I’ve wondered a number of times what actual difference it might have made in what happened later if I hadn’t been standing at the desk reading my mail when Clem Bonner stepped out of the elevator the next morning, or even if the desk clerk hadn’t said, at precisely the moment he was heading toward the door, “Mrs. Bonner’s car has come, Mrs. Latham.”
He stopped, crossed the lobby and came over to me.
“Hello,” he said. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “I just thought I’d drive out in the great open spaces and take a look at the desert.”
He hesitated. “Do you think Judy would mind if you drove me up to Lake Tahoe?”
“What for?” I asked.
“Nothing. I’ve just got to go, that’s all.”
That’s how I went. He took the wheel, and grinned suddenly. “She won’t let me drive h
