Mason set his bottle on the bar and turned to the two gamblers, who were studying the competing clocks with watery-eyed concentration.

"Hey," he whispered to them. "I saw a clock on the other side of the casino next to the roulette wheels that was a minute ahead of those two."

"No shit?" they asked in unison.

"No shit. There's a guy standing under it giving five-to-one odds that it hits midnight first."

"Damn," they said, and left their unfinished drinks to cash in on Mason's tip.

The bar Mason had been sitting at was near the back of the casino. He decided to start making his way to the front to be certain he was there at midnight to meet Rachel. He stood and waited a moment, remembering how to get there. A casino was designed to obliterate all points of reference except for the tables and slots. There were no windows and, except on New Year's Eve, no clocks.

The noise level was rising to near deafening. Slot machines trumpeted new winners with bleating air horns. Piped-in music throbbed overhead with an orgasmic Latin beat. The craps tables erupted in roars as one good throw followed another. Even the blackjack players, notorious for their semicomatose poker faces, were high-riving one another. The joint was jumping.

A sliver of the crowd parted in front of Mason as a woman cut through their ranks. People peeled away from her path as if pushed aside by her presence, or so it seemed to Mason, when he recognized her.

Beth Harrell, clad in a shimmering silver gown, her head thrown back, was walking toward him. Her left hand was extended over her shoulder, holding on to a mink coat that trailed behind her like a cape. Large, lustrous pearls were roped around her neck. Her diamond earrings and platinum bracelets were lost in the glow of her eyes and the promise of her sly smile. The tops of her breasts swelled gently from her gown as she stopped in front of Mason.

"Happy New Year, Lou," she said.

"I'm counting on that," Mason answered, his throat dry.

They stood for a moment, watching each other. She was probing. He was wondering. Mason willed himself to keep his arms at his side. In a room of stunning women, she could have stopped the digital clocks with a single look. Beth handed him her coat and turned her back to him. She pressed herself softly against him as he held her coat and she slipped her arms into the sleeves. The sensation of the fur and her body against his was electric.

Beth faced him again, closer than before. Her perfume was heady, like a full-bodied wine that had to be sipped slowly. "Walk with me," she said.

He followed her through an exit onto the outer deck of the casino. Heaters mounted along the outer wall glowed red, cutting the night's chill as they slowly made their way along the dimly lighted deck.

"Some riverboat," Mason said.

Beth laughed. "It's a barge permanently docked in a moat filled with water from the Missouri River. If the state legislature says it's a riverboat, that's good enough for me."

She slipped her arm through his as naturally as if they'd been doing it all their lives. "I didn't expect to see you here," she said.

"Into the belly of the beast," he told her. "Ed Fiora wouldn't return my phone calls so I decided to come see him."

"Alone?" she asked with a hopeful cast to her question.

"Sort of. I came with a friend but we're not together."

"Good," she said, emphasizing her satisfaction with a slight squeeze of his arm.

"How about you? Are you flying solo too?"

"I'm afraid so," Beth answered. She looked up at him, smiling weakly. "Not many men are anxious to be seen with me, especially since my last date ended up murdered."

"I suppose that would scare some guys away."

They had reached what was, in the mind of a fanciful architect, the prow of the boat. It was an elongated triangle that reached out over the Missouri River. It was at least ten feet wide at its base where it jutted out from the walk, narrowing to a couple of feet at its farthest point. The surface was made of reinforced steel. A wrought-iron rail, fabricated in cross-thatched weave to prevent small children from slipping through, rose four feet to keep adults high and dry as well. Pale blue Christmas lights had been strung along the rail providing the only illumination. They walked out onto the end of the prow, nearly invisible in the darkness, and leaned on the rail as the chill breeze blew off the river.

"How about you, Lou? Are you afraid of me?"

He shook his head. "I don't scare easily."

Beth leaned her shoulder into him and, without intending to, he slipped his arms around her middle and she covered his hands with hers. They stood like that, not talking, until fireworks launched from the casino parking lot announced the arrival of the New Year. Tracers of red and streaks of blue arced high into the sky. Green and white clusters exploded overhead, raining glowing cinders into the swiftly moving current twenty feet below them.

Beth rolled in Mason's arms, her mouth inches below his. "Don't let me scare you," she breathed. She pressed herself fully against him, rose on her toes, and kissed him softly, tentatively.

She barely pulled away, just enough to let him see in her quivering lips how much she wanted him, to let him feel the surge of need in her own body for his.

Mason was lost in the moment, intoxicated with her taste, a series of small shudders building like shifting fault lines in his groin and belly. He saw all that he wanted in her at that split second, and all that he could lose if he took it. He let go his grip, his arms slackened to his sides.

"I'm sorry, Beth. I'm truly sorry. Maybe when this is all over, but not now."

The light went out of her face as swiftly and coldly as the fireworks when they hit the water. She stepped back toward the deck, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Well, that's one way to start the New Year," she said. "Humiliate myself like a horny middle-aged broad who can't get laid."

"Don't do that to yourself, Beth. You're better than that," Mason told her.

"Am I?" she asked. She didn't wait for Mason's answer, leaving him alone at the end of the prow.

Mason stayed where he was, perched like the lookout on the Titanic, staring across the Missouri. The wind was brisk, but compared to the more recent biting cold, he could tolerate it for a few minutes. Besides, he wanted to give Beth time to leave the casino without another embarrassing encounter. He also wanted to let the cold air clear his muddled head.

He wondered whether Beth had sought him out or whether their meeting had been serendipitous. She had been so direct, almost calculating, that he couldn't ascribe it to mere chance. On the other hand, it was unlikely that she knew he was at the casino, let alone precisely where to find him. Someone must have told her. Ed Fiora had reminded Mason how easy it was to find him or anyone else at the casino. They were all being watched all the time. The more intriguing question was why Fiora would want Beth to find him, take him out to the prow of the boat, and seduce him.

The possible answers to that question were more than unsettling, replacing the lingering arousal from Bern 's embrace with a dull queasiness. He looked down at the river, noticing for the first time how the end of the prow bobbed and swayed as if the riverboat were churning along with the current. He was surprised at how far out over the black, swirling water the prow extended.

Before he could answer any of the questions running through his mind, a sharp crack, like a stray firecracker, popped behind him as he heard a piercing smack against the railing next to his side. Unwilling to believe what he suspected, he turned around in time to see a muzzle flash from the shadows of the deck at the same instant he heard another pop and another harsh ping into the rail. There was no mistake now. Someone was shooting at him.