“She was no fucking Girl Scout,” I say, stabbing the button and blurting out the words before I realize I’m talking about someone who’s dead.

Bert is quiet for a minute, long enough for me to wonder what has happened to my soul.

He folds up the paper and sets it down on the seat. I see him angle his chin out the window. Finally, in a low rumble, he nods his head and says, “Yeah. You’re right. She was going down anyway. No problem.”

His tone isn’t convincing.

When we get to the East River Yacht Club, the limo goes in but we drive past and park on the road where we can see the big modern building, a rectangle of concrete with smoky horizontal windows. Across the East River are the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan surrounding the silver jewel of the Chrysler Building. There are other limousines out in front of the Yacht Club and men in dark suits patrolling the perimeter whose jackets are bulging with automatic weapons.

“Bert,” I say into my headset, “you’re with me, right?”

“Right here,” Bert says. “Ice in my veins. Skunk in a possum suit.”

“Good,” I say.

Bert is frisked by the men at the door and led inside. He goes up the stairs and through a lobby. In the back, overlooking the river, is a long room with a conference table. Nearly a dozen men are sitting around with small espresso cups in front of them on saucers with small lemon peel shavings. Frank sits in the middle of the group facing the water. Ramo Capozza is at one end of the table and there is a chair for Bert at the other, where he sits down.

“It’s good to see you, Mr. Washington,” Capozza says.

“Thanks,” Bert says.

Someone sets down a cup of espresso in front of Bert along with a sugar bowl and some cream. Bert lays down the portfolio on the table in front of him, but doesn’t touch the coffee.

“Thank you for meeting with me, gentlemen,” I whisper.

Bert glances down at his tie and stiffly repeats my words.

“Holy crap,” Chuck Lawrence says under his breath.

“Don’t look at your tie,” I say in an even lower whisper.

“Don’t look at-” Bert begins to say, then after an uncomfortable pause he recovers. “I mean, would you like to look at these bank papers?”

All the men are looking down the length of the table at him. It is Frank who smiles and says, “Damn right I would. Hand that stuff down here, would you, Jim?”

The portfolio is passed down by the man on Bert’s left, and Frank tears it open and begins to pull out the papers. His eyes are narrowed and his massive jowls shake under the effort it takes him to breathe. The diamond ring on his finger flashes on his fluttering hands.

“In a real hurry, aren’t you, Frank?” says a man on the other side of the table with a pocked face, a bulbous nose, and a dark widow’s peak of slicked-back hair. “I guess our business isn’t clean enough for you and all your Park Avenue friends, huh?”

Frank stops what he’s doing and looks from the pit-faced man to Ramo Capozza.

Capozza intertwines his fingers and says, “Dominic, Frank has been a good partner for a long time. He’s ready to do other things. That’s not a sin. I told you, I like the fact that Mr. Washington’s group is a new and legitimate source of financing. They know the industry, so I think this could be a good opportunity for everyone. I don’t want bitterness…”

The man called Dominic folds his hands and dips his head. The rest of the room is silent. A tugboat going by outside sounds its horn. Finally, Bert clears his throat and shifts in his seat. Ramo Capozza nods at Frank and Frank digs back into the papers. He scans one, then another, and slides them down the table toward Capozza. The man to Capozza’s right, thin and angular, wearing a creamy brown suit, puts on a pair of gold reading glasses and examines the papers as well.

I’m pretty sure the most interesting one would be the statement from The Bank of Zurich showing a statement from the Iroquois Group for one hundred thirty-seven million dollars. The other would be the state certificate of incorporation showing Bert Washington as the president of the Iroquois Group.

The man leans toward Capozza and whispers in his ear. Capozza nods. Bert clears his throat again and this time begins to cough. I lift the headset away from my ears and look over at Chuck, who’s doing the same thing. When Bert’s done, I put the headset back on to catch a few words of Bert’s.

“-over the numbers,” Bert is saying.

The men all stare at him. Some start to mutter.

“What did he say?” I say in a hiss to Chuck with my hand over the microphone. Chuck shrugs.

“I think everyone should relax,” Capozza said, raising his hand. “Donald has the books. It’s nothing the different corporations don’t already give to the IRS, so let’s not get excited. The fact that Mr. Washington’s group is thorough is the sign that they’re a good group of businessmen and they’ll be good partners.”

The man with the reading glasses reaches down and sets a box of three-ring binders on the table. The box is pushed all the way down to Bert. Bert sits silent.

“It shouldn’t take our accountants much more than a week to check through these, then, if you gentlemen are still willing, we’ll have a deal,” I say into Bert’s ear.

He repeats it stiffly. Frank squints at him and rolls his tongue around the inside of his mouth.

Ramo Capozza slaps his aging hands gently on the tabletop and says, “Very good, Mr. Washington. We appreciate your coming by. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have some more business here before I meet my daughter for lunch.”

Bert doesn’t move.

In his ear I say, “Go shake his hand.”

“Go sha-” Bert starts to say, then stands up and continues. “I’m going to go. Now. Thank you very much.”

He picks up the box, moves down the length of the table, and shakes Ramo’s hand, then walks out the door. A man leads him through the hall and down the steps.

Bert is actually out the door when I hear Frank say, “Hey, Bert, do you mind if I call you Bert?”

Bert turns and there he is. Frank. Massive. Greasy. But with manicured hands and a three-thousand-dollar suit. A lump swells in my chest.

“No,” Bert says.

“Good,” Frank says. “Hey, Ramo told me it was Seth Cole who introduced you. That right?”

“Yes,” I say in Bert’s ear. “Tell him yes.”

“Yes,” Bert says stiffly.

Frank angles his head, still looking at Bert. A small smile creeps on his face.

“Yeah, well… tell him from me… thanks. Okay?”

“Okay,” Bert says. He turns away and steps toward the open door of my limo.

“Hey,” Frank says, causing Bert to turn toward him again. “Don’t think you’re going to pull any funny stuff with those records…

“The last Indian war didn’t go so well for you guys.”

FRANK RUBBED HIS TEETH back and forth against the face of his thumbnail. His eyes were looking out the window, but he wasn’t really seeing any of the storefronts on 49th Street, he was just staring. When the car pulled up in front of the Diamond Men’s Club, Frank waited for his driver to open the door. A bullnecked bodybuilder dressed in a tuxedo hurried outside to hold open the door to the club.

“Good morning, Mr. Steffano,” the kid said.

Frank didn’t bother to take the thumbnail away from his teeth when he asked, “Mickey in?”

“Seven a.m., same as always,” the kid said, rushing to open the inner door. The girl in the cashier’s booth stopped chewing her gum to stare.

It was dark inside and the red lights pulsed with the music. On the main stage a blonde girl who looked like she was about fifteen worked the brass pole at the end of the middle runway. Two guys in cowboy hats offered up creased dollar bills. Five or six other men in rumpled business suits were spread out in the dark, sitting at small round tables drinking twenty-dollar drinks.