"Any idea what he meant, about the mountain coming to Muhammad, or a job done being a job done?"

"I'm not sure he knew what he meant Maybe he had just taken an order for some hard-to-get Jaguar parts. It does seem that the only thing Amos learned in prison was how to run his criminal enterprises with more technological finesse."

"Are you disappointed that he didn't change? You spent all that time visiting Jessup, trying to help these guys, and he goes right back to his old ways."

"I did it as much for myself as for them. That's the nasty little secret about charity. We do it for ourselves."

"Well, sure, if it's just some onetime thing. I read in the newspaper once that the local soup kitchens dread Thanksgiving because all these dilettantes come out of the woodwork, determined to hand out platters of sweet potatoes so they can then go home and watch football while enveloped in a saintly glow. The writer called it 'the one-day philanthropy fix.' But you're not one of those people."

"Still, my motives were largely selfish."

"How so?"

Rubin hesitated. "You've heard me speak of a shanda?"

"With Natalie's father, right. It means 'shame.' "

"It's bigger than shame in some ways. I grew up surrounded by relatives who really did evaluate everything on the basis of whether it was good for the Jews or bad for the Jews. Hank Greenberg? Good for the Jews. Michael Milken? Bad for the Jews. We were responsible not just for ourselves but for every Jew, and the bad always outweighed the good. When I… became aware of the Jewish men in Maryland's prison system, I felt I should do something. My own father…" His voice trailed off.

"Was your father in prison?"

"Oh, God, no. No. But there was gossip, ugly gossip, about his business and his money. My stepmother was very well fixed. And, truth be told, my father had a little gonif in him. That means-"

"Thief," Tess said. "I've read everything Philip Roth has ever written."

"Roth. That self-loathing monster, projecting his own problems onto an entire people."

"Read The Ghost Writer and American Pastoral, then get back to me. What about your father?"

"I told you it was my dad's idea for us to offer lifetime storage to his customers at a discounted rate. What I didn't tell you is that the original building was just an old, crummy warehouse in downtown Baltimore. No climate control, nothing. He figured that most people wouldn't know if their coats had been properly stored, and if one got damaged, he would just replace it and still be ahead financially. It was a gamble, and it paid off. But it was dishonest, taking money from people to put their furs in that nasty old building. When I came on as his partner, I insisted on the new warehouse. It was a big capital expense, but I wanted to make up for all the years my father ripped people off."

"You're not responsible for your dad."

"You're wrong about that. I'm responsible for my dad, and my family. As you pointed out this morning, everywhere I go, people see a Jew, first and foremost. So I have to live an exemplary life."

"Is there an element of shame in the fact that Natalie left you?"

He nodded, his eyes on the road. "Absolutely. If I were a good husband, she never would have gone. Clearly, I failed her in some way."

"Not necessarily."

"Necessarily. I've told you we had no problems, and that was true. But if she left me to keep me from learning something about her… well, that's my failure, too. Somehow she came to believe that she couldn't be completely honest with me, that she couldn't trust my love for her."

"Maybe Natalie isn't the person you thought she was. Maybe she's concealing something far worse than you could ever imagine."

"She's the mother of my children. What else matters? We're the adults, we can work out whatever we need to work out. But children are better off when their parents stay together."

They drove for a few more miles in silence. Tess saw an ad for a real-estate agent, one in which two giant hands shook and sealed a deal for a little piece of the American dream.

"You touched me today," she said.

"What?"

"You pushed my head down. Before you-"

"Any Jewish law can be suspended if a person's life is in danger."

"Yeah, but you shook Gloria Hess's hand, too. Didn't hesitate."

He had the good grace to blush. "In business a man has to shake hands sometimes."

"So why did you make such a show of not shaking mine the first time I offered it?"

"You offered it and withdrew it before I could do anything. In that moment… well, I didn't think it would be such a bad thing if you were a little off balance."

"You mean you thought it would be good if I felt tentative enough that I didn't ask too many hard questions. What else are you keeping from me, Mark?" Tess realized with a start it was the first time she had used his first name. He had been "Mr. Rubin" to her in conversation, "Rubin" in her head. Nothing like a little justifiable homicide to bring two people closer.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. What are you keeping from me?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

Tess wondered if Mark were lying, too.

The countryside was fading away and the suburbs, with their diffuse, fuzzy lights, came rushing toward them. Mark Rubin was not as delusional as Tess had once thought. He had sought the assistance of a private detective, insisting there were no overt problems in his marriage, convinced that some secret had cost him the life he knew. Almost everything Tess had learned so far supported this original theory. Natalie did have a secret. And her father, used to getting a cut of whatever Natalie made, had tried to blackmail her. Mark Rubin had been stalwart enough not to peek under the lid of that Pandora's box. For a decade, that had granted Natalie a reprieve from her scheming father. But now Boris had a new buyer for his information. If Natalie cared for Mark, would she rationalize that leaving him was the only way to save him?

Then where did the mystery man fit in? And was a desire to protect his criminal enterprises the only reason that Amos Greif had produced that shotgun, clearly ready to kill them both? The mountain had come to Muhammad. Mark was the mountain. Greif had been expecting to see him, only not today, not on his property.

"Lana's the key," Tess said, thinking out loud. "I'm going to follow her tomorrow, see where she leads us."

"Can I come along?"

"You have a business to run. Besides, that's not very professional. You hired me to do this stuff. I don't need anyone riding shotgun." Mark grimaced. "Sorry, poor choice of words. You know, you should… see someone."

"I should start dating while I'm still looking for my wife?"

"No, I mean… what you did today. It will stay with you in ways you might not expect. Even when there's no choice, when it's you or him, it leaves a mark."

"So you think I should go to counseling?"

"Yes."

"Is that what you did?"

"More or less." Tess had already been in counseling, for unrelated reasons, but she'd been smart enough to realize she needed the therapist's help.

"Well, if you had a God, maybe you could have talked to him and prayed to him. And saved yourself a little money in the process."

"God is great, and God is good," Tess intoned. "But he can't get you prescription drugs."

It was after ten when Tess arrived home, and the dogs were almost hysterical, although she had arranged for a neighbor boy to walk and feed them when she realized she wouldn't be back until late. They were probably scared she had simply left, never to be seen again.

After all, Crow had.

He had been gone less than a month, but even a day was an eternity to Esskay and Miata. Or perhaps they had sussed out, from the tenor of the conversations in the house in the days before he left, that Crow didn't plan on coming back.