Laurie sighed. It wasn’t like her to be depressed, and the fact that she was depressed depressed her. She never would have guessed that she’d be quite so sensitive to criticism. Maybe she’d been unhappy and hadn’t even realized it with her workload.

Laurie noticed that the red light on her answering machine was blinking. At first she ignored it, but the darker the room got, the more insistent the blinking became. After watching the light for another ten minutes, curiosity got the best of her, and she listened to the tape. The call was from her mother, Dorothy Montgomery, asking her to call the moment she got home.

“Oh, great!” Laurie said out loud. She debated about calling, knowing her mother’s capacity to grate on her nerves in the best of circumstances. She wasn’t feeling up to another dose of her mother’s negativity and unsolicited advice just then.

Laurie listened to the message a second time and, after convincing herself that her mother sounded genuinely concerned, she made the call. Dorothy answered on the first ring.

“Thank God you called,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t. I was thinking of sending a telegram. We’re having a dinner party tomorrow night, and I want you to come. We’re having someone here I want you to meet.”

“Mother!” Laurie said with exasperation. “I’m not sure I’m up for a dinner party. I’ve had a bad day.”

“Nonsense,” Dorothy exclaimed. “All the more reason to get out of that dreadful apartment of yours. You’ll have a wonderful time. It will be good for you. The person I want you to meet is Dr. Jordan Scheffield. He’s a marvelous ophthalmologist, known all over the world. Your father’s told me. And best of all he was recently divorced from a dreadful woman.”

“I’m not interested in a blind date,” Laurie said with irritation. She couldn’t believe that not only was her mother oblivious to her mental state, but she wanted to fix her up with some divorced eyeball doctor.

“It’s about time you met someone appropriate,” Dorothy said. “I never understood what you saw in that Sean Mackenzie. That boy is a shiftless hoodlum and a bad influence on you. I’m glad you finally broke up with him for good.”

Laurie rolled her eyes. Her mother was in rare form today. Even if there was a certain truth in what she was saying, she didn’t feel like hearing it just then. Laurie had been dating Sean on and off since college. From the start, their relationship was a rocky one. And though he wasn’t exactly a hoodlum, he did hold a sort of outlaw’s appeal for her between his motorcycle and bad attitude. There was a time when his “artistic” personality excited Laurie. Back then she’d even been rebellious enough to try drugs with him on several occasions. But she hoped this last breakup would be their last.

“Be here at seven-thirty,” Dorothy said. “And I want you to wear something attractive, like that wool suit I gave you for your birthday in October. And your hair: wear it up. I’d love to talk longer, but I’ve got so much to do. See you tomorrow, dear. ’Bye.”

Laurie took the phone from her ear and looked at it in the darkened room with disbelief. Her mother had hung up on her. She didn’t know whether to swear, laugh, or cry. She replaced the receiver on its cradle. Finally she laughed. Her mother was certainly a character. As she played the conversation back in her mind, she couldn’t believe it had taken place. It was as if she and her mother talked on different wavelengths.

Walking around her apartment, Laurie turned on the lights, then closed the curtains. Shielded from the world, she took her hair down and stepped out of her clothes. For some reason, she felt better. The crazy conversation with her mother had shocked her out of her depressive thoughts.

Climbing into the shower, Laurie admitted to herself that she tended to be more emotional in business situations than she would like. The realization irritated her. She didn’t mind dressing femininely, but she didn’t want to lend credence to the stereotype of a fragile, fickle female. In the future, she would try to be more professional. She also realized what a mistake she had made in confiding in Bob. She would have to be sure to keep her opinions to herself, particularly where the press was concerned. She was lucky Bingham hadn’t fired her.

Standing under the jet of water, Laurie thought about making herself a salad and then doing some studying for her forensic boards. Then she thought about dinner the following night at her parents’. Although her initial reaction had been overwhelmingly negative, she began to have second thoughts. Maybe it would be an interesting break in her routine. Then she wondered how insufferable the newly divorced ophthalmologist would be. She also wondered how old he’d be.

9:40 p.m., Monday

Queens, New York City

“I gotta do something,” Tony Ruggerio said. He was antsy and he shifted in the passenger side of the front seat of Angelo Facciolo’s black Lincoln Town Car. “We’ve been sitting here in front of D’Agostino’s grocery store for four nights. I can’t stand this doing nothing, you know what I mean? I’ve got to have action, something, anything.” His eyes nervously darted around the rain-glossed street scene in front of him. The car was parked next to a hydrant on Roosevelt Avenue.

Angelo’s head swung slowly around. His lidded eyes regarded this youthful-appearing twenty-four-year-old “kid” who’d been foisted on him. Tony’s nervousness and impulsiveness were enough to try the patience of Angelo. He thought the “kid,” whose nickname was “the animal,” was a liability in Angelo’s line of work, and he’d said as much to Cerino. But it didn’t matter. Angelo might as well have been talking to the wall. Cerino said that the kid’s asset was that he had no fear; he was wild and ambitious and had no qualms and little conscience. Cerino said that he needed more people like Tony. Angelo wasn’t so sure.

Tony was short at five-foot-seven and wiry. What he lacked in intimidation through stature, he tried to make up for in muscle. He worked out regularly at the American Gym in Jackson Heights. He told Angelo he took protein supplements and occasionally steroids.

Tony’s features were rounded, ethnic, southern Italian, and his hair was shiny, black, and thick. His nose was slightly flattened and angled to the right thanks to some amateur boxing. He’d grown up in Woodside and never finished high school, where he’d had frequent fights over his stature as well as his sister, Mary, who was, in his vernacular, a “looker.” He’d always been protective of his sister, thinking that all males had the same goals as himself when it came to females.

“I can’t sit here any longer,” Tony said. “I’ve got to get out of the car.” He reached for the door latch.

Angelo put his hand on Tony’s arm. “Relax!” Angelo said with enough threat in his voice to restrain Tony. Cerino had been right to pair them up, in a way. Angelo, the “dude,” made an excellent foil for brash Tony. He looked older than his thirty-four years. Where Tony was short, Angelo was tall and gaunt, his features sharp and hatchetlike. If Tony was sensitive about his height, Angelo was sensitive about his skin. His face bore the scars of a near-lethal case of chicken pox at age six and severe acne from thirteen to twenty-one. Where Tony was wild and impulsive, Angelo was cautious and calculating: a seemingly calm sociopath whose character had been molded by an endless series of foster homes and a final stint of hard time in a maximum security prison.

Both men were rather vain when it came to their wardrobes. Yet Tony never quite cut the figure for which he aimed; his suits, no matter how expensive, were always ill-fitting on his disproportionately muscled body. On the other hand Angelo gave even Dapper John Gotti a run for his money where sartorial elegance was concerned. He wasn’t flashy, just meticulous. He wore exclusively Brioni suits, shirts, ties, and shoes. As Tony’s muscle building was in response to his short stature, Angelo’s fastidious attire was in response to his complexion, a subject about which he did not brook any reference.