"Hard to figure," I said. "Want to tell me about your troubles?"

"So you can help me?"

"Yeah."

"Because Susan asked you to?"

"Yeah."

"How do you feel about helping out your girlfriend's ex?"

"She says I'll like you," I said.

He grinned. His teeth were very white and even. "Of course you will," he said. "Everybody likes me."

"Susan says that you're being sued for sexual harassment."

"So, you're saying that somebody doesn't like me?"

"Tell me about it," I said.

He smiled and shrugged and leaned back farther in his chair and put his feet on the desk.

"I was running a thing at the Convention Center. Big charity do. Brought in Sister Sass from New York, had a ton of celebarooties. Message from the President. Lot of press."

"Which charity?"

"Sort of a fund-raiser gang-bang for all the deservings, you know? Care and placement of orphans, shelter for battered women, AIDS research, other intractable diseases, help for the homeless, safe streets programs, everybody in one swell foop."

"And?"

"And it was a blockbuster. I slept about two hours a night pulling it together, but it was a whizbang when we got it airborne."

"I sort of meant `and the harassment'?"

"Oh, sure, of course."

Out the west window I could see the shadow of a cloud drift over Kenmore Square toward Fenway Park.

A little less than a month and baseball would be back. It seemed too early. It always did in March. Too cold to play ball, the ground too soggy. The wind too bold. But April always came and they played. I looked back at Sterling. He was sitting at his desk looking friendly.

"And the harassment?" I said.

"Nothing much, really," he said. "All these charities have a ton of volunteer do-gooders around. Mostly women, the kind who think they're important because their husbands are rich. And a lot of them are goodlooking in that rich wife way, you know. Perfect hairdos, expensive perfume, very silky. So I may have flirted with a couple of them, and they took it wrong."

"How would you define flirting?" I said.

I was almost sure that I opposed sexual harassment. I was less sure that I knew exactly what it was.

"You know, kidding around, telling them how goodlooking they were. Hell I thought- they'd be flattered. Most women are. Cripes, if they weren't married I'd figure them for a bunch of lesbos."

"Which is it, a `couple,' or a `bunch?' "

'There are four women participating in the lawsuit," Sterling said. "One of them is married to Francis Ronan."

"The law professor," I said.

"Him," Sterling said. "Talk about your luck running bad."

"You didn't touch these women?"

"Absolutely not," Sterling said.

"Were you obscene?"

"No, of course not."

"Did they work for you?"

"Not really. They were volunteers. I mean I was at the top of the pyramid, I suppose, and they were down the slope a bit. But they didn't work for me."

"If you lose, can you pay the judgment?"

"That's not the point. I'm…" He grinned. "I'm an innocent man."

"But you could pay it."

"Certainly."

"You're not at the brink of, ah, dissolution?"

"Dissolute, yes, whenever possible," Sterling said. "Dissolution? Not hardly."

Sterling made a gesture that encompassed the office and the view. "This look like dissolution?"

"All it proves is they haven't evicted you," I said.

Sterling laughed out loud.

"A hard man is good to find," he said when he had stopped laughing.

"You want me to look into this a little?" I said. "See if I can fix it?"

"I wish someone would fix Francis Ronan," he said.

"Yes or no?"

"What do you charge?"

"Pro bono," I said.

"Well, the damn price is right, I guess. Sure, why not? You may as well take a whack at it."

"Okay. Who's your lawyer."

He shook his head.

"You don't have a lawyer?"

"Haven't got to it yet," he said. "Thought I'd wait until there was an actual court date. No point in paying some guy to shuffle papers for a month."

"Sometimes if a good lawyer shuffles them right, you don't have to go to court."

"Oh," he said, "a good lawyer."

And he leaned back in his chair and put his head back and laughed again. It was a big laugh and sounded completely genuine.

"I'll need the names of the plaintiffs," I said.

"Sure. I had Patti start a file on this. Ask her for a copy."

I stood. He stood. We shook hands.

"Give Susan a kiss for me," he said.

"No," I said.

chapter three

HAWK WAS SIPPING champagne at the corner of the bar in the Casablanca in Harvard Square and saving the bar stool next to him for me. As far as I could tell, no one had contested the seat.

"I ordered us a mess of pan-fried oysters," Hawk said. "Figured you could use the protein."

Jimmy the bartender looked at me and pointed to the Foster's tap. I nodded.

"Been here before?" Hawk said.

"Susan and I come here."

Jimmy brought the beer.

"Irish," Hawk said.

"His name is James Santo Costagnozzi," I said.

"Bad luck," Hawk said. "To look Irish when you not."

"Unless you're trying to pass," I said.

"Nobody trying to pass for Irish," Hawk said.

"Is that an ethnic slur?" I said.

"Believe so," Hawk said.

The pan-fried oysters arrived and we ate some.

"Feelin' stronger?" Hawk said.

"Potent is my middle name," I said.

"Always wondered," Hawk said. "How you doing with Susan's ex?"

"I met him today," I said.

"Umm," Hawk said.

"Umm?"

"Umm."

"What the hell does `umm' mean?"

"Means how'd you feel talking with Susan's ex-husband."

"He seemed like kind of a goofball to me."

"Umm."

"His name was Silverman," I said. "He changed it to Sterling."

"Cute."

We ate some more oysters.

"He's got that sort of Ivy League old money WASP goofiness that they have," I said.

"Silverman?"

"Sterling," I said.

"So he trying to pass."

"I'd say so."

"And succeeding," Hawk said.

"Yes. He's got it down cold. Bow ties, everything."

"Maybe he just like bow ties."

"Who just likes bow ties?" I said.

"Got a point," Hawk said. "How he measure up?"

"To what?"

"To you."

"No better than anybody else."

Hawk grinned.

"'Cept me," he said. "How you feel about him?"

"Something's wrong," I said. "Susan tells me he's at the verge of dissolution. He says he's doing grand and has the office to prove it."

"So somebody lying," Hawk said.

"Right."

"And it ain't Susan."

"Also right."