The package sat on his table like some radioactive material. He couldn't take his eyes off of it and he handled it several times, hefting it from hand to hand trying to ascertain the contents. After a lackluster dinner, he cleared the table, replaced the package and thought about his next move.

How could he not have asked her last name? How could they make a plan without any other means of contact? Stupid, that's how. Yet Jessica seemed anything but, and the observation niggled like a worm at the back of his mind.

Finally he decided that he would return to the apartment the following day and if she still wasn't there, he'd leave it with the woman in the store downstairs and stick a note on her door.

Morning arrived and with it the realization that he was knocked out from not having slept, his mind being filled with Jessica and her package. He groped his way around the bathroom and the kitchen, washing, shaving and stuffing some toast down his throat then he dressed, checked to make sure he wasn't too early and left for Jessica's.

The sun was just dappling the dew covered grass on the lawns and the clatter and crash of the city garbage truck managed to drown out the usually pleasant trill of the birds. Jeff breathed in the fresh air, feeling the warmth that hinted at another grand day, as he strode along the main street.

Shops were opening, sandwich boards sprouting along the sidewalk like wooden doormen. When he reached the Lingerie shop he was disappointed to find it closed but the street door to the upstairs was unlocked and he hopped up the steps to the second floor, rapped with just enough authority and waited. Inside he could hear shuffling and his heart skipped slightly at the prospect of seeing her again.

When the door opened, Jeff was faced with the groggy-eyed visage of a younger man who squinted and made an unhappy face.

"The hell do you want?" His eyes looked puffy and he wore a spray of dark stubble over the lower half of his face.

Jeff unsuccessfully tried looking past the man into the apartment. "I'm uh, looking for Jessica."

"No Jessica here." He started to close the door.

"Hey wait a minute! She lives here. I was here with her yesterday."

"Look, pal, I live here alone, okay? No Jessica."

Jeff blocked the door with his foot. "I tell you I was here. We had coffee. You've got uh- you've got three pastel paintings on the wall across from your TV."

The man's hand slipped down the door and he stared more closely at Jeff. "How the hell do you know that?"

"I told you, I was here yesterday. I sat in that chair and Jessica sat on the loveseat. We had coffee." The man left the door and disappeared. Jeff stepped inside, closing it behind him. "Hello?"

The man returned from the kitchen with a cell phone opened and ready for use and with a seriously cold expression on his face.

"Hey wait a sec! Let's talk for cripe's sake. All I want to do is deliver a package." Jeff held out his hands in a peaceful gesture and waited.

"When were you in here?"

"Yesterday, around ten-thirty in the morning. She told me this was her apartment and we sat and had a coffee."

"I found dirty mugs in the dishwasher." He immediately went to the cupboard in the living room and opened the bottom doors, squatting in front of them for a minute then closing them and standing back up.

"What else did you do?"

"Nothing. We drank the coffee, talked, she- then we left." He held back the bit about the picture, getting a very uncomfortable sense of something very very dangerous.

"Did you meet her here?"

"No, we came together- and she had a key, we didn't break in."

"So you both came here together, made coffee, drank it and left."

The man sneered and started dialing his phone.

"Yes! No! I mean- yes that's what we did. I thought the place was hers. I just met her actually."

"Oh I get it. You thought you got lucky, eh?"

"No, no. We're just friends . . . "

"Friends but you just met. Give me a break, pal."

Jeff ran a hand through his short hair. "Look, all I want to do is deliver this package. We were supposed to meet yesterday afternoon, she didn't show so I came back here and there was no answer."

"What time?"

"I guess around noon." The man seemed to consider that for a moment. "So I came back this morning." Jeff shrugged helplessly.

"What's in the package?"

"I don't know, I just - I'm just delivering it for her."

He was thinking that any more questions would start making him look very stupid and very guilty. "Hey, if I made a mistake I'm sorry. I'll just hang on to it and maybe she'll contact me somehow."

"Somehow. Your good friend doesn't know where you live or your number?"

"Huh? Uh- sure she does, but our arrangement was to- look, forget it. I'm sorry I bothered you." He started for the door.

The man slipped the phone into his robe pocket and followed Jeff to the door. "How about the fact that you two were in my apartment without permission?"

"Listen, I didn't know it wasn't hers, okay? If I find her I'll get an answer and let you know. What's your name anyhow?"

"Carver, Donald Carver. What's yours?" Jeff felt his mouth dry up and he stammered an alias as the young man listened with a doubtful expression.

"How about a phone number too?"

He obliged with one he made up on the spot.

"What about yours?" Jeff really wanted to go but didn't want to look any more suspicious.

"I'm in the book." Carver held the door and watched Jeff hurry down the stairs and out.

*******

Jeff leaned on his kitchen counter wondering what he was in to. He'd nearly blown the whole thing by going to the apartment even if it wasn't his fault. Why had she pretended to live there? He straightened up and thumped a fist on the counter. The license. That's how she got the license. She broke into the place to get Carver's ID. God what a nervy woman she was.How did she know the license would be there? Did she have it already? Then why go to his apartment?

Half of his mind was listing toward admiration. He looked at the package again and then remembered that the desk clerk had taken it from a slot marked for room three-seventeen. He went to the phone and asked for the hotel's number then asked for room three-seventeen. The clerk told him there was no answer and that the guest had checked out.

On a hunch he asked if Mister Carver would be returning any time soon the clerk said no. So, Carver had the room in the hotel, which made sense if he was having a package delivered there, but why didn't he say anything about this package? And didn't the clerk know his hotel's guests?

He had to open it. There was no way Jessica could find him and obviously no way he could find her he knew. The odds of her strolling on the boardwalk again after this were slim to none and there was no way he would be dealing with the man he impersonated; his mind spun. So find out what's in the package and take it from there.

He mixed himself a strong drink and sat down at the kitchen table, slipping the blade of a knife under the string and slicing it through. He pulled away the wrapping and jerked his hands back as if burned. Four equally measured stacks of used one thousand dollar bills sat like some threat that would be deadly if disturbed.

Jeff gasped and swallowed a large measure of his drink, coughing and choking as it burned its way down his throat. He stared at the pile with a feeling of complete disbelief. This was the stuff of movies, not real life. Tentatively, he fingered the edge of one stack, absently counting the number of bills.

He stopped, his breath catching in his throat; the pile seemed to hold about two hundred bills, which meant that he had eight hundred thousand dollars sitting on his kitchen table. He made himself another drink and then another and after hiding the money behind the heat duct in his bathroom, Jeff took several aspirin and fell into bed.