Graf. J. Grafton Sheffield. Mari had heard Ben Lucas call him Graf. He didn’t look like the kind of man who could pick up a rifle and kill anything, let alone a human being.

They rode up a trail, thick woods all around. A lot of thrashing sounds and horses snorting. Somewhere in the distance, hounds bayed relentlessly. Townsend talked about trophies, about shooting a grizzly from a helicopter in Alaska. Then the party broke into a clearing and Sheffield’s horse spooked.

The hounds yapped without cease. The camera caught a glimpse of them and their scruffy-looking handlers as it panned the clearing en route to a battered four-by-four with a small flatbed trailer behind it. On the trailer was a stainless steel cage perhaps three feet high and seven or eight feet long. Inside the cage was a full-grown tiger. A magnificent, beautiful creature.

The riding party dismounted and the horses were led away. The cowboy and Townsend busied themselves preparing rifles. The camera slowly circled the tiger’s cage. The animal was breathing heavily through its mouth, saliva dripping off its chin. Its eyes looked glassy and unfocused. One of the dogs was set loose and sprinted for the cage, snapping at the tiger’s long tail that protruded between the bars. The cat let out a startled roar and tried to jump to its feet, but the cage wasn’t tall enough for him to do anything but crouch, his muscles quivering. The dog barked furiously, lunging at the cage, then wheeling away, inciting his cohorts to riot.

Townsend and the cowboy walked off across the clearing, rifles on their shoulders. Yet another scruffy minion climbed atop the tiger cage and pulled the door open. He drove the cat from the cage with a cattle prod. It stumbled down off the trailer and stood swaying on its feet, looking confused. Then the dogs were set loose.

They charged the tiger as a pack, howling madly, teeth bared. Terrified, the cat bolted and tried to run under the four-by-four, but was headed off by a pair of dogs. He shied away and a third dog hit him broadside and sank its teeth into the tiger’s flank, drawing blood. Screaming, the tiger twisted around and knocked the dog ten feet with a single swipe of its paw, then it dashed across the open ground as best it could, heading toward the woods with the rest of the pack in hot pursuit. Once he stumbled drunkenly and went down, the dogs diving at him, tearing at him. But he managed to regain his feet and run on.

Twenty yards from the edge of the woods Townsend took aim and fired twice. The tiger went down in a boneless heap. The dogs were on him instantly, then the flunkies ran out and knocked the dogs back with clubs.

Mari sat on the small couch with tears streaming down her cheeks, her stomach turning over. She watched the cowboy and Sheffield congratulate Townsend. Townsend posed, holding the head of the dead cat up by the ears, a big grin on his face, as if he were genuinely proud of what he had just done. The memory of Townsend’s office played through the back of her mind-the mounted heads, the skins on the wall, the bear rearing and snarling ferociously in the corner. The son of a bitch had shot it from a chopper. He hadn’t confronted the beast face-to-face, as the pose suggested. He had never seen the poor animal do anything but run for its life. And the tiger skin was not the result of some death-defying battle in India. It was the result of slaughter, plain and simple. Not sport, not challenge, no test of manhood.

The tape turned to static. She hit the stop button on the remote and immediately a rerun of “Murphy Brown” filled the screen, the laugh track sounding obscenely inappropriate. Killing the volume to a dull mumble, she tossed the remote aside and stood up on wobbly legs.

Everything on that tape with the exception of the horseback riding was illegal, to say nothing of unethical and immoral. One whiff of this in the press and Townsend’s career would have been over. Ample ammunition for a blackmailer. And ample motive for the murder of a blackmailer.

Her first impulse was to take the tape to Quinn, but what did it really show? No one on the tape spoke of where they were. The face behind the camera was never identified. Townsend was dead; what did it matter now that he had shot an endangered animal in a canned hunt? Quinn might recognize the dirtballs who ran the hunt. He would recognize Sheffield, but there was nothing much to charge him with. Christ, the man had walked on what should have been at the very least a manslaughter charge. She would have to be the queen of naive to think they would haul his bony ass back to Montana for simply being present at Townsend’s illegal hunt.

She was still clutching the volume of Martindale-Hubbell in her arms. She had yet to open it because she knew without looking she wouldn’t like what was inside. But the ball was rolling now and there was no stopping it. She would see this through to the end because that was what she had to do. Taking a deep breath, she turned back the front cover.

The first hundred pages of the book had been cut out to make room for a stack of court reporter’s notes. Lengths of familiar green paper with reporter’s phonograms in rows of red ink. Mari leaned back against the desk and paged through them, frowning, her heart sinking lower and lower as she read Lucy’s notes about the people she was blackmailing.

Townsend, whom she disdained as an egotistical old fool. He doesn’t have the guts to run with the big dogs, but here he is anyway. He’ll be eaten alive. It serves him right… Kyle Collins, an actor whose boy-next-door qualities were crucial to his image. If his fans only knew what he’s capable of after a few lines of Bryce’s cocaine… I’ve told him I’ll let him use the pictures I took for his next publicity campaign. Won’t his public be surprised to see him in those leather undies? A state senator from Texas who apparently had a blood lust hunting mentality and had taken a number of trophy animals illegally while visiting Bryce’s chunk of paradise. Matthew’s motto is: If it moves, shoot it. Christ, the NRA must be so proud. Expensive hobby, though, Senator. Let’s see, that leopard cost you $8,000 outright. My cooperation should be worth that much…

She explained in detail how Bryce’s little hunt club worked, how Bryce arranged for the purchase of exotic animals through a black market network. The cost to the hunter depended on the animal and on the circumstances. Sometimes Bryce offered the hunt at no charge if his “friend” was reluctant. Bryce’s game was to videotape the event and then hold the tape as security to ensure future favors from businessmen, politicians, Hollywood players. He didn’t blackmail them outright; he simply kept the tape. He didn’t need their money. Lucy doubted he needed their loyalty. What he really wanted, what he really cherished, was the power.

I enjoy the game with Bryce. He’s a player. He knows the rules. He appreciates another player of equal talent and I really don’t think he minds me making money off his friends. He believes in survival of the fittest. The careless have to pay for their mistakes. It truly is a game with us. The game of life. All this and great sex too-not as good as with the cowboy, but certainly more… adventuresome… Cousin Creepella doesn’t like sharing him with me. I’d say fuck her, but she would probably take me up on it…

There were more details. Lucy told without a hint of conscience how she had managed to get a copy of Townsend’s hunt tape and how she had tormented him with threats of mailing it to CNN. She told of her escapades at Bryce’s parties, the things she had seen and heard and profited by, the weaknesses she had preyed upon, the money she had made.

Mari closed the book with shaking hands and set it aside. Her friend, her drinking buddy, had been a blackmailer. A despicable, parasitic blackmailer. Thousands of dollars. Tens of thousands of dollars. Maybe more. Extorted from the rich and the famous and the powerful. They had paid handsomely for the tenuous promise that their dirty secrets would be kept. According to the notes, there were half a dozen men-and several women-who would gladly have seen Lucy dead.