A worm of unease wriggled in Jensen's gut. He didn't like surprises.

He reached for the buzzer and hesitated. What was his new secretary's name? The brainless little twits came and went so quickly. He seemed to go through them like a fox through chickens. No one applied to be his secretary anymore; they had to be drafted from the volunteer pool. Was he that hard on them? Not that he cared what they thought, it was just that some of them had long learning curves.

He decided he didn't give a s.h.i.t about her name.

He buzzed and said, "Get me Tony Margiotta."

Jensen loved what computers could do for him but, beyond e-mail, he let other people deal with them. Margiotta was the computer whiz among the TPs. He'd find out what Jensen needed to know.

He just hoped it wasn't something he didn't want to know.

6.

"Here you go," Richie Cordova said, handing a five to the kid from the mail drop.

Every time something popped into his box at the drop-hardly ever more than three times a week-the kid ran it up the two blocks to Richie's office on his break. Worth the fiver every time. Saved Richie the trip, but more important, it meant he never had to show his face down there.

A good thing to avoid. Never knew when one of the cows might get the dumb idea of watching Box 224 to see who opened it. Might see Richie and follow him back to the office, or home, and look for a chance to get even. Didn't want none of that s.h.i.t.

With Richie's delivery setup, they'd be waiting till they was dead and gone before seeing anyone so much as touch Box 224.

"So what've we got today?" Richie muttered when the kid was gone.

One manila envelope. Typed label. Hmmm.

He pulled a folding knife from a desk drawer and slit il open. He found a legal-sized envelope within. Inside that was a note in a woman's hand and a hundred-dollar bill.

A hundred bucks? What's this s.h.i.t?

The note was from the nun, whining about how she didn't have no more to give. Richie smiled. Normally he'd be royally p.i.s.sed at the short payment, but not with this little lady. Oh, no. He wanted her tapped out-at least personally.

But was today the right day to put the screws to her?

He picked up the Post Post and turned to the horoscope page. He'd been there once already this morning and hadn't been too crazy about what he'd seen. He folded the tabloid into a neat quarter page for a second look. and turned to the horoscope page. He'd been there once already this morning and hadn't been too crazy about what he'd seen. He folded the tabloid into a neat quarter page for a second look.

Gemini (May 21-June 21): It seems as if you have a dwindling safety margin. Don't confuse aggression with initiative. Live in the moment, follow the rules, and close the week in triumph despite these obstacles.

Dwindling safety margin... that didn't sound so good.

But it might not be so bad. His birthday was June 20, which meant he was officially a Gemini. But because Cancer started June 22, lots of astrology experts said people like him was "on the cusp" and could go either way.

He checked the next reading.

Cancer (June 22-July 22): It might be necessary to experience what you thought you wanted in order to better appreciate what you have. Dearest ones help you find fresh resources which might be able to hook you up in a surprising way.

He read the first sentence three times and still couldn't scope out what it was saying. As for the rest...

Dearest ones? That would have to be the crowd at Hurley's.

Sure as h.e.l.l couldn't be a woman. He'd been split for seven years now from the stupid b.i.t.c.h he'd married, and his mother was five years gone. No gal at the moment-most of them were slobs anyway and the ones who weren't never seemed to stay. His mother, G.o.d love her, had left him her house in Williamsbridge and everything in it. He'd grown up there and, because it was so much better than the c.r.a.p apartment he'd been living in after his divorce, he'd moved back instead of selling.

He decided what these horoscopes was telling him was that since he was going to find fresh resources find fresh resources today, his today, his dwindling safety margin dwindling safety margin wouldn't matter, and he'd wouldn't matter, and he'd close the week in triumph close the week in triumph.

Good enough.

He unfolded the paper and laid it on his desk with the front page up. Then he used a Handi Wipe to remove the newsprint smudges from his fingers. That done, he wheeled his chair over to the radiator and pulled a padded envelope from behind it. He added the nun's hundred to the rest of the cash. The total was up to about three thousand now. Time to make a trip to the safety deposit box. His office was alarmed, sure, but it wasn't no bank. He'd head there come Friday.

As he stuffed the envelope back into its hiding place and rose to his feet, he burped and rubbed the swelling dome of his belly. That liverwurst and onion sandwich wasn't sitting too good. He loosened his belt a notch-to the last one. s.h.i.t, if he swelled any more he'd have to buy a whole new set of clothes. Again. He already had one closet full of stuff he couldn't wear. He didn't need another.

He slipped on his suit jacket-didn't even try to b.u.t.ton it-and straightened up his desktop. Not much there. He kept a lean look in everything but his body. He realigned the photo of Clancy so it was centered across the far left corner, then headed for the waiting area.

"Going out for a little walk, Eddy," he told his receptionist. "Be back in thirty or so."

Edwina checked her watch and jotted the time on a sticky note.

"Sure thing, Rich."

Uppity black s.k.a.n.k, but she was good, one of the best receptionists he'd ever had. Wouldn't come across with any extracurricular activity like some of them, though. Couple that with the way business had slowed, and he just might have to let her go soon.

But he'd put that off as long as he could. A fair number of his clients had some bucks. Not big bucks, but comfortable. They came to him from Manhattan and Queens-first time ever in the Bronx for a lot of them. When they called for directions they were relieved to hear he was near the Bronx Zoo and the Botanical Garden-civilization would be close by.

The bad part about this location was that parking was a b.i.t.c.h and his clients wouldn't see anyone like them on the street; the good part was they d.a.m.n sure wouldn't b.u.mp into anyone they knew, and that was important. n.o.body wanted to run into a friend or acquaintance in a detective agency.

So they hauled themselves all the way up here, and after that sacrifice they needed the rea.s.surance of seeing a receptionist when they stepped through the door.

He adjusted Eddy's RECEPTIONIST sign, lining it up with the leading edge of her desk, and walked out.

7.

Tremont was jumping today. But n.o.body on the crowded sidewalk seemed to be looking for a PI. They weren't his sort of clientele anyway.

Richie didn't know why business had been off lately. He gave good service to his clients and got a lot of referrals from them, but things had been unaccountably slow since the summer.

Which was why his second income stream had become more important than ever. The regular snoop jobs had always been the meat and potatoes, but the gravy had come from blackmail.

Blackmail He hated that word. Sounded so dirty and underhanded. He'd tried for years to find a subst.i.tute but hadn't come up with anything that worked. He hated that word. Sounded so dirty and underhanded. He'd tried for years to find a subst.i.tute but hadn't come up with anything that worked. Private knowledge protection Private knowledge protection... secret safekeeping service secret safekeeping service... cla.s.sified information management. cla.s.sified information management... none of them did anything for him.

So, he'd resigned himself to blackmail blackmail... which made him a blackmailer.

Not something he talked about at Hurley's, but not as bad as it sounded. Really, when you got down to it, he was simply supplying a service: I have information about you, information you don't want made public. For a regular fee I will keep my mouth shut.

What could be fairer than that? Partic.i.p.ation was purely voluntary. Don't want to play? Then don't pay. But be ready to face the music once your ugly little secret gets out.

Plus he had to admit he loved being able to pull people's strings and make them dance to whatever tune he felt like playing. That was almost as good as the money.

Richie rounded the corner and walked up past the newer apartment houses toward the zoo.

Yeah... blackmailer. Not exactly what he'd planned for himself as a kid.

What do you want to be when you grow up, Richie?

A blackmailer, Mom.

He hadn't planned on being a cop either. Cops had been "pigs" back then. But as he grew older in a crummy economy and saw his old man lose his factory job, he started thinking maybe being a cop wasn't so bad. Chances of getting laid off were slim to none, the pay was decent, and you could retire on a pension after twenty or twenty-five years and still have a lot of living ahead of you.

He'd tried for the NYPD but didn't make it. Had to settle for the NCPD-Na.s.sau County-where the pay didn't turn out to be all that decent. Didn't take him too long, though, to find ways to supplement it.

As a patrolman first and later a detective, Richie spent twenty-six years with the NCPD, twenty-four and a half of them on the pad. That got him into a little trouble toward the end, but he'd traded keeping mum about a certain IAD guy's s.e.xual tastes for a Get Out of Jail Free pa.s.s, and walked away with his pension intact.

That had been his introduction to the power of knowing things he wasn't supposed to. Instead of putting himself out to pasture, he applied for his private investigator license and opened Cordova Security Consultants. No big expectations, just someplace to go every day. Startup had been slow, but stuff sent his way by his old buddies in NCPD had helped keep him afloat. He found he liked the work, especially the spouse snooping. He'd got pretty good with a camera over the years and had taken some pretty steamy pictures. He'd kept a private gallery back at the house until this past September.

But often it was the bonus material he collected that paid the best. While checking out a husband or wife suspected of getting it on with somebody else, he frequently came across unrelated or semi-related dirt that he put to work for himself.

Like this nun, for instance. Helene Metcalf had traveled all the way from her Chelsea high-rise to hire Richie. Her hubby Michael was a capital campaign consultant-that meant professional fund-raiser-and had been out on the job an unusual number of nights. She was starting to suspect he might be sneaking a little something on the side and wanted Richie to find out.

Mikey's latest account was raising money for the renovation of St. Joseph's Church on the Lower East Side. Camera in hand, Richie started tailing him and found he was indeed going to St. Joe's-but not just for fund-raising. Seemed he was also doing a little habit-raising with one of the nuns.

Richie took a few shots of the pair in flagrante delicto, as they say, and was about to show them to the wife when he realized he might be sitting on a gold mine. Normally putting the squeeze on a nun would be like trying to buy a whale steak from Greenpeace, but this nun was one of the honchos in the fund-raising project. That was how she'd got so tight with Mikey boy in the first place. Lots of cash flowing through that lady's hands, and those photos was a way to tap into that stream.

So Richie told wifey that her hubby was going exactly where he said he was-showed her photos of him entering and leaving the St. Joe's bas.e.m.e.nt on the nights in question-and said he'd found no impropriety.

He put the squeeze on Mikey as well. Usually he had a rule: Never use nothing against the client. That was a no-no. Had to keep up the reputation, keep up the referrals from satisfied clients.

But Mikey wouldn't know that the guy who was milking him had been hired by his wife.

Because another rule was keep it anonymous. Never let the cow see your face or, worse, learn your name.

So Mikey Metcalf became the second cow in this particular pasture.

Up until a couple of months ago, Richie had maintained a perfect score on the anonymity meter. Then one September night he'd come home from Hurley's and smelled something funny. He raced up to his third floor and found out some guy'd poured acid over everything in his filing cabinet. The guy got away by running over a neighbor's roof.

Only explanation was that one of the cows had found out who he was. Richie had burned his gallery of photos-hated to do it but it was evidence if anyone hit him with a search warrant-and moved his sideline to his office. He'd been looking over his shoulder ever since.

He was puffing a little by the time he reached the wall of the zoo. A hot dog pushcart tempted him but he forced himself to keep moving. Later.

Call the nun first.

Kind of fun to have a nun on the hook. Back in grammar school the penguins-nuns dressed head to toe in black in those days-had always been after him, whacking him on the back of the head or rapping his knuckles whenever he acted up. Not that he'd been damaged for life or nothing. That was a crock. Truth was, he couldn't think of a single time he hadn't deserved what he got. That didn't make them any less of a pain in the a.s.s though.

The nun thing had got to be a game after a while. A badge of honor. If you hadn't got hit you was some kind of f.a.g.

He guessed this was sort of like payback.

He chose a public phone at random and licked his lips as he dialed the convent. He knew Sister Margaret Mary would be over at the school until three or three-thirty, but wanted to shake her up a little.

And he knew just how to do that.

8.

"Got him!" Margiotta said.

Jensen had insisted he do the search for Jason Amurri in Jensen's own office. He didn't want anything they found becoming water-cooler talk around the admin floor. So Margiotta had pulled up a chair beside Jensen's desk, swiveled the monitor, moved the keyboard, and gotten to work.

"About time."

"This guy's one reclusive SOB." Margiotta shook his head. He had close-clipped black hair and dark brown eyes. "Only someone with my enormous talents could have dug him up. A lesser sort would've come up with jack s.h.i.t."

Jensen decided to humor him. "That's why I called on you. Show me."

Margiotta rose and swiveled the monitor back toward Jensen. He pointed to the screen.

"You want to know about his father, I came across tons. Tons Tons. But as for Jason himself, this is the best of what I found. It ain't much-like I said, he's pretty much a recluse-but I think it's enough to give you an idea who he is."

On the screen was a paragraph from a news article about one Aldo Amurri. Jensen had never heard of him. It mentioned he had two sons, Michel and Jason. Michel, the older one, lived in Newport Beach on the sh.o.r.e. Jason lived in Switzerland.

"That's it?"

"Did you read about the father? Check him out. That'll tell you something about this Jason guy."

Jensen scrolled back to the beginning of the article and began reading. He felt his mouth go dry as he learned about Aldo Amurri, father of the young man Jensen had booted out on his a.s.s.

He knew he couldn't keep this from Luther Brady. Eventually he'd find out. Brady always found out. So it was better if Jensen broke the news himself.

But Brady was going to be p.i.s.sed. Royally p.i.s.sed.