want me to live that over again, to punish a police shieldcould hold me upside down and drainmy gutschange your mind me for a trivial lie. Suppose someone you loved had been caught by those people and you knew what had happened, what must

have happend to him or her? Is it so strange that I tried to build another kind of memory—even a false one?" "I need a drink," Spencer said. "I need a drink badly.

May I have one?" She clapped her hands and Candy drifted up from nowhere as he always did. He bowed to Spencer. "What you like to drink, Sefior Spencer?" "Straight

Scotch, and plenty of it," Spencer said. Candy went over in the corner and pulled the bar out from the wall. He got a bottle up on it and poured a stiff jolt into a

glass. He came back and set it down in front of Spencer. He started to leave again. "Perhaps, Candy," Eileen said., quietly, "Mr. Marlowe would like a drink too." He

stopped and looked at her, his face dark and stubborn. "No, thanks," I said. "No drink for me." Candy made a snorting sound and walked off. There was another

silence. Spencer put down half of his drink. He lit a cigarette. He spoke to me without looking at me. "I'm sure Mrs. Wade or Candy could drive me back to Beverly

Hills. Or I can get a cab. I take it you've said your piece. I refolded the certified copy of the marriage license. I put it back in my pocket. "Sure that's the way

you want it?" I asked him. "That's the way everybody wants it." "Cood." I stood up,, "I guess I was a fool to try to play it this way. Being a big time publisher and

having the brains to go with it—if it takes any—you might have assumed I didn't come out here just to play the heavy. I didn't revive ancient history or spend my

own money to get the facts just to twist them around somebody's neck.

I didn't investigate Paul Marston because the Gestapo murdered him, because Mrs. Wade was

wearing the wrong badge, because she got mixed up on her dates, because she married him in one of those quickie wartime marriages. When I started investigating him I

didn't know any of those things. All I knew was his name. Now how do you suppose I knew that?"

"No doubt somebody told you;" Spencer said curtly. "Correct, Mr.

Spencer. Somebody who knew him in New York after the war and later on saw him out here in Chasen's with his wife." "Marston is a pretty common name," Spencer said,

and sipped his whiskey. He turned his head sideways and his right . So I sat down again. "Even Paul Marstons could hardly be

unique. There are nineteen Howard Spencers in the Greater New York area telephone directories, for instance. And four of them are just plain Howard Spencer with no

middle initial." "Yeah. How many Paul Marstons would you say had had one side of their faces smashed by a delayed-action mortar shell and showed the scars and marks

of the plastic surgery that repaired the damage?" Spencer's mouth fell open. He made some kind of heavy breathing sound. He got out a handkerchief and tapped his

temples with it. "How many Paul Marstons would you say had saved the lives of a couple of tough gamblers named Mendy Menendez and Randy Starr on that Same occasion?

They're still around, they've got good memories. They can talk when it suits them.