“Much as I'd like to help, there was a witness to my whereabouts.”

“Who?”

“Don't worry about it.”

Another shrug. “You're the one who said you wanted to help. Good night.” She looked at Win. “By the way, you're the perfect man-good-looking and nearly mute.”

“Careful,” Win said to her.

“Why?”

Win pointed at Myron with his thumb. “Any minute now he's going to turn on the charm and reduce your willpower to rubble.”

She looked at Myron and burst out laughing.

Myron tried again. “So what happened?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“I'm her friend.”

“Yeah, I think you already said that.”

“I'm her best friend. I care about her.”

“Fine. Tomorrow I'll pass her a note during study hall, find out if she likes you too. Then you can meet at Pop's and share a soda.”

“That's not what I-” Myron stopped, gave her the slow, slightly put-out-but-here-to-help smile. Smile 18: the Michael Landon model, except he couldn't crinkle the eyebrow. “I'd just like to know what happened. You can appreciate that.”

Her face softened, and she nodded. “You went to law school, right?”

“Yes.”

“At Harvard no less.”

“Yes.”

“So maybe you were absent the day they went over a little something we call attorney-client privilege. I can recommend some wonderful books on the subject, if you'd like. Or maybe you can watch any episode of Law & Order. They usually talk about it right before the old DA grouses to Sam Waterston that he's got no case and should cut a deal.”

So much for charm. “You're just covering your ass,” Myron said.

She looked behind her and down. Then she frowned. “No easy task, I assure you.”

“I thought you were supposed to be a hotshot attorney.”

She sighed, crossed her arms. “Okay, Myron, let's hear it. Why am I covering my ass? Why am I not the hotshot attorney you thought I was?”

“Because they didn't let Esperanza surrender. Because they dragged her in in cuffs. Because they're holding her overnight instead of getting her through the system in the same day. Why?”

She dropped her hands to her sides. “Good question, Myron. Why do you think?”

“Because someone there doesn't like her high-profile attorney. Someone in the DA's office probably has a hard-on for you and is taking it out on your client.”

She nodded. “Good possibility. But I have another one.”

“What?”

“Maybe they don't like her employer.”

“Me?”

She started for the door. “Do us all a favor, Myron. Stay out of this. Just keep away. And maybe get yourself a lawyer.”

Hester Crimstein spun around and disappeared inside then. Myron turned toward Win. Win was bent at the waist, squinting at Myron's crotch. “What the hell are you doing?”

Still squinting. “I wanted to see if she left you with even a sliver of a testicle.”

“Very funny. What do you think she meant about them not liking her employer?”

“Not a clue,” Win said. Then: “You mustn't blame yourself.”

“What?”

“For your charm's seemingly lackluster performance. You forgot a crucial component in all this.”

“That being?”

“Ms. Crimstein had an affair with Esperanza.”

Myron saw where he was going with this. “Of course. She must be a lesbian.”

“Precisely. It's the only rational explanation for her ability to resist you.”

“That, or a really bizarre paranormal event.”

Win nodded. They started walking down Central Park West.

“This is also further proof of a very frightening adage,” Win said.

“What's that?”

“Most women you encounter are lesbians.”

Myron nodded. “Almost every one.”

They walked the two blocks to Win's place, watched a little television, went to bed. Myron lay in the dark exhausted, but sleep remained elusive. He thought about Jessica. Then he tried to think about Brenda, but the automatic defense mechanism deflected that one. Still too raw. And he thought about Terese. She was alone on that island tonight for the first time. During the day the island's solitude was peaceful and quiet and welcome; at night the solitude felt more like dark isolation, the island's black walls closing in, silent and cloying as a buried coffin. He and Terese had always slept wrapped in each other's arms. Now he pictured her lying in that deep blackness alone. And he worried about her.

He woke up the next morning at seven. Win was already gone, but he'd scribbled a note that he'd meet up with Myron at the courthouse at nine. Myron grabbed a bowl of Cap'n Crunch, discerned with a digging left hand that Win had already extracted the free toy inside, showered, dressed, checked his watch. Eight o'clock. Plenty of time to reach the courthouse in time.

He took the elevator down and crossed the famed Dakota courtyard. He had just reached the corner of Seventy-second Street and Central Park West when he spotted the three familiar figures. Myron felt his pulse quicken. FJ, short for Frank Junior, was bookended by two huge guys. The two huge guys looked like lab experiments gone very wrong, as if someone had potently mixed genetic glandular excess with anabolic steroids. They wore tank tops and those drawstring weightlifting pants that looked suspiciously like ugly pajama' bottoms.

Young FJ silently smiled at Myron with thin lips. He sported a purple-blue suit so shiny it looked like someone had sprayed it with a sealant. FJ didn't move, didn't say anything, just smiled at Myron with unblinking eyes and those thin lips.

Today's word, boys and girls, is reptilian.

FJ finally took a step forward. “Heard you were back in town, Myron.”

Myron bit back a rejoinder-it wasn't a very cutting one, something about the nice welcoming party-and kept his mouth shut.

“Remember our last conversation?” FJ continued.

“Vaguely.”

“I mentioned something about killing you, right?”

“It might have come up,” Myron said. “I don't remember. So many tough guys, so many threats.”

The Bookends tried to scowl, but even their faces were overmuscled, and the movement took too much effort. They settled back into the steady frowns and lowered the eyebrows a bit.

“Actually, I was going to carry through with it,” FJ continued. “About a month ago. I followed you out to some graveyard in New Jersey. I even sneaked up behind you with my gun out. Funny thing, no?”

Myron nodded. “Like Henny Youngman wrote it.”

FJ tilted his head. “Don't you want to know why I didn't kill you?”

“Because of Win.”

The sound of his name was like a cold glass of water in the faces of both Bookends. The two giants actually stepped back but recovered quickly with a few flexes. FJ remained unruffled. “Win doesn't scare me,” he said.

“Even the dumbest animal,” Myron said, “has an innate survival mechanism.”

FJ's eyes met Myron's. Myron tried to maintain contact, but it was hard. There was nothing behind FJ's eyes but rot and decay; it was like staring into the broken windows of an abandoned building. “Sticks and stones, Myron. Sticks and stones. I didn't kill you because, well, you already looked so miserable. It was as though-how to put this?-as though killing you would have been an act of mercy. Like I said before, funny, right?”

“You should consider stand-up,” Myron agreed.

FJ chuckled and waved a well-manicured hand at nothing in particular. “Anyway, bygones. My father and uncle like you, and yes, we see no reason to antagonize Win unnecessarily. They don't want you dead, so neither do I.”

His father and uncle were Frank and Herman Ache, two of New York's legendary leading leg breakers. The elder Aches had grown up on the streets, slaughtered more people than the next guy, moved up the ladder. Herman, the older brother and big cheese, was in his sixties now and liked to pretend he wasn't scum by surrounding himself with the finer things in life: restricted clubs that didn't want him, nouveau-riche art exhibits, well-coiffed charities, midtown French maitre d's who treated anyone who tipped with less than a Jackson like something they couldn't scrape off the soles of their shoes. In other words, a higher-income scum. Herman's younger brother, Frank, the psycho who had produced the equally psycho offspring who now stood in front of Myron, remained what he had always been: an ugly hatchet man who considered K mart velour sweatsuits haute couture. Frank had calmed down over the last few years, but it never quite worked for him. Life, it seemed, had little meaning for Frank Senior without someone to torture or maim.