"I don't know, man. Her dealer? Orlando something. She borrowed some money from me to pay him once. I never actually met the dirtbag. He set up a lot of girls at the spa."

The actor leaned toward the driver, told him to pull over. He said, "This is your stop, Mr., ah, Cruz."

Cruz smiled and shook his head. "Drive me back to Teddy's. That's where my car's parked. Now that we're such good friends."

"Teddy's," the actor said to his driver. "I don't want to see you again," he said to Cruz.

"Only at the movies, dude."

Emilio Cruz settled back into the plush leather. The case was starting to make some sense, at least. Shelby Cushman, the girl with the golden heart and a rich husband, also had a drug dealer. Maybe she was hooking to support her habit.

Andy wasn't going to like that, and neither was Jack. Nobody liked hearing that somebody they loved was a junkie.

Chapter 59

UNCLE FRED was on his mobile, leaning against a wall in a corner of my office with his back to the door when I walked in. It had been almost a week since he, David Dix, and Evan Newman had hooked me in with a major assignment and a big bonus sweetener. So far, I felt we had barely earned the retainer.

Fred had looked worried then. Now his forehead was so rumpled he reminded me of one of those Chinese dogs. Football was not only his livelihood, it was his passion, the one thing he'd found to love in life. He'd told me as much a dozen times or more, ever since I was a kid. If the game was fixed, his world would become a sinkhole.

Fred said into the phone, "He's just walking in now. I'll get back to you."

The big guy who used to tousle my hair when I was small came toward me with a limp that betrayed his bum knees. He shook my hand with both of his, then sat down heavily in a chair.

"I thought we were supposed to meet on Friday," I said.

"I got a call last night, Jack. I didn't want to tell you about it over the phone."

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pack of smokes, put them back, said, "I'm trying to cut down. This doesn't help one bit."

Colleen came in to say good night. "I put Mr. Moreno's phone number in your briefcase. You've got a phoner with the office in Rome at seven a.m. tomorrow. About the retainer for Fiat. Need anything else, Jack?"

"Thanks, I'm fine. Good night, Molloy."

She closed the office door.

"So how are you doing with our project?" Fred asked me. "Please tell me we're somewhere."

"We're making progress. I think Del Rio is onto something interesting. It's going to take a couple of days to check it out. Tell me about the phone call."

"Barney Sapok," Fred said. "I've known him for, I don't know, fifteen years. He's never called me at home before."

Fred reached for the cigarettes again, resisted. "He said our friends in the 'gaming industry' are poking around, coming to the same conclusions we did. Something's not kosher this season.

"I should've come to you earlier, Jack. I just didn't want to believe it. Now I've got mafiosi asking questions the commissioner should have asked. But didn't. Whatever's going on, I've got to know before they do."

"I'm not going to let you down. This whole operation is at your disposal."

"I know. You're my guy. You were always the smart one."

I walked my uncle to the elevator, then stepped back as the doors closed.

I stood for a moment and watched as the numbers above the elevator counted down. I thought about the Mob looking into those iffy plays that had sent final scores skidding sideways in the last moments of the games, moments that had probably cost organized crime multimillions. Someone would have to pay for that.

But who had been clever enough to fix pro games with dozens of cameras and millions of witnesses watching any suspicious move? For the life of me, I couldn't figure how it could be done.

Chapter 60

SCI'S APARTMENT WAS on the top floor of a run-down building that had once housed a printing press, back in the days when some people in Los Angeles actually read.

The space was open, with metal columns supporting the high ceilings. Photos were being projected onto white walls in a looping slide show: the Vatican at night, the Tatshenshini River in the wilds of Alaska, the quad at Harvard, an aurora borealis, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem shot from a high floor at the King David Hotel. Some of Sci's favorite things to behold.

A twelve-foot-long tiger shark was suspended above the space by chains attached to a framing timber.

Trixie, Sci's lab monkey rescue, was perched atop her cage, greedily eating banana chips, while Sci, seated in front of his computer, chatted with his beloved Kit-Kat by webcam.

Her pretty face and large body filled the screen.

"You're very anxious tonight," she said. "This case has really upset you, hasn't it?"

"It's all about sick fantasies that have turned into real murders. Sound about right, Kat?"

"Ja. That's how these rotten killers operate. Happens all over the world."

"Only this time, there's no pattern we can see."

Sci knew that Kat was a biochemist. He also knew she was married and that she lived in Stockholm, but he didn't know Kit-Kat's actual name. They had no plans to meet, because that would ruin everything, wouldn't it?

"I called because I found something for you, Sci. It's just a whisper. I can't confirm it. Rumors of a wireless spy-bot program that originated in the US. It lets the user grab the signal of a particular cell phone and clone it. Undetected."

Sci felt his heart pumping pure liquid hallelujah. He'd often imagined such a program, and now Kat was telling him that it existed.

"Tell me everything, Kat, my sweet girl."

Trixie the monkey shrieked, threw down her snack, and ran across her rope line. She leaped to Sci's shoulder, where she squatted and chattered at Kat's image on the screen.

"Hello, beautiful Trixie… Anyway, this program seemed a little familiar, Sci. So I chased down a different program that's a few years old but with a similar signature. That program was created by a gamer called Morbid. Don't take this for more than it is, darling, please. It's an educated guess, built on a rumor. I have been searching everywhere, though."

"Kat, I can't thank you enough. This is the closest thing I have to a lead yet."

"I have to go in a few minutes," Kat said. "I have just enough time…"

Kat unbuttoned her blouse, and techno music with a complex melody and a pounding beat came over the speakers. Sci's thoughts about a spy program moved to the back of his mind as he locked Trixie in her cage and turned to Kit-Kat.

The very large, very lovely woman took a clip out of her thick blond hair and began to slip out of her clothes. "Tell me what you like tonight, my lover," she said. "Then I will do the same."