiding under a load of dresses in the back?"

So I'd heard but I smiled at the image anyway.

"Getting anything out of any of them?"

"They're standing mute," Mrs. Zappa admitted. "There isn't that much they can be nailed on anyway. I imagine they're all out on bail by now and half of them will skip anyway. The evidence just isn't serious enough."

"It's only the opening ploy," I reminded her. "Just to let us get some new people inside your organization."

"I know," she agreed. "And, given the excuse, I insisted on reviewing all new applications and I found reasons for turning down several. With all the shakeups and confusion, it was pretty hard for anyone to argue. So, your people are being hired immediately. You should have plants in several of the mall locations by Sunday."

"What about this weekend?" I skewered a piece of tod mun - a curried fishcake that has to be tasted to be believed.

"Saturday evening," she confirmed. "Leon Trask has the desk for the four to twelve shift and we've got carpet cleaners coming in to shampoo the rugs. Building maintenance arranged that. And it's excuse enough to keep people from wandering in. Not that anyone's likely to on a weekend evening. Except me - I'll be working late just in case Leon needs any authority." She passed me a note with the name of the cleaners and a phone number. "They'll load you uniforms and you can come in with the crew.

"And," she fished in her purse for a large envelope, "here's a complete set of keys - including the security masters, they're labeled - and a floor plan identifying everyone's offices. The only keys I don't have are for the employee's lockers."

"That's okay," I agreed. "I don't think we need to check those anyway. Not at the moment at least. Let's stick to the arrangements I outlined."

"It's your ballgame," she admitted. "Frankly, I'm surprised how much you've already accomplished. Matheson said you were unusual but that you got results. I believe he understated the case."

"The results aren't in yet," I reminded her. "But I think we're on the right track. Tell me something, what's the stock situation at DSS? Who are the major stockholders? And what are the major voting blocks?"

Covering the stockholdings took a while. Aside from the board of directors - all of whom held various numbers of shares - a lot of the shares were held by institutions: banks, mutual funds, holding corporations, etc. And a lot of the employees held shares of stock, DSS had a generous stock-option plan.

"I don't know anyone who can swing enough shares to ensure control," Mrs. Zappa concluded. "Of course, I don't know exactly who holds what until they register their shares. Share are changing hands all the time and sometimes it takes a while for them to register. What do you have in mind?"

"I assume you hold stock in the company?" For the moment, I ignored her query.

"That's right," she agreed. "Under the terms of my contract, I was awarded a block of shares when I took over as CEO. But I was also required to invest in shares under a hold agreement. Nothing too unusual for an upper management position. The idea is that the bosses should have an interest in the company beyond their salaries. The way it works, I actually make more from my shares - as long as DSS does well - than from my paychecks.

"For that matter," she continued, "some of our long term employees probably gain more from their holdings than from their salaries."

"Unless there's a big drop in share prices," I reminded her.

"No," she disagreed. "That only applies if you're selling shares. If you just hang on and weather fluctuations while collecting dividends, you're still ahead. The only real problem would be if DSS's earnings dropped drastically. What is it you're looking for?"

"You know there are buy orders out for DSS shares? At twenty off market?"

"I didn't," she admitted. "Then you're saying that someone's betting on a slump in share values?"

"And selling short as well," I confirmed. "It makes me wonder if someone's trying to manipulate the market in DSS stocks."

"But why? I don't see the point."

"It takes really big cash," I expanded, "to shift the market in a Fortune 500 company. Too much and too many shares out. But DSS isn't that big - small enough maybe to tempt someone on the inside to try to force the share price down if they could make a profit by doing so."

"I don't know," Mrs. Zappa shook her head. "That sounds like a lot of trouble to try to play the market ... even in penny stocks."

DSS wasn't exactly a 'penny' stock but the term applied generically to all over the counter issues.

"If it was only to manipulate stock prices, maybe," I suggested. "But, think about it, what if their aim was to manipulate DSS and change the upper management. Gaining control of a large block of stock and upsetting the status quo could go hand in hand. Particularly if their real aim was to get control of DSS." I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts ... and to make inroads on the baked prawns.

"For one thing," I resumed, "suppose the people behind this had funds which needed laundering? The stock market's a dirty business but it's also a great laundry.

"For another, think about the advantages in controlling a security firm like DSS. With the wrong people in the right positions ...?"

Mrs. Zappa was silent for a long moment. "Ignoring the possibilities," she finally considered, "doesn't make them go away. The fact is, you may be right. And it scares the hell out of me." She fell silent again.

After a moment, "If things really fouled up at DSS, who might replace you as CEO? No," I corrected, "who thinks that they might replace you? When you were brought in to take over, who were the other candidates? Particularly those inside the company?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I made a point of not asking. I didn't want to prejudice myself against anyone. If what you say is true ... and it's possible ... I'll find out. I can ask around, the directors will know. DAMN IT! That's really rotten." She sat clutching her fork as if she were willing it to turn into a dagger she could use to pinion the unknown miscreant.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "But ..."

"It's not your fault," she assured me. "But if they killed Carlton ..." She was more upset about the security guard's death than anything else.

And I really couldn't disagree with her priorities. "We'll find out," I promised. "One way or another, we'll find out."

For the rest of our dinner, I kept the discussion on other topics, concentrating on the hows and avoiding the whys. Even so, Mrs. Zappa's appetite seemed to have left her and the desert - sticky rice and fresh mango - received only half-hearted attentions.

* * *

Later, after bidding Mrs. Zappa a good evening and assuring her that we would get to the bottom of matters, I headed back across town to meet two ladies at Magic Carpets.

As soon as this business was finished up, I promised myself, I was going to take a vacation of my own - at least a day of it ... two if I could manage.

Magic Carpets was a short ten minute drive - ten minutes at this time of the evening, anyway - from the restaurant and two or three decades further into the past. In this neighborhood, the buildings were older - not rundown exactly but neither were they gentrified.

Magic Carpets occupied a large corner building which, at one time, might have housed a small department store on the ground floor with offices on the second level. On two sides of the building - along the two streets - the floor to ceiling glass windows were devoted to displaying an assortment of both Oriental and European rugs, each highlighted even at night by banks of upward tilted mini-spotlights.

A third side of the building fronted - backed? - on a narrow alley separating Magic Carpets from the Rankin Building, a seven story edifice devoted to a variety of offices.

On the remaining side, Magic Carpets stood cheek and jowl against a three-story building of more modern vintage. The architecture was simple. Plain featureless walls broken by a single deep alcove in the front and, in the rear, along the alley, a pair of massive double-doors watched over by an unobtrusive security camera mounted at the roof line. In the front, above the entrance, a discrete sign spelled out the address below the name: TrenData Resources.

Approaching, from several blocks distant and with the advantage of one of San Francisco's rolling hills, a portion of a south-facing satellite dish antenna had been visible on the roof of the building but, from the street below, was well out of sight.

Opposite Magic Carpets, TrenData was bordered by an empty lot turned to service as a parking facility. A half-dozen cars occupied the spaces, leaving four times that many empty.

Back at Magic Carpets, since the Viscount van was parked by the rear doors, I knocked there first.

When I didn't get an answer, I circled around to the show windows. Peering past the displayed carpets, I could see Mary Grady running a vacuum cleaner and tapped loudly on the glass to get her attention.

She saw me and gestured toward the rear before heading that way herself.

"Do you vacuum all of them every night," I greeted her as the door opened. "That's a lot of carpet."

"Not all of them," she smiled. "Only the ones on top. Or any that Parajan has tagged as needing attention. They get walked on a lot. That's how you sell carpets - let people walk on them, lie on them, roll around on them. How's your evening?"

"It's okay," I agreed. "Where would you like to eat ... and when?"

"Oh, we've been thinking about that. Is this on expense account?"

"Absolutely," I lied - since I didn't have a client, I didn't have an expense account to put it on.

"Then I wish we were dressed for someplace fancy," Mary smiled. "I guess we'll just settle for Carrows - they're open late. If that's all right?"

"That's fine," I answered. "Tell you what, if this turns into something, I'll take you both out on your day off and buy you a second dinner anywhere you like." Which would mean I could put in on an expense account - not that that was my primary concern.

"Well then, you get the fifty cent tour. Helen called Parajan at home and he said fine - show you anything. He still wasn't happy about the job our replacements did. Where would you like to start?"

"Why don't you show me," I invited, "where the carpets were tracked up? And you - or was it Helen? - mentioned grit on the stairs?" Then what Mary had said finally sunk it. "You said Helen called Mr. Parajan? And told him I wanted to look around?"

"That's right," Helen answered, joining us. "Is that a problem? I mean, it is his store."

"No, that's fine," I hastened to reassure them both. "But, please, absolutely do not mention this to anyone else. Not anybody at all. Don't even discuss it between yourselves. Can you do that? Not do that, I mean?"

"No problem," Mary responded.

"Sure," Helen agreed.

"But," Mary added, "you're going to have to fill us in. That's only fair."

"Agreed," I conceded. "And I'll fill Mr. Parajan in as well. But, for the moment, this is strictly hush-hush. Later," I promised, "I'll tell you all ... including the bomb that didn't, the gang attack that was foiled by a maiden errant and the fire that did. Deal?"

"That's what we said," Helen chided me but I could see the curiosity in her eyes.

I hoped the promise of an added story would help divert them from discussing the immediate events.

I'd also have to make a point of briefing Mr. Parajan - first thing tomorrow.

* * *

Most of the ground floor was a single large showroom with a smaller storage area at the rear separated by an office and two smaller sales rooms. In the showroom, the floor space was a wide expanse of polished wood broken by irregularly spaced stacks of carpets and four comfortable, leather-upholstered couches.

The various stacks of carpets - anywhere from a half-dozen to ten or fifteen in a stack - were arranged in a disarray of elegant proportions. Each stack was well lit by carefully positioned spotlights while the couches themselves remained in a half-lit gloom. The effect, for anyone seated, was to make the carpets the center of attention. Bright medallions floating in a dusk of polished woods.

The main office and the two sales rooms were glass-fronted, looking out on the sales floor. Each of the sales rooms was furnished with a plain, well polished oak table and three chairs. Naturally, the floor in each boasted a single elegant rug while a smaller, medallion rug was hung on the back wall of each.

The office - larger than both sales rooms together - held three desks, a bank of file cabinets ... and an elegant tasseled rug in a muted symphony of rusts and reds accented by golds, blues and greens. It was obviously a working office ... but it was an elegant office as well.

Behind the office and sales rooms, the remaining space looked more like a shipping and receiving stage than a storeroom. Along the inside wall, a plain wooden staircase lead upwards toward the front of the building and the second floor. At the back, in the rear corner, an open-sided freight elevator was surrounded by wooden gates. Two bathrooms were behind the smaller sales rooms, opening off of the shipping floor.

"These stairs," Helen pointed out, "were filthy. Grit along the steps and the banisters were dusty. Plus there were a couple of carpets upstairs with dusty footprints, like someone had been walking on them. The sales people don't take customers upstairs. And I don't know where the dirt came from either."

"We certainly didn't leave that kind of dirt around," Mary chimed in. "And we weren't gone long enough for the place to get that dirty either."

"It was dirty upstairs, too," Helen added. "That's where Pajaran stores extra rugs. We generally clean it once a week, it doesn't get that much traffic."

"May I?" I asked.

* * *

The second floor looked much like the first except for the ceilings being lower, the lighting less elegant and, instead of artfully arranged stacks of carpet on a polished wooden floor, here the stacks of carpet rested on low platforms of white-painted plywood. Clipboards with stacks of invoices were hung from each platform.

Three of the outside walls held casement windows and still showed where interior walls had once stood. The fourth wall - adjoining the featureless structure next door - was lined with heavy racks built with slanting arms of heavy pipe. The sloping arms held larger, rolled carpets. Toward the freight lift, a wheeled dolly held another rolled carpet, this one wrapped in a heavy burlap and bearing a packet of tags, shipping certificates and waybills.

Overhead, long ranks of suspended florescent lights alternated with sprinkler mains. The ceiling proper was lost in the darkness between the lighting strips.

I spent a few minutes looking around but there really wasn't much to see. For one, the two ladies with me had cleaned up any evidence ... and had cleaned it too well.

Finally, "Is there a basement?" I asked.

* * *

There was. The basement stairs led from a corner of the office, behind a door which took several minutes to open - not so much because of the lack of a key but because the lock felt like it hadn't been moved this century. The hinges - once the lock yielded - confirmed my suspicions.

Once the door was opened, the cobwebs lining the staircase and the undisturbed dust were simply further confirmation while the dank, musty air from the basement made it clear why the space was unused.

Likewise, the freight elevator - if it ever had descended to the lower level - now had a solid floor of thick, twelve-by planks set a foot below the current floor level. With the elevator raised, it was obvious that the underlying floor was both permanent and had not recently been disturbed.

All in all, the grand tour of Magic Carpets hadn't really taken that long and it was scarcely eleven. Since the ladies said it take them another hour or so to finish, I settled on one of the couches to wait.

* * *

"Mac? ... Mr. MacPherson?" Someone was shaking me, trying to get my attentions.

I opened an eye, trying to focus. All I could see was a bleary light.

"It's time we left, Mac," a second voice added.

Pieces of memory returned. I'd fallen asleep on a couch in the showroom at Magic Carpets. While waiting for Helen and Mary. I was supposed to take them out to dinner. "Uh, right," I mumbled, half-intelligibly. "Uh, you suggested Carrows." I tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes.

"Suppose we take a rain check," Helen suggested. "You look like you really need some sleep. Are you okay? Would you like a ride home?"

"Uh, I can make it okay," I decided, adding a very brief explanation - mostly a mention of the fire and that I'd been working a long stakeout the night before.

"You have Helen's number already," Mary reminded me. "And here's mine," she tucked a slip of paper in my pocket. "Look, we're off this weekend if you're free ... or we could do a late date next week. For now, why don't you get a decent night's rest."

I had a sudden adolescent fantasy of taking both of them out ... and where it could lead.

Then more realistic adult memories intruded. "Maybe," I considered, "that would be better. I'm not in shape to be very good company at the moment."

The two women exchanged glances of agreement, then Helen answered. "Come on, I'll drive you home. Mary will follow with the van. But," she concluded, "we'll hold you to the rain check. Okay?"

* * *

Outside, first I had to explain Ted's Subaru - which definitely looked like it belonged to my teenage son, not to me - and then, while Helen drove, I had to explain the handicapped placard on the dash.

"We wondered about the cane," was Helen's only response. "You seem to get around pretty well."

"Mostly," I admitted, finding myself falling asleep again. I definitely wasn't as young as I was once - adolescent fantasies aside.

* * *

Back at the condo, I had to wake up to punch in the access code for the parking garage ... and had to lean across Helen to reach the keypad.

She didn't seem to mind ... and neither did I. I had to keep reminding myself how tired I was - because my libido kept waking up.

"I'll call you," I assured her as I walked her out to the van and Mary. "Maybe tomorrow. When I wake up. I'll call you both. Okay?"

That was fine, they both agreed.

My libido growled again. Maybe I'd be younger tomorrow.