dark-haired girl sat and smiled at him. "What is it?" Robie asked.

Jimmy said, "I've . got something for you. Can I come in a minute?"

Behind Robie, Clyde Walker said, "Come on in.”

All right. What did it matter that the house was filthy, that the boy's crisp, clean clothes might catch dust and cobwebs? It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

"Come in," Robie said.

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In the kitchen, the boy said, “I guess I better talk to you alone. . . . His young face reddened and he glanced in Clyde's direction. Clyde, an intense look in his bloodshot eyes, eager about the money-well, whisky was expensive, and he kept a poor farm poorly, and the idealism of his bookish days was far behind him-nodded toward the hall.

"This way," Robie said. And, once in the bedroom, with the door shut, "Now, what is it?"

"These pictures." Jimmy held out the envelope. "There were these rolls of film in Uncle Doc's house. Dad brought them to me. Said Uncle Doc was taking them the night before he before the accident. Said I should develop them, print them, see

what they were. Maybe we'd want to keep them to remember him by." Robie did not touch the envelope. He stared at it but he did not touch it. He had forgotten. He had remembered so much, too much. But the pictures he had forgotten. He felt cold in the pit of his stomach.

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"You mean. . . His throat was dry. He swallowed. "You mean, your father saw them?"

Jimmy laughed and shook his head. "I told him they didn't come out, said. I screwed up the developing, the negs came out blank."

"Did they?"

"No. They're great. Uncle Doc was a swinger with that Hashica. Look at them."

Numbly Robie accepted the envelope, broke the seal, took out the prints, crisp, glossy, very black and white. Himself, naked, sex up. He looked at the impassive face of the boy.

"Thank you, Jimmy," he said. "Forget it," the boy said. "Listen, Bev's waiting. I have to cut out. So long, Robie."

He opened the bedroom door and trotted down the hall and left Robie standing with the photographs in his hand.

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