"With a womon?" She smiled. "Why not?"

"It doesn't make a difference. He'd still have phoned."

"Unless he felt embarrassed."

"What?"

"You know, with your mother dead a year now and..."

"Hey, I loved my mother, and I'm sorry she's gone. But if he's still interested in women at his age, more power to him."

"Maybe he doesn't know that's how you feel. Have you ever talked about sex with him?"

"With my seventy-three-year-old father? Give me a break." He studied the kitchen clock. "It's close to three. If he isn't home by three-thirty, I'm calling the cops." But his father wasn't home by three-thirty, and Miller did call the cops. No auto accidents involving an Audi had been reported. No old men had been admitted to the local hospitals aftermidnight , and none of those admitted earlier had been

Miller's father. The Audi, covered with snow, was discovered in a parking lot across the street from the community service hall. The keys had been dropped and somehow kicked beneath the car. But Miller's father was never found.

Mexico City. April. Martin Rosenberg, seventy-two, stepped out of the synagogue, tucked his yannulka into his suitcoat pocket, and surveyed the cobbled street. From two blocks away, the drone of traffic along the Paseo de la Refonna disturbed his sense of tranquility. To his right, the lights of the ancient castle onChapultepec hill gleamed against the darkened sky. He exchanged shaloms with a group of young people coming out of the synagogue and turned left toward a corner. His son's home was five blocks away, one of the historic Spanish mansions interspersed with high-rise apartments in this affluent section of

Mexico City. As usual, his son had offered to have him driven to and from the synagogue, butRosenberg had insisted that walks were essential to his health, and besides, the scenery throughout this district never failed to give him pleasure. He rounded the corner, proceeding toward the well-lit broad avenue that connectedChapultepec hill with government buildings. 6

"I don't care how old he is!" Aaron Rosenberg said. "It's never taken him more than an hour to walk back home!" He paced in front of the arched windows that took up one wall of his living room. "But it's been more than two hours, not one!" With his pencil-thin mustache, aquiline nose, and dark burning eyes, Rosenberg looked more Spanish than Jewish.

He seldom went to the synagogue anymore, but he donated generously to it and knew the rabbi, whom he'd telephoned forty-five minutes ago, learning that his father had left the synagogue at dusk.

"Perhaps he stopped to visit with someone," his wife said. Her face was deeply tanned. Thirty-eight, lithe from daily tennis workouts, she wore a solid-gold watch, a turquoise necklace, and a bright red designer version of a peasant skirt and blouse. "Who? And surely not/ or two hours." He saw the headlights of a Mercedes sedan pulling up at the curb. "Esteban's come back. Perhaps he's found him." But Esteban reported that he'd driven along every route that the father would have used to return from the synagogue. Then he had widened his search to every street within a twenty-block grid. Other servants, having searched on foot, came back with the same disturbing report. ; "Go back out again! Keep looking!" Rosenberg called every hospital in Mexico

City. Nothing. ; At midnight, when the servants again returned without his father, he sacrificed a cardinal rule of his import-export.

business--never deal with the police except to bribe them-- I and phoned a captain whose home on Lake Chaico, eight miles south of the city, had recently been renovated thanks to Rosenberg. One month later, his father had still not been found.

Toronto. May. From the window of his first-class seat in the Air

Canada 727, Joseph Kessler peered down at the glinting expanse of Lake

Ontario. Even at twenty thousand feet, he could see the distinctive length of a Great Lakes freighter. Ahead, close to shore, he saw the smaller outlines of barges, the gleam of wind-swollen sails. Despite the brilliance of the day, Kessler knew that the water would be numbingly cold. The crews of the sailboats down there had to be fanatical about their sport. He nodded with approval. Because of his own ability to harness his obsessions, he'd developed a small Providence electronics firm into a thriving corporation that had made him a millionaire by the age of forty. But at the moment, his obsession was not related to business. It was personal, fueled by rage. He didn't allow himself to show it. Throughout the flight, he'd maintained composure, studying business documents while inwardly he seethed.

Patience, he told himself. Success depends on patience. Keep control.

For now. Below, he saw the sprawl of Toronto, its flat residential subdivisions stretching along the lake shore, its skyscrapers projecting from the heart of the city. He felt a change in pressure as the jet began to descend. Six minutes later, it landed at Toronto's international airport. He went through customs. "Nothing to declare.

I'm here on business." His briefcase and carry-on bag were not inspected. He proceeded through a sliding glass door into the noisy concourse, scanned the crowd, and approached a muscular man who wore the same blue-and-red striped de that Kessler did. "How much did you pay for that tie?" Kessler asked. "How much did you pay?"

"Someone gave it to me."

"I found mine." The code completed, the muscular man added, "Have you got any luggage?"

"Just what I'm carrying."

"Then let's get out of here." The man's Canadian accent made "out"

sound like "oot" From the terminal, they entered a parking lot, got into a station wagon, and soon reached a divided four-lane highway, heading west on Highway 401. Kessler looked behind him toward the receding skyline of Toronto. "How soon till we get there?"

"An hour."

"Everyone showed up?"

"You're the last," the man said. "Good." Kessler felt his fury blossom.

To distract himself, he pointed toward the farm fields and stands of timber at the sides of the highway. "Something's missing."

"What?"

"No billboards."

"Right. They're against the law."

"Three cheers for Canada." Kessler put on his sunglasses and stared straight ahead. The small talk was over. 8

Eighty kilometers farther, they reached the exit ramp for Kitchener.

Instead of entering the city, the driver used side roads to head deep into farm country, finally turning up a zigzag gravel driveway toward a mansion on a bluff above a river. Kessler stepped from the station wagon and studied the estate--surrounding wooded hills, a nine-hole golf course, a tennis court, a television satellite receiver, a swimming pool. He turned toward the five-car garage, then toward the mansion.

With its dormer windows, towers, and gables, it looked like it belonged in New England more than in Ontario. "Mr. Halloway knows how to live well," the driver said. "Of course, he owes it all to--" One of the double doors at the mansion's entrance came open. A lithe man of medium height, wearing a perfectly fitted exercise suit and expensive jogging shoes, stepped out. He was in his early forties, had thick wavy hair, and beamed with health. "Thank you, John. We won't be needing you for the rest of the day. If you like, you can use that new set of exercise machines in the gym. Have a steam bath. A drink. Relax."

"I appreciate it, Mr. Halloway." The driver got in the station wagon.

Halloway came down the granite front steps and held out his hand. "Joe?

Or is it... r

"Joseph." Kessler shook hands with him. "We've been a long time meeting. With so much in common, it's a pity we had to wait for misfortune to bring us together."

"Misfortune's not exactly what I'd call it."

"What (hen?"

"Fucking insanity."

"The nature of the world. That's why I prefer to live out here. Away from the madness." Grimacing, Halloway gestured toward the road hidden beyond the wooded hills. "Come. The others feel as distressed as ourselves. They're waiting."

The mansion's foyer was shadowy; its slate floor emphasized the click of their footsteps. Still needing to calm himself, Kessler paused to examine a colorful landscape painting. The artist's signature was

Halloway. "My father's," Halloway said. "His acrylic period." The reference to Halloway's father rekindled Kessler's indignation. Down the hall, he heard angry voices and, preceded by Halloway, entered a large oak-paneled room where eight men interrupted their fierce discussion to look at him. Kessler studied them in return. They were of different heights, weights, and facial structures, but (hey shared one physical characteristic: their ages fit within the same narrow range, late thirties, early forties. "It's about time," one said. Two others spoke in rapid succession. "I've been here since yesterday."

"This meeting was supposed to be urgent!"

"My flight got delayed,"