“Any plans for spring break?” Bennie asked as they unwrapped their sandwiches.

“Work,” Kyle said. The break had started the day before, and half of Yale was now somewhere in southern Florida.

“Come on. Your last spring break and you’re not headed for the beach?”

“Nope. I’ll be in New York next week looking for an apartment.”

Bennie looked surprised and said, “We can help.”

“We’ve had this conversation, Bennie. I don’t need your help.”

Both took enormous bites and chewed in silence. Finally, Kyle asked, “Any news on the lawsuit?”

A quick dismissive nod. Nothing.

“Has it been filed yet?” Kyle asked. “Why can’t you tell me about it?”

Bennie cleared his throat and sipped his water. “Next week. Let’s meet next week when you’re in New York, and I’ll walk you through the lawsuit.”

“Can’t wait.”

Another hefty bite and they chewed for a while.

“When do you take the bar exam?” Bennie asked.

“July.”

“Where?”

“New York. Somewhere in Manhattan. It’s not something I’m looking forward to.”

“You’ll do fine. When do you get the results?”

Bennie knew the dates and places the exam was given in New York. He knew when the results were posted online. He knew what happened to young associates if they flunked the bar. He knew everything.

“Early November. Did you go to law school?”

A smile, almost a chuckle. “Oh, no. I’ve always tried to avoid lawyers. Sometimes, though, well, that’s what the job requires.”

Kyle listened carefully for the accent. It tended to come and go. He thought of the Israelis and their talent for languages, especially among the Mossad and the military.

Not for the first time, he wondered whom he would be spying for and against.

THEY MET five days later at the Ritz-Carlton in lower Manhattan. Kyle asked Bennie if he had an office in the city, or whether he did all of his work in hotel suites. There was no response. Before the meeting, Kyle had looked at four apartments, all in SoHo and Tribeca. The cheapest was $4,200 a month for an eight-hundred-square-foot walk-up, and the most expensive was $6,500 a month for a thousand square feet in a renovated warehouse. Whatever the rent, Kyle would be handling it himself because he did not want a roommate. His life would be complicated enough without the strains of living with someone else. And besides, Bennie did not like the idea of a roommate.

Bennie and company had followed Kyle and the broker around lower Manhattan and knew precisely where the apartments were located. By the time Kyle arrived at the hotel, operatives were calling the same realtor, inquiring about the apartments, and making plans to visit them. Kyle would indeed live where he chose, but the place would be infested by the time he moved in.

Bennie had some thick files on the small table in the suite. “The lawsuit was filed last Friday,” he began, “in federal court here in Manhattan. The plaintiff is a company called Trylon Aeronautics. The defendant is a company called Bartin Dynamics.”

Kyle absorbed this with no expression. His file on the case and the litigants now comprised three four-inch spiral notebooks, over two thousand pages, and was growing by the day. He was sure he didn’t know as much as his pal Bennie here, but he already knew a hell of a lot.

And Bennie knew he knew. From his comfortable office on Broad Street, Bennie and his tech guys kept close tabs on Kyle’s laptop and his desk computer in his office at the law journal. They monitored nonstop, and when Kyle opened his laptop in his apartment to send a note to a professor, Bennie knew it. When he was working and editing a case note, Bennie knew it. And when he was monitoring the court filings in New York and digging through the dirt on Trylon and Bartin, Bennie knew it.

Sit there and play dumb, son. I’ll play along, too. You’re smart as hell, but you’re too stupid to realize you’re in way over your head.

As springtime reluctantly arrived in New England, the campus came to life and shook off the lingering chill and gloom of winter. Plants bloomed, the grass showed some color, and as the days grew longer, the students found more reasons to stay outside. Frisbees flew by the hundreds. Long lunches and even picnics materialized when the sun was out. Professors became lazier; classes grew shorter.

For his last semester on campus, Kyle chose to ignore the festivities. He kept himself in his office, working feverishly to finish the details for the June edition of the Yale Law Journal. It would be his last and he wanted it to be his best. Work provided the perfect excuse to ignore virtually everyone else. Olivia finally got fed up, and they parted amicably. His friends, all of them third-year students and about to graduate, fell into two groups. The first concentrated on drinking and partying and trying to savor every last moment of life on campus before being evicted and sent into the real world. The second group was already thinking about their careers, studying for the bar exam, and looking for apartments in large cities. Kyle found it easy to avoid both.

On May 1, he sent a letter to Joey Bernardo that read:

Dear Joey: I graduate from law school on May 25. Any chance you could be here? Alan can’t do it and I’m afraid to ask Baxter. It would be great fun to hang out for a couple of days. No girlfriend, please. Correspond by regular mail at this address. No e-mails, no phones. I’ll explain later.

Best, Kyle

The letter was handwritten and mailed from the law journal office. A week later, the reply arrived:

Hey, Kyle: What’s with the snail mail? Your handwriting really sucks. But it’s probably better than mine. I’ll be there for graduation, should be fun. What the hell is so secretive that we can’t talk on the phone or use e-mail? Are you cracking up? Baxter is. He’s gone. He’ll be dead in a year if we don’t do something. Oh, well, my hand is aching and I feel like such an old fart writing with ink. Can’t wait to get your next sweet little note.

Love, Joey

Kyle’s reply was longer and filled with details. Joey’s response was just as sarcastic and filled with even more questions. Kyle threw it away as soon as he read it. They swapped letters once more, and the weekend was planned.

PATTY McAVOY could not be coaxed from her loft for her son’s graduation, not that any real effort was made. Indeed, both John McAvoy and Kyle were pleased with her decision to stay at home, because her presence at Yale would complicate things. She had skipped the diploma service at Duquesne three years earlier just as she had skipped the commencements for both of her daughters. In short, Patty didn’t do graduations, regardless of how important they might be. She had managed to attend both daughters’ weddings, but had been unable to take part in the planning of either. John simply wrote the checks, and somehow the family survived both ordeals.

Joey Bernardo arrived in New Haven Saturday afternoon, the day before the law school’s ceremonies, and, as directed by the written word carried by the U.S. Postal Service, he proceeded to a dark and cavernous pizza parlor called Santo’s, a mile from campus. At precisely 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 24, he slid into a booth in the far-right corner of Santo’s, and began to wait. He was amused and quite curious, and he was still wondering if his friend was losing his mind. One minute later, Kyle appeared from the back and sat across from him. They shook hands, then Kyle glanced at the front door, far away and to the right. The restaurant was almost empty, and Bruce Springsteen was rocking through the sound system.

“Start talking,” Joey said, now only slightly amused.