Veronica walked in. "I'm here to see Dyan Mundy."

"Ms. Mundy is in conference just now. Do you have an appointment?"

Veronica gave her name. The receptionist directed her to a waiting area to her right, out of sight of the elevators. Veronica was fascinated by her precise, emotionless gestures. "What do you do if you have to write something down?" she asked.

The woman smiled mechanically. "We have secretaries for that."

Veronica looked through the magazines. Smithsonian, Fine Homebuilding, European Travel and Life. No Aces or Cosmo here.

In less than a minute, a woman appeared behind her and said, "Veronica?" She was six feet fall, heavily built, with strong features, glasses, and slicked-back hair. "I'm Dyan Mundy."

She was not the socialite Veronica had expected. It was comforting, but it made things more difficult as well. Mundy led her down wine-colored carpeting, past recessed lighting, toward a huge office with corner windows. Veronica caught a glimpse of someone she felt sure was Latham himself. Then they turned into a side corridor, and Mundy ushered her into an empty office.

As soon as Mundy sat down, Veronica said, "This is about Hannah. Hannah Jorde."

"I don't recall the name."

"You were hired by an organization called W O. R. S. E. to defend her. A shooting in a bank? There was all this weird stuff about the case. Only it never came to trial because Hannah killed herself in her cell."

"Yes, yes, I remember it now"

"The problem is, W O. R. S. E. wasn't paying you at all. Latham, Strauss volunteered to defend her. I want to know why." Mundy swiveled her chair around and scooted over to a file cabinet. " I remember you now. You were… personally involved, I think."

Veronica gave her a small shrug.

"Ordinarily, the sort of information you're asking for is confidential. But I can promise you that you're on a wildgoose chase." She pulled an olive-drab hanging file out of the cabinet and opened it up on her desk. "Here's the case file. We show payment in full, by cashier's check. W O. R. S. E., as I'm sure you understand, is not a chartered corporation with bank accounts and so forth, so that is the form of payment we would be looking for in this situation."

If the woman was lying, it was beyond Veronica's ability to tell. Which meant the answers lay higher up.

With Edward St. John Latham.

From Jerry she knew that Latham worked long hours, nights and weekends. When he wasn't in the courtroom, he was in the office.

Getting a key was not difficult. She called Frances, from W O. R. S. E., who gave her a wax block in a small plastic case. "Be sure and get the whole key," Frances told her, "head and all, both sides."

At noon on the following Monday, Veronica rode the elevator up and down in Latham's building. On her third trip, a young guy in a suit got on at the eighth floor. She followed him to the street, then used her power to stagger him. She shoved him face first against a wall and smiled at the people passing by, who all turned their heads away. He didn't seem to notice as she took out his key ring and sorted through them. Two keys looked possible. She printed them both and put the key ring back in his pocket. By the time he turned around, she had faded back into the crowd.

Frances made the keys for her while she waited. "You sure you don't want no help? Been awhile. I'd love some action."

"It's a one-woman job," Veronica said.

"And you won't tell me who you're going after."

"You can read about it in the papers."

She sat in a coffee shop until ten P.M., so nervous that she ate three pieces of chocolate pie and drank four cups of coffee. There was a guard in the lobby when she went inside. She signed Dyan Mundy's name and got in an elevator. The guard never looked up from his copy of the Post.

The first key worked. The office was barely lit by a couple of pin spots. Veronica locked the door after herself and retraced the route she'd taken the day before.

Latham's office was lighted, the door closed. Veronica crept down the hall and tried the knob. It turned. She shoved the door open and stepped inside.

Latham looked up from his desk. He was working at a computer, with green-bar paper spread all around him. He didn't seem surprised to find a stranger in his office. "Yes?" he said.

"We have to talk," Veronica said. "I doubt that."

"It's about Hannah Jorde. She was jumped, and the jumper made her shoot up a bank. The jumper's name was David Butler."

That got a reaction. Latham's mouth twitched, and his eyes lost their focus for a second.

"Butler worked for you. You arranged to have Latham, Strauss represent Hannah in court. That let you send David down to see her in jail. Where he jumped her again-and made her kill herself."

Latham's finger moved a few inches and touched a button on his intercom. Veronica focused her power on him. The hum of the computer drive slowed and made a coughing sound. The lights flickered and dimmed. Before Latham could say anything into the intercom, he blinked, and his hands dropped to his sides.

"Don't touch that again," Veronica said. "Now. I think you're in this up to your neck. What's your connection with David? What do you know about these jumpers? Why are you helping clean up after them?"

"I-" Latham said. He never finished the sentence. Veronica saw a blur come at her from the right. She ducked reflexively and only caught a grazing blow to her shoulder. Even that was powerful enough to knock her across the room.

"Get rid of her," Latham said weakly.

Veronica focused her eyes. It was Zelda, minus the wig. Her head was shaved smooth. "You," Veronica said.

Zelda smiled. "Veronica. Long time no see." She bent and grabbed a fistful of Veronica's jacket. "You want her dead, boss?"

"Yes," Latham said. "Dead."

"I'll take her out to the Rox to do it. Bloat can find out what she knows."

Veronica felt the room start to spin. "You were working for Latham

… all the time."

Zelda threw her into the hallway and shut Latham in his office. Veronica started to crawl toward the receptionist's desk. "Boss had his own reasons to want Loeffer dead. He owed money to some of Boss's friends. Boss likes to keep his options open. Wanted to make sure Tina and her friends didn't come after him." She let Veronica crawl, stalking her. "Let me go," Veronica said. "I'll go away somewhere. You won't ever hear of me again. I promise."

Zelda laughed, and Veronica got up onto her feet, taking a couple of lurching steps. Her right shoulder was dislocated or worse. The sense of betrayal was almost as bad as the pain. Almost. To know that even W0. R. S. E. had been no more than a puppet of the male establishment. It made everything seem futile.

Stop it, she thought. If she didn't fight back, Zelda would kill her. She had to use her power, quickly, while she still had the chance. She turned and concentrated all her rage and despair against Zelda, burning it into her eyes.

The lights flickered, but Zelda was unaffected. "Trying to scare me, Veronica?" She swung a halfhearted side kick with her right leg, and Veronica jumped backward out of the way.

She stumbled against the receptionist's desk, and then the obvious truth hit her: her power was only good against men. "You'll have to do better than that," Zelda said. "Looks can't kill. Not since Demise bought it."

It made sense, in that twisted way the wild card sometimes had. The only power she'd ever had was over men. Probably had something to do with hormones. Didn't everything?

Veronica's hand touched plastic. The telephone. She lurched forward and swung the receiver at Zelda's head, catching her solidly across the temple. Zelda hopped back half a step and shook her head. Veronica swung again, but Zelda blocked it and knocked Veronica down with a punch to the solar plexus.