The moment he saw the investigator, Liquida knew he had the lawyer’s attention. So he followed the two women, but kept his distance. When the blonde dropped Madriani’s daughter off at home, he followed the blonde. If he killed the daughter, the FBI would throw another blanket over the lawyer and Liquida might not be able to find him again. They had done it once before. But kill her friend and there was no way to prove that Liquida was involved. After all, she was a perfect stranger. And there would be no fingerprint left behind this time. The police would start looking for jilted boyfriends or anyone who might have been stalking the blonde. But Madriani would be left to wonder. The minute his daughter told him that her friend was dead it would begin to gnaw at him.

It is true. There are things worse than physical pain and death: the certain knowledge that these are coming, not only for you, but for those you love.

THIRTEEN

It’s not quite noon. I’m in a booth at the Brigantine waiting for Harry to join me for lunch and I am about to be ambushed.

Joselyn Cole sits at one of the bar stools across the room, one shapely leg crossed over the other as we pretend not to notice each other in the largely empty restaurant.

Yesterday she went to see Herman and he slammed the door on her as I’d warned her he would. So unless Coronado is suddenly on the way back to her office in D.C., I’m assuming she’s back for one more shot at me.

The cocktail waitress cruises by to take my order.

“Gin and tonic, hold the lime,” I tell her.

Cole glances at me in the mirror over the bar, and as the waitress leaves, Joselyn swivels on her stool and steps down. This morning she looks very different. A white sweaterdress of thin-ribbed wool clings to her body like water on its way down to midthigh over skin-tight black leggings. She dangles a small purse from her arm as she nurses her drink with both hands and moves toward me with a kind of arousing feline elegance. New day-new tack.

“I thought it was you when I heard the voice,” she says.

“You come here often, do you?” I give her a big grin.

“Your secretary told me you were having lunch here,” she says. “You don’t mind?”

“I’m going to have to talk with my secretary.”

“Oh, I hope I’m not getting her in trouble,” she says. “I told her we were meeting for lunch and I forgot the location. So it really wasn’t her fault.”

“There you go, you did it again,” I say. “Did you tell her who you were this time?”

“I told her who I was the last time. It was only the stuff about the bar that I lied about. And yes, I did tell her who I was.”

“And she believed you about lunch?”

“I’m here, aren’t I? If you have a problem with me, you need to tell your secretary. After all, the woman doesn’t have a crystal ball. For all she knows we could be having a tryst.”

“I’ll make a note,” I tell her.

“I don’t like lying, really,” she says. “But you make it very difficult to tell the truth.”

“You’re talking about your attempt to ambush Herman?” I say.

“The least you could have done was give me an open field shot at the man.”

“If I’d known you could dress up and look like this, I would have gone over personally and nailed his door shut,” I tell her.

“Well, thank you, I think.” She smiles, standing there all hippy and slinky in high heels, curves in all the right places. “Besides, I can tell, you’re not really angry.”

I shoot her a glance.

“At your secretary, I mean.”

“We’re back to clairvoyance, are we?”

“Care if I sit?”

“Would it make a difference?” I ask.

She sets her drink down and slides into the booth across from me. “Tell me, is the food good here?”

“Would you like a menu?”

“No. I’ll just have what you’re having,” she says. “Do you usually eat here alone, or is someone else joining us?”

“My partner,” I tell her.

“That would be Mr. Hinds.”

“I take it you’ve met Harry?”

“Not yet, but his name is next to yours on the sign by your office door. Perhaps you could introduce me.” The way she says it, I can tell Harry is on her hit list to be questioned. If she looks like this when she does it, she can mount Harry’s head on the wall next to the sign on her way out. Harry will spill everything he knows, and guess at the rest.

She smiles at me over the tumbler as she nibbles playfully on a chip of ice, pursed glossy lips and white teeth. “You’re making this much more difficult than it has to be,” she says. “All I’m asking for is a little cooperation.”

“What the spider said to the fly,” I tell her.

The waitress brings my drink, then looks at Joselyn and asks if she’d like another.

“I don’t know, should I?” Cole looks to me for the answer.

“Depends on how long you’re going to be here,” I tell her.

She looks at the waitress and smiles. “I’m afraid he’s a hard case. Better bring one more for each of us, and keep his tab open. We may both need more medicine before the day’s done.”

The waitress laughs and looks to me. I nod.

“Thanks,” says Joselyn. “And I thought I was going to wait and get drunk on the plane tonight. You’re a bad influence.”

“You’re going somewhere?”

“Home.” The sliver of ice slips through her lips as she says it. She reaches up to trap it with rose-painted nails on long delicate fingers. “Excuse me.” She giggles as she presses the melting sliver back between her lips. “And don’t look so satisfied. I won’t be gone long, and I will be back.”

“Not on my account I hope.”

“You don’t really think I was going to let you say no and slip away just like that, do you?”

“What time’s your flight?”

“Not to worry. We have plenty of time. Six o’clock shuttle to LAX, and then the red-eye to Washington. So we can drink all after noon.”

“Must you leave so soon?”

“I have a hearing tomorrow. Testimony before a Senate committee.” Then a twinkle in her eye as she looks at me. “Of course, you could always join me. With what you could tell them we could turn it into an extravaganza. Cuba in the age of Camelot, Excalibur gone nuclear. Of course, they already know it, but they’ve pulled the national security curtain down so nobody else does. We could do a press conference on the steps of the Capitol that would set the place on fire…”

“No thanks.”

“Then I’m afraid you’re condemning them to some terribly boring stuff at tomorrow’s hearing.”

“Go as you are, and I’m sure they’ll be all ears, and eyes,” I tell her.

“Yes, but the topic,” she says. “The future threat of aging precision weapons. It sounds like the surgeon general’s warning on the side of a box of Viagra.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“Put another way,” she says, “does the lack of collateral damage really matter when a hellfire missile takes out the Oval Office?”

“Well, that should get the attention of the Secret Service,” I tell her.

“The last time I looked, they didn’t have a seat either in the House or the Senate,” she says. “Did you ever wonder if the man who invented the stick thought for a moment what would happen when somebody else got his hands on the fabulous new weapon and beat him with it?”

“You mean Igor-the-red-ass?”

She laughs and toasts me with her glass. “To Igor, whose descendants now sit in Congress,” says Joselyn.

“Do you testify often?”

“Only when I have to. Just enough to keep my hand in, and let them know we’re still around. We don’t have money to throw into the campaign flames, so unless we’re carried along on a tidal wave like 9/11 no one pays much attention. Since the war in Iraq, the press has turned WMD into a four-letter word. The topic is no longer politically chic. So until somebody ignites one over the Capitol Building nobody wants to pay attention. A dozen rogue regimes around the world are now making nuclear bombs and what’s the attitude of the West? ‘If you have to do it, fine, just shut up and do it quietly.’”