after Virginia's death, and all her jewelry had been taken.
   'John, for goodness' sake,' Jennifer begged.
   But John, trying to be firm, trying to stay in control, said, 'It's okay; I'm not 
going to do anything stupid. Call the cops. Go on, call the cops! I'll go check on Lenny.'
   The telephones in the bedroom had been smashed, so Jennifer hurried back downstairs 
while John ventured along the corridor toward Lenny's room, his revolver clasped in both 
hands. 'Lenny?' he shouted. 'Lenny?' He had a terrible vision of Lenny sitting up in bed 
> with some crazy burglar holding a knife to his throat and keeping his hand clamped over 
the boy's mouth.
   'Lenny, do you hear me? It's Daddy!'
   There was no reply. The house was silent, except for the faint sound of traffic 
outside, and Jennifer's voice as she talked in a quick, frantic tone to the Philadelphia 
Police Department.
   As he approached Lenny's room, John saw to his consternation that there were more deep 
scratches along the wall, similar to the first scratches he'd seen when he had come home. 
That could only mean that the burglars had been here before he got home - and that all 
the time he and Jennifer had been laughing and reading and drinking martinis and eating 
supper, those maniacs had been tearing their precious bedroom to shreds.
   He reached Lenny's door and eased it open, keeping the revolver pointed at the 
ceiling. He didn't want any accidents, not with Lenny, his last living connection with 
Virginia.
   'Lenny?' he whispered.
   He remembered what somebody in Miami Vice had said about making your-self a target, so 
he stepped quickly into the room and dodged to one side to avoid being silhouetted 
against the light in the corridor. He paused, feeling chilled and frightened, breathing 
in the greasy smell of the revolver.
   To his relief, Lenny lay where he had left him, still fast asleep, his mouth still 
open. John leaned forward to make doubly certain that he was breathing; then he crouched 
and moved away from the bed making a quick inspection of the rest of the room. He checked 
behind the door, and almost fired when Lenny's white bathrobe came swinging out at him. 
He eased open the closet. He crouched down on his hands and knees so that he could look 
underneath the bed. He cautiously parted the curtains with the barrel of his gun.
   There was nobody there. It looked as if the intruders had ventured partway down the 
corridor, tearing at the walls, but they seem to have stopped short of Lenny's room.
   John tested Lenny's window. Only the small top window was open; the main window was 
still closed and locked. He looked down into the brick-paved yard. There was a small 
patio with a fountain and white garden furniture, and an arrangement of seven 
well-cultivated bay trees in earthenware pots. No sign that anybody was hiding down there.
   He eased down the hammer of the .38 and went back along the corridor, checking the 
guestroom, the second bathroom, the linen closet, the closet where Jennifer kept the 
Hoover. He tried the attic door: it was locked, and the key was still hanging on the hook 
beside it.
   John called out, 'It's okay, Jen! Lenny's still asleep -and they're gone, whoever they 
were!'
   Jennifer was coming back upstairs. She ran a trembling hand through her hair, and 
tried to smile. 'I talked to the police. They're sending somebody around.'
   'We'd better see what's been stolen,' John told her, putting his arm around her 
shoulders.
   'Oh God,' she said, shaking her head. 'Why should anybody want to do anything so 
meaningless?'
   'I don't know, honey. I can't even guess.'
   They went back into the ravaged bedroom. John began to gather up pieces of broken 
china and picture frames, while Jennifer sorted through the jewelry and the perfume 
bottles and cosmetics. Half a dozen bottles of nail varnish had been smashed open, and 
the white shag carpet was sticky with glutinous scarlets and sticky pinks.
   John was so dispirited that he gave up collecting the smashed pieces, and dropped them 
back onto the floor. But Jennifer slowly stood up, her hands full of rings and necklaces 
and brooches, and she was frowning in surprise.
   'Do you know something? They haven't taken a single thing - not one.'
   John leaned over and picked through a heap of jewelry. 'Are you sure? How about that 
ring I gave you after the Philly Pops concert?'
   'Here it is. It's got nail polish on it, but that'll clean off.'
   'And that watch from your father?'
   'There, on the floor.'
   John found his own drawer, upturned on the floor. Underneath it he discovered his gold 
cuff links, his gold bracelet, and the gold Julius Caesar medallion that Virginia had 
given him in 1973, when medallions for men had still been fashionable.
   'This doesn't make any kind of sense at all,' said John, picking up the medallion and 
staring at it as it spun around on the end of its chain. 'Anybody could pawn this for 
two, three hundred dollars, and three hundred dollars buys a whole lot of crack.'
   'You think drug addicts did this?' asked Jennifer. Her eyes glistened with tears.
   'Sure - that was my first reaction. But if it was drug addicts, why didn't they take 
anything?'
   'Maybe we surprised them, rushing upstairs like that. Maybe they frightened themselves 
with their own noise.'
   'Jennifer,' said John, 'they've taken this room apart. They've broken everything - 
absolutely everything. How long do you think it took them to do that? Look at it - every 
dress, every coat, every picture, everything. And those nail-varnish bottles! Six of 
them, all broken. You know how damned hard it is to break one of those. If they had rime 
to do that, they had time to steal anything they wanted.'
   They heard the scribbling sound of police sirens growing louder. John went to the 
window and saw a patrol car and an unmarked car with a flashing red beacon on the roof 
draw up outside. "The cavalry,' he said, and went downstairs to open the door for them.
   Jennifer went out to the landing. She heard John open the front door; heard deep men's 
voices; heard somebody cough. As she stood there, Lenny came shuffling along the 
corridor, hot-cheeked and dandelion-headed, in his Gobot pajamas.
   'Jenny?' he said blurrily. 'What's wrong? I heard police cars.'
   Jennifer held him tight. 'We've had burglars,' she told him. 'Don't worry, they 
haven't stolen anything. Your Daddy and I frightened them away. They've just made a mess, 
that's all.'
   Lenny peered toward the main bedroom. 'Did they mess up your whole room?'
   'I'm afraid so. But we have insurance. We'll just have to go out and buy ourselves a 
couple of new pillows and a new comforter.'
   Lenny said, 'I'm going to get a drink of water. My mouth feels awful dry.' He 
disappeared into the second bathroom.
   John came up the stairs, followed by two detectives and two uniformed police officers. 
The detectives were both pale-skinned blacks, remarkably alike, and when they reached the 
landing Jennifer saw to her surprise that they were twins. One of the officers 
accompanying them was white, the other black. Jennifer couldn't help thinking that she 
didn't know when she'd seen such a racially balanced group before. They were like a road