I nodded.

"Wasn't he the one you found because he'd been in jail?"

"Yeah. Real-estate scam," I said.

"Do you know who he scammed?" Susan said.

"You mean specifically?"

"Yes."

I shook my head.

"Maybe you should find out," Susan said. "I wouldn't be amazed to find that they were women, too."

"You think there's some sort of misogyny at work?" I said.

"Maybe he just finds them easier targets," Susan said. "But maybe he likes to fuck them."

"You mean that literally," I said.

"I do," she said, "but also colloquially, in the sense of fuck them up."

"It's a pattern," I said.

"It would be interesting to find it was an even wider pattern," Susan said.

"So what would I know, if I knew that?" I said.

My martini arrived. I took a sip.

"I do the strategic thinking," Susan said. "Up to you to implement it."

"My God," I said. "You did go to Harvard."

She smiled at me and raised her glass. I touched it with mine.

"At the moment, the assumption is that Lionel is doing this for money," Susan said. "If you found reason to think he might be doing this out of misogynistic pathology, or for both reasons, you'd know something you don't know now."

I nodded. We sat for a minute, enjoying us.

"Well," I said. "Better to know than not know."

"Much," Susan said.

38

I was downtown on the second floor of the Moynihan Federal Courthouse, in the Open Records department with Corsetti. In front of me was an enormous case file in a big cardboard box.

"Don't look at me," Corsetti said. "I got you in here. Wading through that slop is up to you."

"You're just going to sit there?"

"Yeah."

"And do nothing?"

"I might put my feet up," Corsetti said, "and kind of squinch my eyes half shut and rest and look to see if any good-looking broads come through here."

"Nothing has happened so far," I said, "to make me think they will."

Corsetti grinned at me and tilted his chair back and put his feet up and appeared to close his eyes.

"Let's see," he said.

I began to lumber through the file. After ten minutes, I felt that I might be facing extinction. If the dinosaurs had not been exterminated by a meteor, a few hours reading the language of the law would have done it. Corsetti was motionless but alert except for some periods when he snored. By late afternoon I had extracted six names and addresses from the quicksand of documents. All of the names were female. All of them were in the tristate area.

I tapped Corsetti's foot. He opened his eyes.

"See any good-looking women?" I said.

"None," Corsetti said.

"Maybe on the ride uptown," I said.

"East Side or West Side?" Corsetti said.

" Sutton Place," I said.

"There'll be some for sure," Corsetti said.

"You ever actually do any work for the NYPD?" I said to Corsetti as he drove us up the FDR.

"Keeping an eye on you," Corsetti said, "is a real example of protection and service."

"And you might get to bust somebody down here, one of these days."

"Would that be a thrill," Corsetti said, "or what?"

"There's at least one homicide involved," I said.

"In Boston."

"But it may have connections down here," I said.

"Long as you keep buying me lunch," Corsetti said.

"In the service of justice," I said, "mind if I use your name?"

"Hell no," Corsetti said.

I took out my cell phone and dialed a number.

"Mrs. Carter?" I said. "This is detective Eugene Corsetti, New York police."

"Yes?"

"I'm still tying up some loose ends on that real-estate case you were involved in."

"I thought that was all over and the bastard went to jail."

"I'll explain when I get there," I said. "Just routine follow-up. Nothing for you to worry about. Just wanted to know that you'd be there."

"I'm here," she said. "It's nothing bad, is it?"

"No, no," I said. "My partner and I will see you soon."

"My partner," Corsetti said. "Nice. So when we go there she'll think you're a cop, too."

"You can tell her the truth," I said.

"I try not to," Corsetti said. "If I don't have to."

Corsetti pulled up and parked on 52nd Street in front of an apartment near the river. He put the cop light on top of the cruiser.

"Keep the fucking traffic buzzards from hauling it off to the tow lot," he said. "Who we going to see?"

"Woman named Norah Carter," I said. "One of the people defrauded by Farnsworth."

"I guess he didn't get it all," Corsetti said as we waited for the elevator in Norah Carter's building. "Living around here costs more than you and I could scrape up together."

The elevator door opened. We stepped in. I punched 6. The door closed.

"How do you know I'm not rich?" I said.

"I've seen how you dress," Corsetti said.

39

Norah Carter was maybe fifty-two, a little overweight but pulled together okay, and pretty, given an age and weight discount. Corsetti showed her his badge. She let us in, and we sat in her living room.

"My," she said. "Two formidable-looking men right here in my living room."

She offered coffee. We declined. She checked Corsetti's left hand and mine. Corsetti wore a wedding ring. Her interest shifted subtly to me.

"You were one of the people that Lionel Farnsworth swindled," I said.

She blushed a little and looked down at her lap.

"Oh, that," she said. "That thing about condos."

"Can you tell us about that?" I said.

"Oh," she said. "My. Well…" She raised her eyes. "I guess I have no sense about men. Larry-I knew him as Larry Farley-seemed so nice."

"How'd you meet him?" I said.

She went back to looking down. "It's embarrassing," she said. "He picked me up in a bar."

"In the neighborhood?" I said.

"Yes. A very nice bar. Very, ah, upscale. Not some kind of meat rack or anything."

"You were having a drink by yourself," I said.

"Yes, at the bar, in the late afternoon. It was always the loneliest time for me. I'd just been divorced… I don't know if either of you has been through that?"

Neither Corsetti nor I said anything. Norah Carter raised her eyes.

"Well, it's crazy time. I was desperately unhappy. Lonely. Unsure of myself as a woman."

We nodded.

"The bar, Lily's, is on Second Avenue," she said. "A nice bar where a lot of single people can gather."

"He met you there?"

"Yes. He sat beside me at the bar. He was very polite. Excellent manners, and, well, he certainly is handsome."

I nodded. Corsetti's face was entirely blank, as if he were thinking about something else, something happening in another place.

"He walked me home and didn't even ask to come in."

She giggled.

"I was in a tsimmis about whether to invite him in," she said. "I needed to know I was desirable. But I didn't want to be some sort of first-date slut."

"Of course," I said.

"He was so kind, as if he understood," Norah Carter said. "He invited me to have dinner with him the next night."

"And you didn't ask him in."

"Not that night. That was what was so nice. He let me know he'd be back anyway."

"And you had dinner," I said.

"Yes. Le Perigord, and it was lovely."

I nodded.

"And then he came home with you."

She looked down again. I think she was trying to blush, but no color was showing.

"Yes," she said.

She raised her eyes again and looked straight at me. The wedding ring had apparently made Corsetti a nonperson. If Corsetti minded, he wasn't showing it.

"And how long after that did the subject of condos in Jersey come up?" I said.

"We saw each other once or twice a week for several months. It probably was at least a month before he suggested it. He said it was going to be a bonanza. He said he liked me enough to want me to benefit from a sure thing. It would make me financially secure for life."