"I haven't time to reminisce. The information, please."

"Oh, yes, of course. ... Well, first the money was delivered to me on the corner of Commonwealth and Dartmouth, and naturally I wrote down the names and the specifics you gave me over the phone-"

"Wrote down?" asked Gates sharply.

"Burned as soon as I'd committed them to memory-I did learn a few things from my difficulties. I reached the engineer at the telephone company, who was overjoyed with your-excuse me-my largess, and took his information to that repulsive private detective, a sleaze if I ever saw one, Randy, and considering his methods, someone who could really use my talents."

"Please," interrupted the renowned legal scholar. "The facts, not your appraisals."

"Appraisals often contain germane facts, Professor. Surely you understand that."

"If I want to build a case, I'll ask for opinions. Not now. What did the man find out?"

"Based on what you told me, a lone woman with children-how many being undetermined-and on the data provided by an underpaid telephone company mechanic, namely, a narrowed-down location based on the area code and the first three digits of a number, the unethical sleaze went to work at an outrageous hourly rate. To my astonishment, he was productive. As a matter of fact, with what's left of my legal mind, we may form a quiet, unwritten partnership."

"Damn you, what did he learn?"

"Well, as I say, his hourly rate was beyond belief, I mean it really invaded the corpus of my own well-deserved retainer, so I think we should discuss an adjustment, don't you?"

"Who the hell do you think you are? I sent you three thousand dollars! Five hundred for the telephone man and fifteen hundred for that miserable keyhole slime who calls himself a private detective-"

"Only because he's no longer on the public payroll of the police department, Randolph. Like me, he fell from grace, but he obviously does very good work. Do we negotiate or do I leave?"

In fury, the balding imperious professor of law stared at the gray-faced old disbarred and dishonored attorney in front of him. "How dare you?"

"Dear me, Randy, you really do believe your press, don't you? Very well, I'll tell why I dare, my arrogant old friend. I've read you, seen you, expounding on your esoteric interpretations of complex legal matters, assaulting every decent thing the courts of this country have decreed in the last thirty years, when you haven't the vaguest idea what it is to be poor, or hungry, or have an unwanted mass in your belly you neither anticipated nor can provide a life for. You're the darling of the royalists, my unprofound fellow, and you'd force the average citizen to live in a nation where privacy is obsolete, free thought suspended by censorship, the rich get richer, and for the poorest among us the beginnings of potential life itself may well have to be abandoned in order to survive. And you expound on these unoriginal, medieval concepts only to promote yourself as a brilliant maverick-of disaster. Do you want me to go on, Doctor Gates? Frankly, I think you chose the wrong loser to contact for your dirty work."

"How ... dare you?" repeated the perplexed professor, sputtering as he regally strode to the window. "I don't have to listen to this!"

"No, you certainly don't, Randy. But when I was an associate at the law school and you were one of my kids-one of the best but not the brightest-you damn well had to listen. So I suggest you listen now."

"What the hell do you want?" roared Gates, turning away from the window.

"It's what you want, isn't it? The information you underpaid me for. It's that important to you, isn't it?"

"I must have it."

"You were always filled with anxiety before an exam-"

"Stop it! I paid. I demand the information."

"Then I must demand more money. Whoever's paying you can afford it."

"Not a dollar!"

"Then I'm leaving."

"Stop! ... Five hundred more, that's it."

"Five thousand or I go."

"Ridiculous!"

"See you in another twenty years-"

"All right. ... All right, five thousand."

"Oh, Randy, you're so obvious. It's why you're not really one of the brightest, just someone who can use language to make yourself appear bright, and I think we've seen and heard enough of that these days. ... Ten thousand, Dr. Gates, or I go to the raucous bar of my choice."

"You can't do this."

"Certainly I can. I'm now a confidential legal consultant. Ten thousand dollars. How do you want to pay it? I can't imagine you have it with you, so how will you honor the debt-for the information?"

"My word-"

"Forget it, Randy."

"All right. I'll have it sent to the Boston Five in the morning. In your name. A bank check."

"That's very endearing of you. But in case it occurs to your superiors to stop me from collecting, please advise them that an unknown person, an old friend of mine in the streets, has a letter detailing everything that's gone on between us. It is to be mailed to the Massachusetts Attorney General, Return Receipt Requested, in the event I have an accident."

"That's absurd. The information, please."

"Yes, well, you should know that you've involved yourself in what appears to be an extremely sensitive government operation, that's the bottom line. ... On the assumption that anyone in an emergency leaving one place for another would do so with the fastest transportation possible, our rumbottom detective went to Logan Airport, under what guise I don't know. Nevertheless, he succeeded in obtaining the manifests of every plane leaving Boston yesterday morning from the first flight at six-thirty to ten o'clock. As you recall, that corresponds with the parameters of your statement to me-'leaving first thing in the morning.' "

"And?"

"Patience, Randolph. You told me not to write anything down, so I must take this step by step. Where was I?"

"The manifests."

"Oh, yes. Well, according to Detective Sleaze, there were eleven unaccompanied children booked on various flights, and eight women, two of them nuns, who had reservations with minors. Of these eight, including the nuns who were taking nine orphans to California, the remaining six were identified as follows." The old man reached into his pocket and shakily took out a typewritten sheet of paper. "Obviously, I did not write this. I don't own a typewriter because I can't type; it comes from Führer Sleaze."

"Let me have it!" ordered Gates, rushing forward, his hand outstretched.

"Surely," said the seventy-year-old disbarred attorney, giving the page to his former student. "It won't do you much good, however," he added. "Our Sleaze checked them out, more to inflate his hours than for anything else. Not only are they all squeaky clean, but he performed that unnecessary service after the real information was uncovered."

"What?" asked Gates, his attention diverted from the page. "What information?"

"Information that neither Sleaze nor I would write down anywhere. The first hint of it came from the morning setup clerk for Pan American Airlines. He mentioned to our lowbrow detective that among his problems yesterday was a hotshot politician, or someone equally offensive, who needed diapers several minutes after our clerk went on duty at five-forty-five. Did you know that diapers come in sizes and are locked away in an airline's contingency supplies?"

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"All the stores in the airport were closed. They open at seven o'clock."

"So?"

"So someone in a hurry forgot something. A lone woman with a five-year-old child and an infant were leaving Boston on a private jet taking off on the runway nearest the Pan Am shuttle counters. The clerk responded to the request and was personally thanked by the mother. You see, he's a young father and understood about diaper sizes. He brought three different packages-"