“Right. Fuller Brush Incorporated.”

She laughed. “No… FBI. Like Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Kate appeared, carrying two containers of coffee, and asked me, “You having a good time here?”

“I’m renting a car.”

“I could hear you laughing from the restaurant. What’s the joke?”

“What’s the point?”

Max laughed. Kate did not. I said, “It’s a long story.”

“Shorten it.”

“Okay, there’s this place… a hotel or something-”

“A resort,” said Max helpfully.

“Right. A resort called The Point. So, Max-that’s this young lady-no, first I asked, ‘Is there a good place to stay?’ so she says, ‘What’s the point-?’”

“No,” interrupted Max, “I said, ‘The Point,’ and you said, ‘What’s The Point?’ and I said-”

“All right,” Kate interrupted, “I get it.” She put my coffee on the counter. “At what point are we now?”

I replied, professionally, “I was just about to identify myself as a Federal agent.”

Kate beat me to it and showed her credentials. She said to Max, “I need photocopies of all car-rental contracts from Thursday to now, including vehicles that have been returned. See if you can do that in ten minutes. We’ll be in the restaurant.” Kate went to the next counter, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and spoke to the young man there.

I said to Max, “That’s my wife.”

“Gee, I never would’ve guessed.”

I took the coffee and went into the restaurant, which was actually just a small café. The walls and ceilings were painted a horrid sky blue, complete with white clouds unlike any I’ve ever seen on this planet. Plastic models of biplanes hung from the ceiling, and photos of various aircraft added to the motif. There was a four-stool lunch counter, which was empty, and a dozen empty tables from which I could choose. I sat at a table near a picture window where I could see the runway.

An attractive waitress came over with a menu and asked, “And how are you this afternoon?”

“Great. I’m happily married. Can I have another menu? My wife will be here in a few minutes.”

“Sure…” She put the menu down and moved off to get another one.

My cell phone rang, and the caller ID said “Private,” which 90 percent of the time is the office, so I let it go into voice mail.

Kate came into the café and said, “My cell phone just rang.”

“Probably Bergdorf’s looking for you.”

She sat down and listened to her voice mail. “Tom Walsh-wants me to call.”

“Wait a few minutes.”

“All right.” She took the sheaf of CommutAir printouts from her briefcase and laid them on the table. I took half and started flipping through them while dialing my cell phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“The Point.”

A man named Charles answered, and I said, “I’d like to make a reservation for this evening.”

“Yes, sir. We have some availability.”

“Do you also have rooms?”

“Yes, sir. We have the Mohawk Room in the Main Lodge, the Lookout in the Eagle’s Nest, the Weatherwatch in the Guest House-”

“Slow down, Charles. What can I get for a thousand bucks?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Not even a cot in the kitchen?”

He quoted me some rates on the available rooms, and I got scalped by the Mohawk for twelve hundred bucks, which was the cheapest room available. I asked him, “Does this place have heat and electricity?”

“Yes, sir. How many nights will you be staying with us?”

“I’m not sure, Charles. Let’s start with two.”

“Yes, sir.” He added, “If you’re with us on Wednesday evening, black tie is requested for dinner.”

“Are you telling me I need a tuxedo to eat dinner in the woods?”

“Yes, sir.” He explained, “William Avery Rockefeller, who owned this property, would dine with his guests each evening in black tie. We try to re-create the experience on Wednesday and Saturday evenings.”

“I might need to miss that experience. Can I get room service in my underwear?”

“Yes, sir. How would you like to secure the reservation?”

I gave him my name and government credit card, we ironed out a few other details, and I asked him, “You have any bears there?”

“Yes, sir. We have a bar in the-”

“Bears, Charles, bears. You know. Ursus terribilis.”

“Uh… we… there are bears in the area, but-”

“Feed the bears tonight, Charles. See you later.” I hung up.

Kate said, “Did I hear you correctly?”

“Yeah, fucking bears.”

“The room rate.”

“Yeah, we’re in the Mohawk Room. The Weatherwatch at two thousand dollars a night seemed a little extravagant.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Why do you ask? Hey, after two nights in that B and B hovel you booked, we deserve a nice place.”

“I think we get an allowance of a hundred dollars per diem in the Albany area.” She reminded me, “We… you have to make up the difference.”

“We’ll see.”

Kate’s beeper went off, and she looked at it. “Tom.”

“Give it a few more minutes.”

“Maybe they’ve found Harry.”

“That would be nice.” I flipped through the printouts, trying to see if anything stuck out.

Kate, too, went through the printouts and said, “Here is the eleven A.M. CommutAir from Boston on Saturday… wow.”

“Wow, what?”

“Edward Wolffer. You know who he is?”

“Yeah, he played center field for the-”

“He’s the deputy secretary of defense. Very hawkish guy, pushing for the war in Iraq. Very close to the president. He’s on TV a lot.”

“That’s probably the guy who someone here recognized.”

“Yes, and here’s another one on the same flight-Paul Dunn. He’s a presidential adviser-”

“On matters of national security, and a member of the National Security Council.”

“Right. How did you know that?”

“It’s always a Jeopardy question.”

“Why do you like to play stupid?”

“It’s a good cover for when I really am stupid.” I said, “So, Wolffer and Dunn arrived Saturday, plus two other guys, according to Betty, and they all got into the van to the Custer Hill Club.”

Kate looked again at the passenger manifest for the 11:00 A.M. Saturday flight from Boston and said, “There were nine other men on that flight, but none of these other names ring a bell, so we don’t know who these other two guys were who got into the van.”

“Right.” I continued flipping through the passenger lists. “Wolffer and Dunn left on the first Boston flight yesterday, connecting to Washington.”

She nodded thoughtfully, then asked me, “Does this mean anything?”

“Well, on the surface, it doesn’t mean much. A lot of rich and powerful guys got together on a three-day weekend at a mountain lodge owned by an oil billionaire. It’s like one of those Renaissance weekends, or a gathering of the Carlyle Group, where some people, and the media, speculate that all kinds of devious things are going on-oil-price rigging, financial and political deals, conspiracies to take over the planet, and that kind of thing. But sometimes, it’s just a bunch of rich guys getting together to relax, play cards, talk about women, and tell dirty jokes.”

Kate thought about that. “Sometimes it is,” she said. “But someone in the Justice Department ordered a surveillance of this gathering.”

“That’s the point.”

She went on, “And it’s not every day that the Justice Department wants to keep an eye on the deputy secretary of defense, a presidential adviser, and who knows who else in this club.”

I commented, “This is getting good.” I scanned the passenger manifests. “We need to do a background check of everyone who arrived here by commercial aircraft in the last few days, and see what, if any, connection they have to one another-then try to find out what Harry was supposed to find out on his surveillance: who went from here to the Custer Hill Club.”

Kate replied, “I don’t think that’s our job. Tom didn’t mention that.”

“It’s good to show initiative. Tom appreciates that, and by the way, fuck Tom.”