The traffic was bumper to bumper, with yellow cabs whirling dervishes in the dark. When we arrived in mid-town we passed a steady flow of people in evening dress adding to the long line outside Carnegie Hall. The bright lights and people in furs and black ties stirred old memories. Mark and I used to love the theater, the symphony, the opera.

The cab stopped at the Omni Park Central, an impressive tower of lights near the theater district at the corner of Fifty-fifth and Seventh. Mark snatched up my bag and I followed him inside the elegant lobby, where he checked me in and had my bag sent up to my room. Minutes later we were walking through the sharp night air. I was grateful I had brought my overcoat. It felt cold enough to snow. In three blocks we were at Gallagher's, the nightmare of every cow and coronary artery and the fantasy of every red meat lover. The front window was a meat locker behind glass, an enormous display of every cut of meat imaginable. Inside was a shrine to celebrities, autographed photographs covering the walls.

The din was loud and the bartender mixed our drinks very strong. I lit a cigarette and took a quick survey. Tables were arranged close together, typical for New York restaurants. Two businessmen were engrossed in conversation to our left, the table to our right empty, the one beyond that occupied by a strikingly handsome young man working on the New York Times and a beer. I took a long look at Mark, trying to read his face. He was tight around the eyes and playing with his Scotch.

"Why am I really here, Mark?" I asked.

"Maybe I just wanted to take you out to dinner," he said.

"Seriously."

"I'm serious. You aren't enjoying yourself?"

"How can I enjoy myself when I'm waiting for a bomb to drop?" I said.

He unbuttoned his suit jacket. "We'll order first, then we'll talk."

He used to do this to me all the time. He would get me going only to make me wait. Maybe it was the lawyer in him. It used to drive me crazy. It still did.

"The prime rib comes highly recommended," he said as we looked over the menus. "That's what I'm going to have, and a spinach salad. Nothing fancy. But the steaks are supposed to be the best in town."

"You've never been here?" I asked.

"No. Sparacino has," he answered.

"He recommended this place? And the hotel, too, I presume?" I asked, my paranoia kicking in.

"Sure," he replied, interested in the wine list now. "It's SOP. Clients fly to town and stay in the Omni because it's convenient to the firm."

"And your clients eat here, too?"

"Sparacino's been here before, usually after the theater. That's how he knows about it," Mark said.

"What else does Sparacino know about?" I asked. "Did you tell him you were meeting me?"

He met my eyes and said, "No."

"How is that possible if your firm is putting me up and if Sparacino recommended the hotel and the restaurant?"

"He recommended the hotel to me, Kay. I have to stay somewhere. I have to eat. Sparacino invited me to go out with a couple of other lawyers tonight. I declined, said I needed to look over some paperwork and would probably just find a steak somewhere. What did he recommend? And so on."

It was beginning to dawn on me and I wasn't sure if I felt embarrassed or unnerved. Probably it was both. Orn-dorff amp; Berger wasn't paying for this trip. Mark was. His firm knew nothing about it.

The waiter was back and Mark placed the order. I was fast losing my appetite.

"I flew in last night," he resumed. "Sparacino got hold of me in Chicago yesterday morning, said he needed to see me right away. As you may have guessed, it's about Beryl Madison."

He looked uncomfortable.

"And?" I prodded him, my uneasiness increasing.

He took a deep breath and said, "Sparacino knows about my connection, uh, about you and me. Our past…"

My stare stopped him.

"Kay…"

"You bastard." I pushed back my chair and dropped my napkin on the table.

"Kay!"

Mark grabbed my arm, pulling me back into the seat. I angrily shook him off and sat rigidly in my chair, glaring at him. It was in a Georgetown restaurant many years ago that I had snatched off the heavy gold bracelet he had given me and dropped it into his clam chowder. It was a childish thing to do. It was one of the rare moments in my life when I had completely lost my composure and made a scene.

"Look," he said, lowering his voice, "I don't blame you for what you're thinking. But it isn't like that. I'm not taking advantage of our past. Just listen for a minute, please. It's very involved, has to do with things you know nothing about. I have your best interests in mind, I swear. I'm not supposed to be talking to you. If Sparacino, if Berger knew, my ass would be nailed to the nearest tree."

I didn't say anything. I was so upset I couldn't think.

He leaned forward. "Start with this thought. Berger's after Sparacino and, right now, Sparacino's after you."

"After me?" I blurted out. "I've never met the man. How could he be after me?"

"Again, it's all got to do with Beryl," he repeated. "The truth is, he's been her lawyer since the beginning of her career. He didn't join our firm until we opened the office here in New York. Before that, he was on his own. We needed an attorney who specialized in entertainment law. Sparacino's been in New York for thirty-some years. He had all the connections. He brought over his clients, brought us a lot of business up front. You remember my mentioning when I first met Beryl, the lunch at the Algonquin?"

I nodded, the fight in me fading.

"That was a setup, Kay. I wasn't there by accident. Berger sent me."

"Why?"

Glancing around the restaurant, he replied, "Because Berger's worried. The firm's just getting started in New York, and you've got to be aware how hard it is to break into this city, to build up a solid clientele, a good reputation Last thing we need is an asshole like Sparacino driving the firm's name into the gutter."

He fell silent as the waiter appeared with the salads and ceremoniously uncorked a bottle of cabernet sauvignon. Mark took the obligatory first sip and glasses were filled.

"Berger knew when he hired Sparacino the guy's flamboyant, likes to play fast and loose," Mark resumed. "You think, well, it's just his style. Some lawyers are conservative, others like to make a lot of noise. Problem is, it wasn't until some months back that Berger and a few of us began to see just how far Sparacino was willing to go. You remember Christie Riggs?"

It took a moment for the name to click. "The actress who married the quarterback?"

Nodding, he said, "Sparacino masterminded that one from soup to nuts. Christie's a struggling model doing a few TV commercials here in the city. This was about two years ago, at the same time Leon Jones was making the covers of all the magazines. The two of them meet at a party and some photographer snaps a picture of them leaving together and getting inside Jones's Maserati. Next thing, Christie Riggs is sitting in the lobby of Orndorff amp; Berger. She's got an appointment with Sparacino."

"Are you telling me Sparacino was behind what happened'" I asked in disbelief.

Christie Riggs and Leon Jones had been married last year and divorced about six months later. Their tempestuous relationship and dirty divorce had entertained the world night after night on the news.

"Yes " Mark sipped his wine.

"Explain."

"Sparacino fixes on Christie," he said. "She's gorgeous, smart, ambitious. But the real thing she's got going for her at the moment is she's dating Jones Sparacino gives her the game plan. She wants to be a household name. She wants to be rich. All she's got to do is draw Jones into her web and later start crying in front of cameras about their lives behind shut doors. She accuses him of slapping her around, says he's a drunk, a psychopath, fooling around with cocaine, smashing up the furniture. Next thing you know, she and Jones are splitting and she's signed a million-dollar book contract."

"Makes me have a little more sympathy for Jones," I muttered.

"The worse part is I think he really loved her and didn't have the smarts to know what he was up against. He started playing lousy ball, ended up in the Betty Ford Clinic He's since dropped out of sight. One of America's greatest quarterbacks is washed up, ruined, and indirectly you can thank Sparacino for it. This kind of muckraking and slandering isn't our style. Orndorff amp; Berger is an old, distinguished firm, Kay. When Berger began to get a scent of what his entertainment lawyer was doing, Berger wasn't exactly happy."

"Why doesn't your firm just get rid of him?" I asked, picking at my salad.

"Because we can't prove anything, not at this point. Sparacino knows how to slide through without a snag. He's powerful, especially in New York. It's like grabbing hold of a snake. How the hell do you let go without getting bit? And the list goes on."

Mark's eyes were angry. "When you start looking back through Sparacino's professional history and examine some of the cases he handled when he was a one-man show, it really makes you wonder."

"What cases, for example?" I almost hated to ask.

"A lot of suits. Some hatchet writer decides to do an unauthorized biography of Elvis, John Lennon, Sinatra, and when it comes pub time, the celebrity, his relatives sue the biographer and it makes the network talk shows, People magazine. The book comes out anyway, with the benefit of incredible free publicity. Everybody's fighting over it because it's got to be juicy to have caused such a stink. We're suspicious Sparacino's method is to represent the writer, then go behind the scenes and offer the 'victim' or 'victims' money under the table to raise hell. It's all staged, works like a charm."

"Makes you wonder what to believe."

In fact, I wondered that most of the time.

The prime rib arrived. When the waiter was gone I asked, "How in the world did Beryl Madison ever get hooked up with him?"

"Through Gary Harper," Mark said. "That's the irony. Sparacino represented Harper for a number of years. When Beryl was coming along, Harper sent her to him. Sparacino has been shepherding her since the beginning, a combination agent, lawyer and godfather. I think Beryl was very vulnerable to older powerful men, and her career was pretty bland until she decided to do this autobiographical work. My guess is Sparacino originally suggested it. Whatever the case, Harper hasn't published anything since his Great American Novel. He's history, only valuable to someone like Sparacino if there's a possibility for exploitation."