Elaine closed her eyes and began shaking as if chills swept her body.

“Why does she need a lawyer?” Joey asked Ms. Chiz.

“She’s suffered greatly.”

“I don’t know how much she’s suffered, Ms. Chiz, but I do know that she suffered very little during her days at Duquesne. She was too busy partying to spend time suffering. Lots of booze, drugs, and sex, and there are lots of boys and girls perfectly capable of refreshing her memory. You’d better get to know your client before you pursue some bogus legal action. There’s a lot of bad stuff back there.”

“Shut up!” Elaine snarled.

“You want to apologize to her?” the lawyer said.

“Yes. Elaine, I apologize for the misunderstanding, whatever the hell it was. And I think you should apologize for accusing us of something that did not happen. And right now, I want to apologize for even being here.” Joey sprang to his feet. “This was not a good idea. So long.”

He walked quickly out of the deli, strolled to his car, and left Scranton. Driving back to Pittsburgh, when he wasn’t cursing Kyle McAvoy, he was hearing her voice again and again. “You raped me, Joey.” Her words were painful and free of doubt. She may not have known precisely what happened in their apartment five-and-a-half years earlier, but she certainly knew now.

He hadn’t raped anyone. What began as consensual sex, at her suggestion nonetheless, had now been transformed into something far different, at least in her mind.

If a girl consents to sex, can she change her mind once things are underway? Or if she consents to sex, then blacks out halfway through the act, how can she later claim she’d changed her mind? Difficult questions, and Joey wrestled with them as he drove.

“You raped me, Joey.”

The mere accusation carried a heavy dose of suspicion, and for the first time Joey questioned himself. Had he and Baxter taken advantage of her?

FOUR DAYS LATER, Kyle stopped by the mail room at Scully & Pershing and picked up a letter from Joey. It was a detailed summary of the encounter, complete with their choice of sandwiches and a description of Elaine’s hair color and matching tattoos. After setting out the facts, Joey offered his opinions:

EK has definitely convinced herself that she was raped by several of us, JB and BT for sure and “maybe” KM. She is weak, fragile, emotionally unstable, haunted, but at the same time carries a certain smugness in her victimhood. She has chosen the right attorney, a tough broad who believes in her and would not hesitate to start legal trouble if she could find any evidence. Her finger is on the trigger. If that little video is half as damaging as you say it is, then by all human means keep it locked away from these people. Elaine and her lawyer are two cobras, pissed and coiled and ready to strike.

He finished with: “I’m not sure what my next little project might be, but I’d rather not go near Elaine again. I don’t like being called a rapist. The entire episode was unnerving, plus I had to lie to Blair to get out of town. I have two tickets to the Steelers-Giants game on October 26. Shall I call you with this news so your goons will know about it? I really think we should go to the game and hash out our next moves. Your faithful servant, Joey.”

Kyle read the letter and summary in the main library while hiding between shelves of ancient law books. It confirmed his worst fears, but he had little time to dwell on it. He quietly tore the sheets of paper into a hundred pieces, then dropped them in a wastebasket as he left the library. Immediately destroy all written correspondence, he’d instructed Joey.

The hotel nearest his apartment was the Chelsea Garden, a fifteen-minute walk. At eleven that night, Kyle dragged himself along Seventh Avenue, looking for the hotel. Had he not been so exhausted, he might have enjoyed the cool autumn night with leaves sweeping across the sidewalk and half the city still awake and going somewhere. But Kyle was numb with fatigue and capable of only one thought at a time, and that was often too much.

Bennie was in a suite on the third floor, where he’d been waiting for two hours because his “asset” couldn’t get away from the office.

But Bennie didn’t mind. His asset belonged at the office, and the more time he spent there, the quicker Bennie could get on with his work.

Regardless, though, Bennie opened up with a nasty “You’re two hours late.”

“Sue me.” Kyle stretched out on the bed. This was their fourth meeting in New York since Kyle had moved there, and he had yet to hand over anything that Bennie wasn’t supposed to have. His ethics were still intact. No laws had been broken.

So why did he feel like such a traitor?

Bennie was tapping a large white poster board mounted on an easel. “If I could have your attention, please,” he said. “This won’t take long. I have some coffee if you’d like.”

Kyle wasn’t about to concede an inch. He jumped to his feet, poured coffee in a paper cup, and sat on the edge of the bed. “Go.”

“This is the Trylon team as it is now assembled. At the top here is Wilson Rush, and below him are eight litigation partners — Mason, Bradley, Weems, Cochran, Green, Abbott, Etheridge, and Wittenberg. How many have you met?”

Kyle studied the eight squares with the names scrawled inside them, and thought for a second. “Wilson Rush spoke to us during orientation, but I haven’t seen him since. I did a memo for Abbott on a securities case, met him briefly, and I had lunch one day in the cafeteria with Wittenberg. I’ve seen Bradley, Weems, maybe Etheridge, but I can’t say I’ve met them. It’s a big firm.” Kyle was still amazed at the unknown faces he encountered every day in the halls and elevators, the cafeteria and libraries and coffee rooms. He tried to socialize and at least say hello, but the clock was always ticking and billing was much more important.

His supervising partner was Doug Peckham, and he was relieved Peckham’s name was not on the board.

There were a bunch of smaller squares under the partners. Bennie tapped an index finger near them. “There are sixteen senior associates, and under them another sixteen younger ones. The names are in that binder over there. You need to memorize them.”

“Sure, Bennie.” Kyle glanced at the binder, this one a two-inch blue one. The last three were black and thicker. Then he studied the names on the board.

“How many of these associates have you worked with?”

“Five, six, maybe seven,” he said with no effort at being accurate. How would Bennie know whom he’d worked with? And how Bennie knew the names of all forty-one lawyers assigned to the Trylon case was a question Kyle didn’t even want to consider. A few of the names would appear in the court file, but only the big boys. How many sources did he have?

He pointed to a smaller box. “This is a senior associate named Sherry Abney. You met her?”

“No.”

“A rising star, fast track to partnership. Two degrees from Harvard and a federal clerkship. She reports to Partner Mason, who’s in charge of discovery. Under her is a second-year associate by the name of Jack McDougle. McDougle has a cocaine problem. No one at the firm knows it, but he’s about to get busted, so everybody will know it. His departure will be quick.”

Kyle stared at the box with McDougle’s name and thought of so many questions he didn’t know where to start. How did Bennie know this?

“And you want me to take his place?”

“I want you to schmooze it up with Sherry Abney. Check her out, get to know her. She’s thirty years old, single but committed to an investment banker at Chase who works as many hours as she does, so they have no time for any fun. No wedding date, as of now, at least nothing that has been announced. She likes to play squash, when she can find the time, and as you know, the firm has two courts on the fortieth floor beside the gym. You play squash?”