But yesterday the picture had changed for him. He'd searched the greenhouse at the Sales home, looking for a safe or a false floor in which Sales could be hiding gems or cash. He'd found only magical orchids-gorgeous, but probably not worth more than a hundred dollars each. During his three-hour talk with Cassie Sales over the coffee and the biscuits she'd made, then over fruit and a tiny glass of very good sherry, she'd filled him in on the wine distribution business as she understood it, and he'd explained gift tax.

Maybe he'd been smitten over the coffee and homemade baked goods, maybe it was the sherry and grapes. But he believed her story about the girlfriend. If Cassie had only just learned about the girlfriend, as she claimed, it didn't seem likely that she was the informant. In any case, he hadn't had the heart to question her about the wine cellar in the basement or the offshore accounts. It seemed pretty clear that whatever he did, this beautiful, classy, and very nice lady stood to lose a great deal from his uncovering her husband's business dealings. So he'd done something unusual, he'd backed off.

Charlie was in a deep brooding state when he stepped out of the district office building in Brooklyn after finishing up his work for the morning. Coming outside he was momentarily blinded by the dazzling mid-June sunlight. Then, just as earlier in the week in similar circumstances, he saw Mona Whitman leaning against her car. It was seventy-eight degrees warm. The sky was robin's egg blue, and there were no clouds floating around up there where heaven was supposed to be. Mona was wearing sunglasses, tight pants, high heels, and a little sweater that didn't hide her magnificent chest.

"Charles Schwab. Hi." She waved and called out to him. "I think I found something that might help you."

"No kidding." He walked over to see what it was.

"Wow, you look different on the weekend," she said admiringly.

He was dressed in the cut-offs and white T-shirt he always wore for tennis. None of that fancy stuff for him. The T-shirt he was wearing had a few holes in the ribbing around the neckline. Mona pointed at the bulging Bloomingdale's shopping bag sitting on the car beside her.

"What's in the bag, money?" Charlie joked.

"I wish. How are you?" She said this as if they were best friends who'd been apart for too long.

"Okay. How's Mr. Sales doing?"

"Oh, he's coming along just fine." Mona glanced down at her feet. "Have you been working on our case on a fabulous day like this?"

Charlie's smile broadened.

"What's funny?"

"Everybody thinks theirs is the only case we ever work on. I have others, you know." He was thinking, bingo the girlfriend, no wonder Cassie lost it.

"Everybody says you work too hard." Mona was flirting.

"Who'd say that?" Charlie scratched his head.

"Oh, you think you're the only one who finds out things about people." She laughed. She had a very pleasant laugh that Charlie found chilling.

She could be an informer. She could be a spy for the other side. The first person who'd ever smashed his windshield had been a woman. Charlie never forgot he had to watch himself. He glanced at his watch. By now Harvey would be on his way to Indoor Tennis. He had to go.

"Harvey, right?" Mona said coyly.

Charlie raised his eyebrows. This woman actually knew where he was on Saturday morning, where he was going. Not good.

"You'd be surprised how much I know about you." So she read minds, too. Very cute.

"I know, you've got to go." She pushed herself off the car and reached for the shopping bag, offered it over. "Here."

"What's this?" He looked inside. It was full of paper.

She waved her hand at it. "Sales records." Her giggle was like a birdsong. "Sales records for Sales's sales. I thought you might find them useful."

Great. This was the kind of thing his mother used to do. Bring him the tax stuff in a shopping bag. Of course, he'd loved his mother. He nodded at Mona, tilted his head to one side. Mona certainly wasn't anything like her. His tongue poked at the side of his cheek. He got the feeling she was like the car bomb Rau had found attached to his poor muffler last month. He didn't know who'd planted that.

"Are you always this hard work?" She shifted hips.

He clicked the tongue. Tsk, tsk, tsk. She was good.

"Well, I'll be getting along then." The door was locked. She fumbled with her car key. After a short struggle, in which he watched her shake with the huge effort of pressing the remote, she twirled around like a dancer.

"I mean, I'm all alone with this. Poor Mitch is in the hospital, and his wife wants to pull the plug on him. It's so upsetting. I never thought she'd go so far. First the terrible financial drain. Now this. The truth is, I don't know what to do." She blurted all this with a great spurt of emotion.

Charlie didn't respond. He knew a good act when he saw one.

"I thought we could talk about it over that lunch. After your tennis game, I mean," she amended quickly.

"Fine." Charlie nodded. Maybe she was asking him out for a date. Maybe she was coming on to him. Maybe she was a spy or the informer or the girlfriend or all of the above. He held on to the shopping bag filled with papers. Could be something, could be nothing. Whatever Mona had for him, though, she activated Charlie's alarm system.

"That's a yes, right?" Mona said, clapping her hands, triumphant in a win.

TWO HOURS LATER, after Harvey had beaten Charlie 6-4 in the first set and 6-2 in the second and was out of the picture, Charlie and Mona were sitting at one of the picnic tables ordering clam rolls at Steven's.

"Thank you for meeting me," Mona said, triumph still written all over her. "This is really a cute place. Do you come here with your father?"

"I'd guess this isn't the sort of place you come to," Charlie said. He was pretty sweaty even though he'd let Harvey beat him. He hadn't showered because there was no shower at Indoor. It was just a bubble. He was sure he stank, but didn't care. He was working now.

Mona laughed and held up the menu. She pointed at the page of beer choices and only two wines, house red and house white. "I'd say you're right. But I love it," she added quickly. "I just love working-class places."

"No kidding." Charlie hid his grimace. It was clear she thought he was a blue-collar worker.

"No kidding," she returned quickly. "My grandmother was a Rockefeller, but my mother was a hippie before stoned and cults were fashionable. But enough of that. Tell me about your life." She propped her elbow on the table and nestled her chin in her hand as if suddenly he'd metamorphosed into the kind of fascinating high WASP captain of industry she liked.

He talked for quite a while about absolutely nothing that could help her, watching to see if her eyes glazed over. They didn't. She gazed at him with rapture throughout his long, complicated, and excruciatingly dull monologue about the tax structure.

"How about a woman? Is there a lucky woman in your life?" she asked when he'd finished.

"Oh, sure." He was working on the clam roll.

Her little face fell. "I bet you have a girlfriend."

"Ummm." Chew, chew, chew. Swallow. Great clam roll with lots of sauce oozing out all over him.

"What's she like?"

"What about you? Are you attached?" he asked with his mouth full.

"Attached? Oh no, there's no one, just Mitch. I mean, I've really devoted my entire life to the business. I was married for a while, but it didn't work out. Soooo, I just took my name back and Mitch's family as my own. Cassie and the children are like my own flesh and blood. That's why her behavior is so… painful." She pressed her lips together to keep the tears back.

Charlie wiped his mouth with the paper napkin and pushed his plate away. So she'd devoted her life to Mitch. She was the girlfriend who was suing Cassie for a cool ten mil.