"Hello, Mr. Gavallan," replied a smoky Southern voice. "I'm sorry to disturb your vacation. Or is it a working holiday like our other famous Texan is so fond of taking?"

"Neither, actually," replied Gavallan flatly. "I came here to speak with Ray Luca. When I learned he was the Private Eye-PO, I wanted to talk to him face-to-face and ask him why he was so intent on discrediting one of our upcoming IPOs."

"That would be Mercury Broadband, would it not?"

"That's correct." Gavallan added, "I take it you're acquainted with Mr. Kirov."

"Not as well as I'd like to be. Perhaps you could introduce us someday."

"I would enjoy meeting you, though, Mr. Gavallan. A little sit-down, just the two of us. How 'bout in an hour's time at your hotel? You're staying at the Ritz-Carlton, I believe. I'm sure you're not too far away."

About a hundred yards if you really want to know, answered Gavallan silently.

Cate had turned the Explorer down a narrow lane leading to the hotel. A pink pastel palace beckoned at the end of a manicured drive. Emerald lawns as smooth as velvet rolled from either side of the road. An imposing portico welcomed guests. Two police cars were parked beneath it, their front doors open. A few uniformed officers mingled with some stiff types whose short haircuts and inviolate posture identified them as members of the law enforcement community.

"Keep driving," Gavallan said coolly, one hand covering the phone. "We're a couple of tourists having a look around. Whatever you do, don't stop. And if they come after us, floor it."

"You're scaring me. What did Dodson say?"

"Just keep driving."

Gavallan froze in his seat, eyes to the fore, phone at his ear. But Cate handled herself as if born to a life of crime. Passing the quartet of police officers, she waved a hand and offered a cool smile, circling the portico at the same steady speed. The officers looked from Cate to Jett to Cate again, somber in their khaki rayon uniforms and Smokey the Bear hats. Tourists didn't rate a second glance, and in a moment the four were talking amongst themselves. There was a fifth man nearby, standing at once among and apart from the police officers. He was a tall, professorial man with neat brown hair and a pair of half-moon bifocals. He was wearing Clarence Darrow's seersucker suit and suede bucks, and he held a phone to his ear.

Howell Dodson. Had to be.

A moment later, Cate and Gavallan were through. Gavallan didn't dare look behind him for fear of what he might see. "We clear?" he asked.

Cate's eyes jumped to the rearview mirror and back, and he could see now that her smile was superglued to her teeth and that she was frightened. "We're clear," she said.

"Mr. Gavallan, you still with me?" Dodson was saying.

"I'll take a rain check, if you don't mind," said Gavallan. "For now, why don't you just call off the hounds. Sending your storm troopers into my offices really is a little much."

"I'd say it made the appropriate point. Come now, Mr. Gavallan, let's sit down like a couple of good ole boys and have ourselves a little chat. I'm sure that in no time, we'll have everything all cleared up."

Gavallan chewed on the idea. Dodson was a charming son of a bitch who sounded like he'd be at home as Robert E. Lee's aide-de-camp. The question remained, however, as to whether he would listen to good sense. Gavallan rejected the idea as too risky. Once inside a cell, there would be no way out until Monday morning. Grafton Byrnes could not wait that long.

"Let's just say I know more than I can divulge at the moment," he said. "We can call it a gentlemen's agreement. I'll tell you just as soon as I'm able. Tuesday latest."

Dodson's voice tightened. "You can do better than that. I've got ten bodies that deserve an answer, Mr. Gavallan. Now. Not Tuesday."

Cate patted Gavallan's arm. "Jett!"

"Just a second," Gavallan whispered. Then, "I'm sorry, Mr. Dodson, but that's the best I can do."

"I am trying to be civilized about this. Make no mistake, I have a nasty side. If you choose not to cooperate, I'll slap a warrant on your behind faster than you can say Strom Thurmond and we can conduct our powwow from a federal detention facility instead of a beautiful hotel."

"Believe me, I am sorry. If there were any way I could share with you what I know, I would, sir. For now, I can only say I had nothing to do with Ray Luca's murder. I saw what happened on the news and I'm as shocked by the events as you."

"Two hours, Gavallan. That's what you got to come into our Miami offices. Then we come looking for you. And I mean all of us. The United States government."

"Don't waste your time, Howell. We both know you're looking in the wrong direction. Turn ninety degrees until you're facing due east. Right out over the ocean. That's where you want to go. Catch my drift?"

"Jett!" This time Gavallan could not ignore Cate's plea. "What?" he asked, peeved.

Cate gave her head a slight nudge, behind them. Gavallan eyes fell to the side-view mirror, where a white and blue Palm Beach police cruiser had taken up position on his tail. Behind the car, he could make out a lanky figure beneath the portico charging up the stairs into the hotel.

"Just drive," he said, ending the call.

34

Five minutes later, the police car was still riding their tail.

They were doing the tourist trail, thirty miles an hour along Ocean Boulevard, past Mar-a-Lago, the old Meriwether Post estate Donald Trump purchased in 1990 and renovated to its jazz age glory, past Bethesda-by-the-Sea, the Kennedys' chapel of choice during long-ago winter visits, past the Flagler estate, Worth Avenue, and Green's Pharmacy and Luncheonette. A few billowy clouds hovered low over the ocean- "puffy white fuckers," they'd called them when he was flying.

"Jett, what do I do?" Cate's voice was pitched high, her features frozen in a brittle mask.

"Just keep going," Gavallan advised. "If he hasn't pulled us over yet, he isn't going to."

"I'm not very good at this."

"At what?"

"Running."

"We're not running. Once you see a siren and I tell you to floor it, then we'll be running."

"The police only want to talk with you," she said. "We'll give them the evidence we've gathered about Mercury and tell them the truth."

"I can't do that."

"But you're innocent."

Gavallan gave a quick, bitter laugh. "You know that and I know that. But right now, Howell Dodson isn't looking for the truth. He's looking for a suspect… any suspect." He turned in his seat, wanting to engage her fully. "By eight o'clock tonight, pictures of Cornerstone and the horror of what happened there will be burned into the memories of every man, woman, and child in this country. This is the biggest case the FBI has going. They're not looking for the murderer, they're looking for meat. They need to utter the magic words, 'Suspect in custody.' "

"Dodson said he just wanted to talk," Cate persisted. "You can help them."

"Are you listening to me?" Gavallan retorted. "Haven't you heard a single word that's been said? Dodson threatened to put out an arrest warrant on me. Frankly, I can't say I blame him. You don't need to be Perry Mason to see that I've got 'prime suspect' written all over me." He counted on his fingers. "One: Seventy million dollars in fees that hinge on the successful completion of the Mercury IPO. Absent that, the fifty-million-dollar bridge loan we'll lose if the deal goes south. That's a hundred-twenty-million-dollar swing. Two: Back there in Ray Luca's house, I put my hands all over a snazzy Glock nine-millimeter that for all I know was the murder weapon. And three: I'm here, aren't I? You don't need any more than that for a conviction."

Cutting his gaze to the side-view mirror, he noted that the police car had edged closer, sniffing at their rear like a horny dog. A brown Chrysler hung behind it, and Gavallan wondered for a moment whether he had two cops on his tail. He looked at Cate. She was sitting too straight in her seat. The color had left her cheeks and a sheen of sweat clung to her forehead.