Sometimes, he thought with a remnant of coolness, sometimes distraction could head off the trouble. If he could get involved in something outside himself, and yet important to himself, so that his whole attention was engaged, the horror might retreat. He yanked smoke into his lungs, blew it forth, tossed the cigarette to the paving and stamped on it. Then he went into the grocery. There was a public phone on the wall, he leafed through the directory until he found the name. _Michaelis Peter C._ 5 He didn't call ahead, but drove on down. When he parked and got out, he saw Coit Tower whitely lit above him, on the steep art-colony heights of Telegraph Hill. Not many blocks away was Fisherman's Wharf, a lot of tourist pits and a few authentic restaurants. But here he stood in a pocket of slum, before a rotting rattrap tenement. A single street lamp a block away cast a purulent light at its own foot. Elsewhere the night flowed. He heard the nearby rattle of a switch engine, pushing freight cars over iron; a battered cat slunk past him; otherwise he was alone. He walked across to the house with forced briskness, struck a match and hunted through several grimy scrawls on mailboxes before Michaelis' name came to him. Number 8. The main entrance was unlocked. The hall, dusty in threadbare carpeting, held dim electric bulbs. He heard noises through some of the doors, and smelled stale cooking. A glance told him Number 8 must be upstairs. He climbed, only now starting to wonder just how he planned to do his errand. Or what his errand was, if it came to that. Bruce had never spoken much to him of Gene Michaelis. They had been children together on the waterfront. Bruce was a year younger, doubtless a quiet bookish sort, teacher's pet, even then--but apparently unaffected by it, so that he was not disliked. Still, he must have been lonely. And Gene was a rough-and-tumble fisherman's son. Nevertheless, one of those odd fierce boy-friendships had existed between them. Bruce had probably dominated it, without either of them realizing the fact. In time they drifted apart. Gene had left high school at sixteen, Bruce had said, after some whoopdedo involving a girl; he had tramped since then, dock walloper, fry cook, bouncer, salesman--he found it easy to lie about his age. Now and then he revisited the Bay Area. His return from Navy service had been last summer, when Kintyre was still in Europe; Kintyre had never actually met him. Gene had looked up Bruce in Berkeley, and through Bruce renewed an acquaintance with Corinna, and after that Gene had moved over to San Francisco. Number 8. Kintyre heard television bray through the thin panels. He looked at his watch. Past ten o'clock. _Oh, hell, let's play by ear._ He knocked.