She opened sharply. “What?”

“We need to talk,” Myron said. There was distortion on the line. A cell or car phone probably.

“We already talked.”

“This is different.”

Silence. Then: “I'm in the car right now, about a mile from my house out on the Island. How important is this?”

Myron picked up a pen. “Give me your address,” he said. “I'll be right over.”

On the street the man was still reading a newspaper.

Myron's elevator trip down to the lobby featured mucho stops. Not atypical. No one spoke, of course, everyone busying themselves by staring up at the descending flashing numbers as though awaiting a UFO landing. In the lobby he joined the stream of suits and flowed out onto Park Avenue, salmons fighting upstream against the tide until, well, they died. Many of the suits walked with heads high, their expressions kick-ass-runway-model; others walked with backs bent, flesh versions of the statue on Fifth Avenue of Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders, but for them the world was simply too heavy.

Whoa, again with the deep.

Perfectly situated on the corner of Forty-sixth and Park, standing reading a newspaper but positioned in such way as to watch all entering or leaving the Lock-Home building, was the same man Myron had noticed standing there when he entered.

Hmm.

Myron took out his cell phone and hit the programmed button.

“Articulate,” Win said.

“I think I got a tail.”

“Hold please.” Maybe ten seconds passed. Then: “The newspaper on the corner.”

Win keeps a variety of telescopes and binoculars in his office. Don't ask.

“Yep.”

“Good Lord,” Win said. “Could he be any more obvious?”

“Doubt it.”

“Where's the pride in his work? Where's the professionalism?”

“Sad.”

“That, my friend, is the whole problem with this country.”

“Bad tails?”

“It's an example. Look at him. Does anybody really stand on a street corner and read a newspaper like that? He might as well cut out two eyeholes.”

“Uh-huh,” Myron said. “You got some free time?”

“But of course. How would you like to play it?”

“Back me up,” Myron said.

“Give me five.”

Myron waited five minutes. He stood there and studiously avoided looking at the tail. He checked his watch and huffed a bit as though he expected someone and was getting impatient. When the five minutes passed, Myron walked straight over to the tail.

The tail spotted his approach and ducked into the newspaper.

Myron kept walking until he stood directly next to the tail. The tail kept his face in the newspaper. Myron gave him Smile 8. Big and toothy. A televangelist being handed a hefty check. Early Wink Martindale. The tail kept his eyes on the newspaper. Myron kept smiling, his eyes wide as a clown's. The tail ignored him. Myron inched closer, leaned his uber-wattage smile within inches of the taiPs face, wriggled his eyebrows.

The tail snapped closed the newspaper and sighed. “Fine, hotshot, you made me. Congratulations.”

Still with the Wink Martindale smile: “And thank you for playing our game! But don't worry, we won't let you go home empty-handed! You get the home version of Incompetent Tail and a year's subscription to Modern Doofus”

“Yeah, right, see you around.”

“Wait! Final Jeopardy! round. Answer: He or she hired you to follow me.”

“Bite me.”

“Ooo, sorry, you needed to put that in the form of a question.”

The tail started walking away. When he looked back, Myron gave him the smile and a big wave. “This has been a Mark Goodson-Bill Todman production. Good-bye, everybody!” More waving.

The tail shook his head and continued down the street, joining another stream of people. Lots of people in this stream; Win happened to be one of them. The tail would probably find a clearing and then call his boss. Win would listen in and learn all. What a plan.

Myron headed to his rented car. He circled the block once. No more tails. At least none as obvious as the last. No matter. He was driving out to the Mayor estate on Long Island. It didn't much matter if anyone knew.

He spent his time in the car working on the cell phone. He had two arena football players-indoor football on a smaller field, for those who don't know-both of whom were hoping to scratch a bench spot on an NFL roster before the waiver wire closed down. Myron called teams, but nobody was interested. Lots of people asked him about the murder. He brushed them off. He knew his efforts were fairly futile, but he stuck to it. Big of him. He tried concentrating on his work, tried to lose himself in the numb bliss of what he did for a living. But the world kept creeping in. He thought about Esperanza in jail. He thought about Jessica in California. He thought about Bonnie Haid and her fatherless boys at home. He thought about Clu in formaldehyde. He thought about his father's phone call. And strangely, he kept thinking about Terese alone on that island. He blocked out the rest.

When he reached Muttontown, a section of Long Island that had somehow escaped him in the past, he turned right onto a heavily wooded road. He drove about two miles, passing maybe three driveways. He finally reached a simple iron gate with a small sign that read THE MAYORS. There were several security cameras and an intercom. He pressed the button. A woman's voice came on and said, “May I help you?”

“Myron Bolitar to see Sophie Mayor.” “Please drive up. Park in front of the house.” The gate opened. Myron drove up a rather steep hill. Tall hedges lined both sides of the driveway, giving the aura of being a rat in a maze. He spotted a few more security cameras. No sign of the house yet. When he reached the top of the hill, he hit upon a clearing. There was a slightly overgrown grass tennis court and croquet field. Very Norma Desmond. He made another turn. The house was dead straight ahead. It was a mansion, of course, though not as huge as some Myron had seen. Vines clung to pale yellow stucco. The windows looked leaded. The whole scene screamed Roaring Twenties. Myron half expected Scott and Zelda to pull up behind him in a slick roadster.

This part of the driveway was made up of small loose pebbles rather than pavement. His tires crunched them as it drew closer. There was a fountain in the middle of the circular drive, about fifteen feet in front of the door. Neptune stood naked with a triton in his hand. The fountain, Myron realized, was a smaller version of the one in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Water spouted up but not very high or with much enthusiasm, as if someone had set the water pressure on “light urination.”

Myron parked the car. There was a perfectly square swimming pool on his right, complete with lily pads floating on the top. A poor man's Giverny. There were statues in the gardens, again something from old Italy or Greece or the like. Venus de Milo-like except with all the limbs.

He got out of the car and stopped. He thought about what he was about to unearth, and for a brief moment he considered turning back. How, he wondered again, do I tell this woman about her missing daughter melting on a computer diskette?

No answer came to him.

The door opened. A woman in casual clothes led him through a corridor and into a large room with high tin ceilings and lots of windows and a semidisappointing view of more white statues and woods. The interior was art deco, but it didn't try too hard. Nice. Except, of course, for the hunting trophies. Taxidermy birds of some sort sat on the shelves. The birds looked upset. Probably were. Who could blame them?

Myron turned and stared at a mounted deer. He waited for Sophie Mayor. The deer waited too. The deer seemed very patient.

“Go ahead,” a voice said.