“I know.” She looked at him with such affection it almost hurt. “I’m not arguing with you, either, dear--just with me. But you know--I’m beginning to think maybe Johnny’s a lot tougher than we give him credit for. _I_ think he’ll be okay.” She stepped away, turned back for a moment. “Or maybe I want to find out if he is,” she added, and vanished down the ramp to her practice room. _St. Croix, U.S.A.A.--Friday, September 2, 1977_ The bar was cool and dim in the daytime, a good place to sit and look, without the added haze and heat and too-bright light, into the anyhow doubtful mirror of your mind. But as dusk dropped on the island, the bar conversely brightened. With the evening’s coolness, it grew warmer inside. At midnight, it had become a gaudy splotch of brilliance aburst with noise, fragrance and stench, sweat and promises. Light and color, odors and entreating bodies, these could be shut out, he had learned quickly, simply by keeping his eyes on his glass, and his glass full enough. But the noises--shrieking and murmuring, laughter and shouts, the sound of glasses, of cards and rolling dice and clicking wheels, of shuffling feet, pounding heels, of silver coins and golden rum in swift exchange,--the bloodbeating rhythm of the calypso band in back of the thousand sounds of passion and delight, despair, forgetfulness, lust and seduction in the tropic night--these could not be shut out, nor would he do so if he could. They built a barrier over the darkness that shrouded the mirror of his soul. Johnny sat where he had been since noon, in the carved wooden booth, and the girl’s voice for some reason emerged by itself, separately, from the sound of the room, drawing him back from the dazed withdrawal with which he had countered the bar’s evening dawn. He looked at her apprehensively: lovely kid. He shook his head: “No thanks, doll. Thanks, but no thanks. Siddown. Have a drink.” She sat. She was young, very young. Her shoulders were bare, and the white ruffles of her blouse on breast and arms gave her an oddly _pure_ look in the cacophony of color in the midnight-bar. When she sat, the cerise skirt and black lace ruffle of her petticoat were hidden; all he could see was the blouse and bare skin above. Light spilled on golden skin; the crimson of her lips was all the impact of color she made; all the rest was black (hair and eyes), and white (blouse, teeth, eyes), and glowing tan-gold. She might have been anything from a grown-up twelve to well-preserved twenty-two--well-preserved, that is, for an island girl of her trade. Johnny guessed seventeen. While she drank rum-and-coke, and he sipped a fresh bourbon, he gave the whole idea some serious thought. A lovely girl, certainly. Clean-looking, too. He could check with Jake. Jake would know; Jake was his buddy. Jake said, don’t take any babes up without checkin’ first. Half of ’em’s sick, and most of the rest is thieves. Jest check with me first. That’s what Jake said.