Joey took another look at the wreck. He closed the album with finality. "Mr. Ewing," he said, "I'm not questioning your sincerity. I can see that you're convinced your developer has extraordinary powers." "But you don't believe me." There was despair in the old man's voice. "What can I say to make you believe that you've just looked at the picture of an accident that's yet to happen." Joey laid the album on the table. "It's an interesting theory." Ewing moved to his camera. "It's more than a theory. I can prove it." He ducked behind the camera. "Let me take your picture, Mr. Barrett, and I'll prove it." "Wait a minute!" Joey half rose from the chair in protest, and then, with a shrug subsided. "Sure," he said. "Why not?" "Thank you," Ewing answered. He focused the camera, cut on extra lights, posed Joey, took his picture. The ordeal over, Joey moved toward the door. "You'll see, Mr. Barrett. This picture will convince you." Joey nodded. "Sure, sure. You give me a call." They were in the entry-hall. "As I said," Ewing continued, "I haven't much time. That's why I'm very anxious to pass on my discovery. It could do great good--in the right hands." Joey opened the door. "I understand," he said. "You give me a call." "I will." Joey was outside--the door between him and Ewing's pathetic eagerness. As he bounded down the steps, he was devising a revenge extreme enough for Nugent. He slipped in behind the wheel. It was surprising that anyone as near psycho as Ewing should be loose. The old boy had lived too long alone in the empty house. Just as he drew away from the curb, Joey heard the crash. Squealing rubber, splintering glass, rending metal, perhaps a human scream ... compounded into an awful discord that ricocheted against the quiet brownstone fronts, building to a crescendo of metallic anguish. After the first moment of surprise, Joey experienced the curious exaltation he always felt at a scene of violence. The trip wasn't a waste after all. He'd get a picture, and from the sound of the crash, it would be a good one. As he clambered out of his car, camera ready, people were running down steps, cars were swinging off the boulevard--the first cluster of the curious was collecting. With professional assurance, Joey brushed people aside and moved in. One car had been stopped at the intersection and the other had careened off the boulevard and smashed head-on into it. Joey stopped on the crowd's inner edge and stared. It was impossible. One car was an old sedan. The other, a sleek convertible. An old man with blood-spattered white beard half-spilled from the sedan and on the glistening pavement lay a woman in evening dress, surrounded by dozens of pearls. * * * * * From habit, Joey took the picture of the accident and delivered it to Nugent. By the time he had developed his picture, he was beginning to enjoy the knowledge that it was an exact duplicate of the photograph in Ewing's album.