She offered him a cracker. He shook his head. She ate it then sipped the soft drink.

"There's a lot of research going on now in this area; most of it's trying to isolate substances-some are like hormones and some are structural proteins…"

He smiled to himself as he felt himself sinking into the brilliant quagmire of her brain.

"… that affect how the neurons reach and talk to their receptor cells-"

Donnie nodded and appeared, he believed, to be interested.

"… something called FNS."

"Feminine…?" He wanted to make a joke, but his mind went blank.

"Functional neuromuscular stimulation." Her eyes sparkled as they always did when she spoke about science and she explained about some contraption that you hooked up to your leg muscles to send in jolts of electricity to stimulate them in a certain order. Eventually, using this device, you could propel yourself in a jerky fashion by using canes or a walker.

She kept talking but Donnie Buffett stopped listening. He was deciding that whatever FNS was exactly he'd never get hooked up to anything like that. Buffett knew he could sit in a wheelchair for the rest of his Ufe and maybe cry sometimes and maybe scream and he could see himself pitching a lamp through the TV set after watching Jeopardy! or Wheel of Fortune one too many times. And he could picture himself wheeling out of the house and getting a job. Learning to do wheelies, learning to go over curbs by himself, developing huge, ball-buster arms and a fifty-inch chest. But no machines. Just like, if he were blind, he would use a cane but never rely on a dog. He couldn't explain what this distinction was exactly but to him it was real and it was the difference between his heart being alive and being cold dead.

He noticed that Weiser had stopped talking and it seemed as if she had asked him a question. He didn't feel like asking her to repeat it. He said, "Would you go out with me?" He added, "I mean, have dinner."

When she declined, as he had somehow known she would, it wasn't with a shocked or, what would have been worse, maternal smile. She looked at him with the intrigued gaze of a married woman at a party, propositioned discreetly by a man she finds attractive.

A pleasant regret, not an astonished surprise.

She added, "We should stay friends, you know."

And when she said that, the Terror nudged Donnie Buffett once, hard, bringing sweat to his forehead, but then it curled up somewhere inside him and, for the time being, fell into a deep, deep sleep.

TWENTY-FIVE

"There's a man to see you, sir. He says his name is Pellam."

"Pellam? Do I know him?" Philip Lombro said, running a chamois over his Bally shoes.

"He knows you, sir."

"I'm busy. Take his card."

Lombro sat back in his leather chair and stared at the floor. Dense clouds passing by outside would cast diffuse shadows on the green carpeting then a moment later the harsh sunlight would return.

The intercom clicked. again and startled him. The electric voice said, "He says it has to do with the late Mr. Bales."

Lombro cleared his throat. "Send him in."

Pellam walked into the office. He looked around at the somber burgundy and navy books-business books, lawyer books. The desk. The pattern of cloud shadows on the verdant carpet. The view out the window, the smooth deco designs on the old brick building across the street.

Pellam sat down, uninvited, in the chair directly opposite Lombro's. "Your hit man is dead."

Lombro swallowed and folded the square of chamois carefully. Yes. It was him. The one with the case of beer, the man who'd seen him. "You're the witness."

"The witness." Pellam said the word slowly, tasting it, letting the sibilant draw out over his teeth.

"Mr. James?"

"No, it's Pellam."

Lombro shook his head at this, confused. Then he said cautiously, "You cheated me."

Pellam frowned. "I'm sorry?"

"You took my money and you still went to the U.S. Attorney. I heard the news conference."

"What money?"

"The fifty thousand? The money Ralph gave you…"

The voice faded and Pellam obvioulsy came to the conclusion that was setting prominently into Lombro's mind. They shared rueful smiles.

Lombro said, "I see."

"The quality of your hired help leaves a little bit to be desired."

"So it seems. He's dead, you say?"

"An accident."

"I see. Are you here to loll me?" This he asked in a matter-of-fact voice.

"No," Pellam said.

"I swear I forbade Ralph to hurt you. All he was going to do was pay you to-"

"But, he came to the Federal Building yesterday with a gun. You knew that."

Lombro's mouth closed and he touched some strands of silver hair at his temple.

"I want to know why you had Gaudia killed."

"Are you a policeman?"

"No."

"But you have a microphone on you."

Pellam took off his jacket and turned out the pockets of his shirt and jeans. Lombro, eyes fixed on the grip of the Colt in

Pellam's waistband, took the bomber jacket and felt through the pockets.

"I just want to know," Pellam said sincerely.

Lombro crossed his legs and gripped his ankle with his right hand, rubbing his fingers along it. He did not sort through his thoughts. This was a story he had planned to tell for some time. Perhaps to his prosecutor. "I love my nieces like daughters.

I've never been married. Never had children. Have you?"

Pellam didn't answer.

"One niece of mine was eighteen. She was a sweet, sweet girl. But she was somewhat heavy, unsure of herself. She was going to school and working part-time as a waitress in a restaurant that Vincent Gaudia would sometimes eat in. Gaudia was a generous man with money. He would give her twenty-dollar tips. Then it was a fifty-dollar tip. And after that it was the promise of a hundred-dollar tip. I suppose you can guess what happened.

"They spent a few nights together, and then Gaudia simply forgot that she existed. But the poor child believed she'd fallen in love with him. I tried to convince her otherwise but she was inconsolable. He refused to take her calls and answer her letters. Finally she went to his home. It was late at night, after she got off work at the restaurant. She left his house at two in the morning, and on the way home, drove through red light. Her car was hit by a truck and she was lolled. She had been drinking and had had sex just an hour before. The evidence indicated the sex was of a sort I choose not to describe."

"One of the two thousand," Pellam mused.

"I'm sorry?"

"I've heard Gaudia had his share of women. She was a conquest."

"Just so."

"The police said the accident was her fault but, of course, it wasn't. It was Vincent Gaudia's. He seduced my niece. It's as if he murdered her. This is what Gaudia did to my family and when my brother refused to do anything about his daughter's death, I decided to."

"Old World revenge."

"If you will."

"You knew that Bales or his partner killed the woman who was with Gaudia too. They shot that cop. And a friend of mine."

Lombro shook his head. There was alarm and sorrow in his face. "This has all gone so wrong. So wrong! I should have done the manly thing. I should have lolled him myself and taken the consequences. I'm not a coward. I just didn't understand how these things worked. Have you called the police?"

"Not yet, no," Pellam said. He looked around the office, at the paneling, the prints on the walls. He asked, "What're you worth?"

"Pardon?"

"Money, you know. How much do you have?"

"I don't really know."

"A million?" Pellam suggested.

Lombro smiled. "More than that. Why are you asking?"

Pellam said, "What does that mean? 'More than that.'"