With more than five hundred physician investors, there was no way for Angela to remember all their names. That reality, and the need for the doctors to be encouraged to admit more patients, meant Angela swallowed her pique and took the call. She assumed it would be about the MRSA death the previous day, and prepared herself mentally to describe everything being done to avoid any more infection in the future.

"First, I want to make sure the flowers arrived," the caller said.

Angela's gaze shifted to the roses and their mystery. All at once it dawned on her. She was speaking with the Chet McGovern she'd had the casual drink with the previous night at the club and had "used" to clear her mind and perhaps satisfy her transitory need for some sort of social contact, especially with a member of the opposite sex.

"The flowers arrived," Angela said. "Thank you. It was most unexpected. I hope they mean you have forgiven me."

"That goes without saying," Chet responded, "which brings me to the reason for the call. I thought it over, and after finding a spare two hundred thousand in my night table, I've decided to invest in Angels Healthcare."

There was a slight pause. "Really?" Angela questioned, with her mind momentarily stalled between what she knew was reality and what she wished to be reality.

Chet laughed. "Hey! I'm making a joke. I wish I had a spare two hundred G's, but such is not the case."

"Oh," Angela said. She wasn't laughing.

"I have a sneaking sense you didn't find that so funny."

"What is the real reason for the call?" Angela asked. There was a new edge to her tone.

"I was speaking with a couple of my colleagues, one of whom is a very savvy woman. I told them about meeting you last night and being turned down for dinner tonight. She told me to ask you again and to be direct, even if it meant putting my fragile ego on the line."

Angela smiled in spite of herself. "So you're admitting you have a fragile ego?"

"Absolutely Sometimes it takes me days to recover. With that said, I'm re-asking you to dinner tonight to stave off a depression."

Angela couldn't help but laugh. "You are persistent."

"I'm not sure that's accurate. Calling up like this and asking for more abuse is not my style."

"Well, your honesty and humor have intrigued me, though I didn't like the joke about the two hundred thousand. It was like you were mocking me."

"Absolutely not," Chet said.

"I wasn't joking about the need for short-term capital, and that is honestly why I cannot accept your gracious offer. I truly am distractedly busy. I wouldn't be good company even if I had the time."

"Well, I'm disappointed, but my ego is still intact, thanks to your diplomacy. I tell you what, if you are suddenly successful with your money-raising or depressed you are not, call me. I'll be available at a moment's notice."

When the call ended, Angela spun around in her chair, looking down the length of Fifth Avenue clogged with traffic. The unexpected dinner invites from two seemingly charming but different men, one obviously social and the other an apparent homebody, were remarkably unusual. And unsettling, in the way they made her question her choices and her lifestyle, causing her to wonder again about how she'd gotten sidetracked in her life. In a moment of insight, she sensed that the combination of the government reimbursement rules that caused her inner-city primary-care practice to go bankrupt and the demoralizing experience of divorce from Michael had worked to undermine her value system. She'd become jaded. Success from business, as measured by wealth and its trappings, had trumped notions of altruism, charity, and, apart from her daughter, the pleasures of interpersonal intimacy.

Angela swung back around to face her desk and the problems besieging Angels Healthcare. Pushing the flowers away from her work area, Angela moved the afternoon schedule to center stage. A moment later, Loren brought in a sandwich and a Coke. While she ate, Angela's mind switched back to the new problem about Paul Yang's whereabouts and the laptop with the 8-K file. It was like missing a loaded grenade with its pin half out.

With that thought in mind, Angela reached for her BlackBerry to e-mail Michael about what he might know of Paul's failure to show up for work. As her thumbs danced across the miniature keyboard, she applauded the ability the instrument gave her to communicate without having to talk to the man. It meant she could get the information she wanted without the aggravation she'd otherwise have to endure.

Once the message had been composed, she was about to send it when she had a second thought. She was well aware of Michael's background and childhood, and at times had had unsettling questions about some of his friends and their current lifestyles, including his so-called clients, but she'd never asked because at the time she didn't want to know. Now, as she was about to send the message to Michael, she had a similar feeling and wondered if she wanted to know the answer to what she was asking. Vaguely sensing she might not, she saved the message as a draft and put the BlackBerry aside. She'd deal with the issue later.

Michael Calabrese was in a foul mood from an amalgam of fear and anxiety as he pulled his black Mercedes SUV alongside a row of parked cars and then backed into an empty spot. From where he was parked, he could see the entrance to the Neapolitan Restaurant on Corona Avenue in Corona, Queens. Corona was the next town over from Rego Park, where he'd grown up in a largely Italian neighborhood. A lot of people thought all the Italians in New York lived in Little Italy in Manhattan, but it wasn't true. They had all moved out, many to Long Island, including Michael's grandfather Ziggy who'd started the family masonry-and-tile business in Rego Park.

Michael eyed the restaurant's entrance and tried to think of a strategy for his upcoming meeting. The restaurant's fame extended as far back as the 1930s when it was the favorite nighttime hangout of the Lucia organization. It had continued with the dubious association over the years with some ups and downs, but mostly downs, until Mayor Rudolph Giuliani managed to discourage a lot of mid-level mafioso bosses from schmoozing at night in Manhattan, and at that point, it had enjoyed a remarkable resurgence. Its revival had continued with Vinnie Dominick having chosen the joint to be his haunt when he was selected as the local Lucia capo.

As a sign of the times, the competing Vaccarro crime family had chosen a considerably newer establishment two blocks down the street, the Vesuvio, as their rendezvous. Both organizations believed it made sense to open a handy avenue of communication with the Asians, Russians, and Hispanics coming in and jockeying for some of the action. The only problem, of course, was that Paulie Cerino, the titular Vaccarro head, was still in the slammer, so communication wasn't what it should have been.

In a fit of unbridled rage, Michael pounded his steering wheel repeatedly while yelling "shit" over and over again. He'd experienced temper tantrums since he was a child, and back then they'd gotten him into more than his share of fights and a number of beatings from his father. Yet there was a positive side. Once the energy was expended, he'd calm down, and could deal with the bothersome issue at hand. As he'd matured, he'd learned to control his outbursts until he was alone, except when he'd been married to Angela.

As suddenly as he had started pounding the steering wheel, he stopped. "Spoiled bitch," he grumbled, thinking about Angela. She'd been his bane from the moment they'd gotten married. Up until then she'd been a doll, but within weeks of the big ceremony at Saint Mary's Church, he was no longer good enough the way he was. She wanted him to do this, and she demanded he do that, and she resented his going out, even for business dinners. In short, she wanted him to change, and he had no intention of changing for a spoiled, upper-middle-class Jersey girl who'd gotten everything she'd ever wanted by snapping her fingers. As far as the divorce settlement was concerned, he didn't want to go there in his current state of mind. Whenever he thought about it, it made him furious. For nothing but causing him grief, she walked away with the West Side triplex apartment and a ridiculous amount of child support.