"Mole," I said by way of greeting. When he didn't reply, I asked him, "You have that name and address for me?"

The Mole nodded his head in the direction of the highway, turned, and started to walk away. I followed him, wondering why he didn't want to talk by the launch pad. He led me to a South Bronx special-a battered old Ford, half primer and half rust, sagging on broken springs, no hubcaps, a hole already punched in its trunk from the last burglary attempt. The Mole climbed inside without unlocking the door. I followed him. He started the engine, put the car in gear, and pulled off.

"You think it's safe enough to give me that name now?" I asked.

"I have to go with you," he said.

"How come?"

"You can't hurt this person," the Mole said. "My friends, the ones who set this up-they make the rules. You can't hurt him. I have to go with you-make sure."

"Is he going to talk to me, Mole?"

"It is all arranged. He will talk to you, but only about his…thing, in general. You understand? Not about what he does, about what they do. 'Deep background,' my friends call it."

Great. "Can I threaten him?" I asked.

"He will know you can't hurt him. It won't do any good."

I lit another smoke, saying nothing. But the Mole read my thoughts. "You will know his address. He wanted the meeting to be where he lives. But if anything happens to him, my people will blame you. He is important to us.

"Slime like that is important?"

The Mole's eyes flashed behind his thick glasses. "We have a saying-the tree which bears fruit does not care about the fertilizer. And we must grow food in the desert. Okay?"

"Okay," I said. My one option.

The Mole drove the way he walked through his junkyard-like he wasn't paying attention, just blundering along. But he handled the Ford well, negotiating the traffic, paying no attention to the angry horns when he cut someone off, just being himself. We found a parking spot on 9th Street on the West Side. The Mole shut down the engine, looked over at me. "You have anything with you?" he asked.

"I'm clean," I told him.

"The cigarette lighter I made for you?"

I didn't say anything-he meant the throwaway butane lighter he had filled with napalm.

"Leave it here," the Mole said. I opened the glove compartment, tossed it inside.

"You going to leave your satchel in the car too?" I asked him. The Mole looked at me as if I should be on medication.

70

THE MOLE stopped in front of a limestone-front townhouse just off Fifth Avenue. It was three stories high, level with the rest of the buildings on the block. Maybe thirty-five feet wide. A seven-figure piece of property in that neighborhood. Four steps took us to a teak door, set behind a wrought-iron grating that looked custom-made. The Mole's stubby finger found the mother-of-pearl button, pushed it once.

We didn't have long to wait. The teak door opened-a man was standing there, waiting. You don't need a peephole when you have a couple of hundred pounds of iron between you and whoever's at the door. I couldn't see into the dark interior. The guy at the door was tall and slender, both hands in the pockets of what looked like a silk bathrobe.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Moishe," the Mole said.

"Please step back," said the man. He had a British accent.

The Mole and I went back to the sidewalk so the iron grate could swing out. We walked past the man inside, waited while he bolted the iron grate shut and closed the door. We were in a rectangular room, much longer than it was wide. The floor was highly polished dark wood, setting off overstuffed Victorian furniture, upholstered in a blue-and-white floral pattern. Only one light burned off to the side, flickering like it was gas instead of electricity.

"May I take your coats?" the man said, opening a closet just past the entranceway.

I shook my head "no"-the Mole wasn't wearing anything over his coveralls.

"Please…" the man said, languidly waving his hand to say we should go up the stairs before him. I went first, the Mole right behind me. We were breaking all the rules for this human.

"To your right," his voice came from behind me. I turned into a big room that looked smaller because it was so stuffed with things. A huge desk dominated the room, set on thick carved stubs at each corner. They looked like lion's paws. An Oriental rug covered most of the floor-it had a royal-blue background with a red-and-white design running from the center and blending into the borders. A fireplace was against one wall, birch logs crackling in a marble cage. The windows were covered with heavy velvet drapes the same royal blue as the rug. Everything was out of the past-except for a glowing video terminal on a butcher-block table parallel to the desk.

"Please sit anywhere," the man said, waving one arm to display the options in the room as he seated himself behind the big desk. I took a heavy armchair upholstered in dark tufted leather. A bronze-and-glass ashtray was on a metal stand next to the chair. The Mole stood near the door, his eyes sweeping the room. Then he sat on the floor, blocking the door with his bulk, putting his satchel on the ground. He looked from the man to where I was sitting, making it clear that we had an agreement. Then he pulled out a sheaf of papers and started to study some of his calculations-taking himself somewhere else.

"Now, then," said the man, folding his hands in front of him on the desk. "May I offer you some refreshment? Coffee? Some excellent sherry?"

I shook my head "no." The Mole never looked up.

"A beer perhaps?"

"No," I told him. I'd made a deal not to threaten him, but I didn't have to pretend I was his pal.

The man reached for a cut-glass decanter on his desk. Something that looked like a silver leaf dangled from just below the neck of the bottle, attached by a silver chain. He poured himself a wineglass of dark liquid from the bottle, held the glass up to the light from the fireplace, took a small sip. If he was any calmer he would have fallen asleep.

It was hard to make out his face in the dim light. I could see he was very thin, balding on top, with a thick pelt of dark hair around the sides of his head. Heavy eyebrows jutted from his skull, hooding his eyes. The face was wide at the top, narrowing down to a small chin-a triangular shape. His lips were thin-his fingers long and tapered, a faint sheen of clear polish on the nails.

"Now," he said, taking a sip from his glass, "how may I help you, Mr…?"

"I'm looking for a picture," I told him, ignoring the request for my name. "A picture of a kid."

"And you think I have this picture?" he asked, his heavy eyebrows lifting.

I shrugged. I should be so lucky. "Not necessarily. But I hope you can tell me about that kind of thing in general. Give me an idea where to look."

"I see. Tell me about this picture."

"A picture of a kid. Little chubby blond-haired boy. About six years old."

The man sat behind his desk, patiently waiting. I hadn't told him enough.

"A sex picture," I said.

"Um" he mumbled. "Not such an unusual picture. Little boys in love do things like that."

Something burned inside my chest. I felt the Mole's eyes on me, got it under control, took another drag on the cigarette. Who would have a picture like that?"

"Oh, just about anyone. It all depends on why the picture was taken."

"Why?"

The man made a tent of his fingers, his English accent making him sound like a teacher. "If the picture was taken by his mentor, then it wouldn't be circulated commercially, you understand?"

"His mentor?"

"A mentor, sir, is one who teaches you, guides you through life. Helps you with problems…that kind of thing."