CHAPTER ELEVEN.

1.

Caroline sat at her desk at Milhet & Alvarez, going over files, one file in particular. She read it, puzzled. Outside a young law clerk, Curtis Lee, passed, pulling his bow tie loose.

"Curtis," Caroline said.

Unbuttoning his top shirt button and stretching his neck in a circle, Curtis came into Caroline's office.

"These files," she held them out for him to see, "they were all Robert's, right?"

Curtis nodded. Caroline tapped the file that especially had caught her interest.

"This one," she said.

Curtis read, "Gaynor, Jean. Speeding ticket." He looked at Caroline. "What's the problem?"

"Is she one of our regular clients?"

"No."

"Her parents? Are they our clients?"

Curtis shook his head no.

"These little fix-me cases," Caroline said. "We do them as a courtesy for our regular clients. Why are we doing this one?"

Curtis shrugged.

"According to this morning's paper, she's the one found dead in Frank's motel room," Caroline said. "This address, Paul Gaynor..."

"Husband?" Curtis said.

"Could be," Caroline said. "I think I'll find out."

2.

In the second ring at Geigerman's, Jack, gloved and in street clothes, circled away from Hooper, who, grinning, flicked a few feints. Jack backpedaled.

"So we tango," Jack said. "What do you got for me?"

"I surely got something for you," Hooper said.

He popped Jack in his already bruised face. Jack jabbed, but Hooper was too fast. He got in under Jack's left and opened the cut over Jack's right eye.

"I meant information," Jack said, blinking away the blood.

Hooper cracked Jack's nose, which started to bleed.

Again, Jack jabbed and missed.

"When I was a kid," Jack said, "I used to be a street fighter."

"Pity we're not in the street," Hooper said.

Hooper got inside and hit Jack over the heart. Jack went gray.

"You want to know who beat you up?" Hooper asked.

He thumped Jack over the heart again. Jack rebounded off the ropes.

"Does this feel familiar?" Hooper asked.

He connected with a combination, Jack's kidney and an uppercut to Jack's cut lip, which opened up again.

"What happened to your two-by-four?" Jack asked.

"Wouldn't fit in my glove," Hooper said.

He swung. Jack sidestepped.

"Who hired you?" Jack gasped.

Hooper hit Jack, a left to the head, a right to the body, another left to the head. Jack staggered back, trying to shield the blows. Hunched, Hooper came in for the kill. Jack put up his gloves.

"Wait," Jack said. "Wait a minute."

"Hurt?" Hooper grinned.

"No," Jack said. "Got to, got to..."

Jack yawned. A big yawn. Yawns are contagious. Hooper yawned-and Jack, who had faked the yawn, used the opening to hit Hooper. A left to the heart, a right to the temple, a left to the jaw, a right to the jaw.

Hooper went down.

Jack hung over him, panting. Out of the corner of his good eye, Jack saw LeVigne, ringside, in a lime green shirt, mustard yellow slacks, and worn but polished tasseled loafers.

"Hooper never could take a punch," LeVigne said.

"Hooper?" Jack asked.

"Kevin Hooper," LeVigne said. "Piece of shit. Surprised you let him do you so much damage."

"He seemed to need the confidence," Jack said.

"What he needed," LeVigne said, "you just gave him. About time someone did. But you could've saved yourself a tag or two if you did like I told you and worked on the body."

"That'd take five rounds," Jack said. "I'm impatient."

Jack crouched over Hooper, dripping blood on Hooper's face, his knee on Hooper's neck.

"Now, my friend," Jack said, "we talk..."

3.

Caroline walked up the flagstone path to the white suburban house in Colonie, outside of Albany, and pressed the bell. She heard a ring, muffled by the door. The air was filled with static electricity, which made her dress cling to her pantyhose. She rang the bell again. The door opened, revealing a man in his early sixties, wearing a blue-and-red Hawaiian shirt outside his gray slacks. He was barefoot and holding a newspaper, the Times-Union, next to his leg, a finger in the pages saving his place.

"Paul Gaynor?" Caroline asked.

Gaynor nodded.

"I'm looking for Jean Gaynor," Caroline said. Then, guessing, added, "Your daughter."

Again, Gaynor nodded.

"I'm a lawyer," Caroline said. "My firm is handling some business of hers."

"What is it this time?" Gaynor asked. "Prostitution? Or drugs?"

The small, neat living room was dominated by the huge head of a buck mounted on a walnut panel. A rail like a blackboard chalk tray ran along the bottom of the panel. In it were three arrows, which, Caroline assumed, had been used to bring the buck down.

Gaynor sank into an easy chair. No socks. His pant cuffs were pulled up over his purple-veined, pale ankles. Caroline sat across from him in the middle of the couch. On the coffee table between them was a clear pitcher of water and a pastel plastic dimpled glasses. Half full.

"When Jean got into trouble down in the City...," Paul began.

"At school?" Caroline asked.

"Pratt Institute," Gaynor said. He pointed at a chalk portrait of himself, framed, hanging next to the deer head. "She had some talent. But a few months after she went down there, she came home. Or they sent her home. Do they do that today? Send kids home? When they get into trouble? At school?" He sighed. "I couldn't control her. In two months, she's been arrested twice for soliciting in Hudson and once in Mycenae for possession of cocaine."

"Your wife?" Caroline asked.

"Jean's mother died when Jean was eight," Gaynor said. "Ever since then, she's pretty much done what she wanted."

"You haven't heard from the police?" Caroline asked.

Gaynor shook his head no.

"Told her last time she got arrested, I was through. No bail. No help. No nothing. Even she could figure that one out. She must've called somebody else to spring her."

"I'm afraid," Caroline said, "Jean's dead."

"Maybe," Gaynor said, "that's what she wanted."

"You don't seem-"

"Surprised? A kid like Jean, I been expecting it. The phone rings, I figure..."

He trailed off.

"The police should've called," he said. "Maybe they did. I got one of those voice-mail services, but I never check it. What for? Just bill collectors and cold calls. They'll be by. For whatever it's worth. I got nothing to tell them. Or you."

"Your daughter-"

"My wife was pregnant when I married her. I knew about it. But, like her daughter, Jean's mother had a wild streak. I never adopted Jean. Not legally, I mean. But far as she knew, I was her father."

"Who was her real father?"

"A married man."

"Local?"

"Not quite."

"You ever find out his name?"

"I found out all about him. Long time ago. Wasn't hard. He's well known. Massachusetts big shot. Keating Flowers."

"Keating Flowers?" Caroline said.

"You know him?" Gaynor asked.

"I know his son," Caroline said.