The Burden of Proof

PART

Clara Mittler was already too old when she met him. It was 1956.

Their acquaintance was first struck in the auspicious climate of her father s law office, where Stern had let one room in Henry Mittler's suite. In those years Stern revered Henry; by the end, he saw his father-in-law as a man with too little justice in him to be admired. But in 1956, with his large and sometimes volcanic personality, and, more pertinently, his influence and wealth, Henry Mittler loomed before Stern, fresh from Easton Law School, like some diorama giant, a majestic emblem of the attainments possible in a life at the bar. He was.a sizable fellow, with a formidable belly and whitish hair pushed straight back from a widow's peak, distinct as an arrow, and his manner was, by turns, shrewd and scholarly and ruthless. In many ways, Henry was the most refined of gentlemen; he collected stamps, and for many years thereafter Stern would watch with amazement as Henry, with his jeweler's glass and tweezers, studied, stored, and filed. In other moods, he was a person of utter commonness. Whatever his temper, he projected the imposing aura of an orchestral maestro, This impressive congregation of qualities-and, as Stern learned later, a fortunate marriage to a woman of significant standing-had made him a business counselor whose insight and discretion were prized throughout the city' s small but wealthy German Jewish community. Two of the larger independent banks downtown were his clients; so were the Hartzog and Bergstein families, only then conquering the first terrains in their future kingdoms in air travel and hostelry. Henry had come of age in an era when those he served stood for sweatshops and union busting and heartless home foreclosures-the entire pristine empire of wealth, accepted as being in the Order of Things. It was a different world now;

Capital no longer equaled Power in America in the same brute fashion.

But Henry, no less than anyone else, was the image of his times, when it was expected that a business lawyer of his eminence be a gentleman to his clients and a son of a bitch to everyone else.

Seven young attorneys worked for Henry in paneled suites in the old LeSueur building, with its Art Deco features of heavy turned brass.

Graduating from law school, Stern had responded to an ad in one of the lawyers' gazettes and rented a single room. It was a promising arrangement. Henry did not go to court himself. There would be occasional matters of small consequence that he might refer to Stern.

Collections, liens, attachments. Small divorces, perhaps.

Minor personal-injury matters, or traffic tickets. It made little difference. If the flow was steady enough, Stern could satisfy his rent of $35 a month.

For this sum, Stern acquired use of Mittler's law library-which had seemed an impressive concession, although the gilt-trimmed treatises on commercial matters contributed nothing to the criminal practice that Stern wished to establish-and Mittler' s secretary took his phone messages. In those first months, he could not afford a telephone of his own. Stern' s calls were received on Mittler' s general number and returned, a dime apiece, from a wooden phone booth in the lobby thirty-two floors below.

This arrangement, comfortable to Stern, was soon unacceptable to Henry.

He had no complaints with Stern's handling of the matters he referred.

But he did not care for the clientele that Stern brought back from police court, where once or twice a week he would stand in the corridors in the hopes of drumming up some kind of a practice. After two or three barren attempts, he had attracted the attention of a police sergeant named Blonder, and for a fee of $5 for each success, Blonder had begun carrying on in lyrical fashion about Stern's many triumphs and passing out his card to the detainees being ferried in the police paddy wagon.

These clients-gypsies, shoplifters, drinkers who had become embroiled in barroom disputes-would come to the oak. wainscoted offices of Henry Mittler to wait for Mr. Stern, beside Henry's client, Buckner Levy, in pince-nez and fedora, the president of the Cleveland Street Commercial Bank. There were no incidents, but the sight of these toughs, who sat in their undervests smoking cigarettes and, on one or two occasions, mistaking the ashtrays for spittoons, drove Henry wild. By the time Stern happened to meet Clara, his clients had been relegated to a bench in the hallway, while Henry contemplated a more complete eviction for Stern himself. In fact, in his initial rage, Henry had directed Stern to initiate the search for new quarters, although afterwards no more was said of that.

As for Clara, she was employed in her father' s office two or three days a week. Stern's first sight of her was from the hallway as he was passing. She was a slender young woman of erect carriage who sat before Henry Mittler with a green stenographic pad in hand. Stern paused; something was not in place. She had a finished look, expensively dressed in a silk blouse and a brown skirt of fine wool; she wore pearls. Then he noticed that she was seated not on a chair but on the footstool of Mittler's easy chair.

"Yes, Stern." Henry had caught sight of him in the doorway.

Stern, who had not meant to stop, said he would come back later, but Mittler was in an expansive mood and more or less ordered him into the office. "My daughter," he said, with his hand raised, while he looked across his desk for something else.

Her hair, a muted reddish shade like finished cherrywood, was cut anfashionably short; her complexion, flawed by one or two livid marks near one cheekbone, was generally pallid; and Stern on first impression could not tell if she was pretty or plain. Her expression certainly seemed deadened. She nodded to Stern with no more interest than she would have to a stick of furniture.

It was his pipe Henry had been searching for. suppose you've made other arrangements by now," he said as he shot fire into the.meerschaum bowl.

"Not just yet," said Stern-.

Years later, Stern could still remember the shocking speed with which he had calculated the advantages of winning this young woman's attention.

It was Henry, however, not Stern, who had gotten them started.

"Stern is from Argentina," said her father.

She brightened. "From?" she asked.

In 1956 most Americans regarded foreigners of all kinds with apprehension; about Argentina they wished to learn no more than the tango. Stern was grateful for her interest.

"B.A., principally. We lived in different parts. My father was able to turn the practice of medicine into an itinerant trade."

"Your father was a doctor?" asked Henry. "You've always made out like you were some impoverished son of a bitch.

Pardon, Clara."

"Regrettably true," said Stern.

"This is the one who goes down to the lobby to use the telephone," said Henry.

"Ah," said Clara.

The heat of shame rushed up on poor Stern. Clara seized his arm.

"Daddy, you' re embarrassing Mr. Stern."

Henry made a face. It-was no matter to him.

From these first instants some elements seemed incomprehensible. She was too sophisticated-too rich-a young woman to be a stenographer, but she appeared two or three times a week, typing and answering the phone.

When Stern happened by, she would smile idly, a self-contained human being, hard to decipher beyond a heavyhearted stoical exterior.

"You are a student?" he asked her one day, impulsively, when he was in the hallway near the small interior office that she shared with two other women.

"Me? No. I finished college three years ago. Four. Why would you ask?"

"I imagined-" said Stern. He was lost, as usual, for the proper word.

"That I was younger," she said.

"Oh, no." This truly had not entered his mind, but the young woman seemed to shrink from him. She had embarrassed herself by exposing this. vulnerability. '"I wondered simply how you were otherwise engaged, when you were not here."

"You think I have something better to do than my father' s typing?"

"Miss," said Stern, but he saw then that she was attempting to be coquettish and was, simply, awkward at it. "I am certain you are capable of many things."

She did not answer. He turned away, morose, Truly, he was doomed with this family. A few days later, however, as he was passing in the hall, she called.

"Mr. Stern?" He looked in, not certain that it was her voice he'd heard. Her eyes were down as she pecked at the typewriter, a substantial mass of black cast iron.

Eventually, she spoke, though it seemed to require considerable deliberation. "Tell me, Mr. Stern, what did you suppose I studied?"

Oh, dear. Now what? He seized on something likely to be inoffensive.

"My estimate, I suppose, is that you were a musician." Her immediate look of pleasure was incandescent. "My father told you."

"No," said Stern, enormously relieved.

"You enjoy music?"

"Very much." This was not really a lie. Who did not like music? She had studied the piano for many years, she said.

She mentioned composers whom Stern knew merely by name.

Vaguely, they agreed to enjoy music together on some future occasion.

Yet, as Stern came away from the conversation, he was struck again by how peculiar this young woman seemed.

College educated and half-idle, full of such taut sensitivity. How old was she? Twenty-four or twenty-five, Stern calculated, a year or two older than he. Old for a girl not to be married,. even in the States.

The next week, Henry called him to his office. On his way, Stern feared that his eviction was about to be consummated, but he could tell at once, from the way Henry groused and pawed about,' that he had something else on his mind. If Henry were revoking a license at will, he would do it without hesitation.

"We can't use these," Mittler said. "Pauline and I."

Symphony tickets. He held them forth. "I'm sure Clara would like to go." Stern was too dumbfounded for Mittler to take any chances. "You know," he said, "Clara put me up to this.

She was too bashful to ask herself."

"This is very kind, Mr. Mittler. I am most pleased."

"Sure you are," said Henry. "Look,! have no goddamned judgment about my daughter, Stern. I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not. You may think she's bright, but she has no idea of what she's up to half the time. Believe me. I assured her mother there would be no problem here. I told her you were harmless." Mittler's eyes had a yellowish cast and he fixed Stern directly.

Should he have turned away? Decades later, in the depths of grief, he could pose the question, but he would never damn them both with an affirmative response. He had taken the two tickets from Henry's hand, while answering the assessment of his harmlessness in a murmur. Anyone listening would have thought he had agreed.

As soon as Peter laid eyes on him, Stern could tell that his son was unsettled. It was a familiar look, 1, something not too far from panic, which, in a blink was put aside by the work of adult will. Peter glanced about his reception room seeking to determine who else was present, and then asked quietly, "What's wrong?" Stern had never been to his son's office. While Peter was a resident, Clara and Stern had met him for dinner once or twice in the university hospitalcafeteria. In his green togs, with his stethoscope lumped into a pocket, he seemed vital, smart, remarkably at ease.

Peter's mastery of his place had 'ty, Stern feared that his eviction was about to be consummated, but he could tell at once, from the way Henry groused and pawed about,' that he had something else on his mind. If Henry were revoking a license at will, he would do it without hesitation.

"We can't use these," Mittler said. "Pauline and I."

Symphony tickets. He held them forth. "I'm sure Clara would like to go." Stern was too dumbfounded for Mittler to take any chances. "You know," he said, "Clara put me up to this.

She was too bashful to ask herself."

"This is very kind, Mr. Mittler. I am most pleased."

"Sure you are," said Henry. "Look,! have no goddamned judgment about my daughter, Stern. I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not. You may think she's bright, but she has no idea of what she's up to half the time. Believe me. I assured her mother there would be no problem here. I told her you were harmless." Mittler's eyes had a yellowish cast and he fixed Stern directly.

Should he have turned away? Decades later, in the depths of grief, he could pose the question, but he would never damn them both with an affirmative response. He had taken the two tickets from Henry's hand, while answering the assessment of his harmlessness in a murmur. Anyone listening would have thought he had agreed.

As soon as Peter laid eyes on him, Stern could tell that his son was unsettled. It was a familiar look, 1, something not too far from panic, which, in a blink was put aside by the work of adult will. Peter glanced about his reception room seeking to determine who else was present, and then asked quietly, "What's wrong?" Stern had never been to his son's office. While Peter was a resident, Clara and Stern had met him for dinner once or twice in the university hospitalcafeteria. In his green togs, with his stethoscope lumped into a pocket, he seemed vital, smart, remarkably at ease.

Peter's mastery of his place had 'touched Stern; he was happy for his son, who was so often overwrought. But apparently the meetings had not been as comfortable for Peter. In the year and a half he had been in private practice, he had never invited his father to come by.

Clara, certainly, had been here for lunch. But Stern had wandered around the suburban office center today for sometime looking for the place, a smaller HMO, feeling various qualms, certain that at any instant impatience and anxiety would lead him to turn around. They had not.

Unfortunately, there were real needs here, a genuine quandary.

"I require your advice on a matter," Stern told his son.

"Something somewhat delicate."

At a loss, Peter took him back through a warren of garishly painted corridors to a small office, not much bigger than a cubicle. In these surroundings, Peter had largely surrendered to the mundane. His desk was clean, dustless, occupied by only a few odds and ends supplied by the drug companies: an onyx pen set, an oetagonai plastic thing which turned out to be a calendar. There was some grass cloth on one wail, an unimpressive silkscreen; his diplomas were lined up typically along one plaster column, On the top bookshelf, Stern saw the only photograph in the office, a small oval-framed picture of Clara taken a few years ago.

A recent addition, probably. Grown men of Peter's generation did not display their mothers' photos, even that discreetly, while they lived.

"So what is this?" Peter asked. "Are you all right?"

"Generally," said Stern.

"Kate said Claudia told her that you don't show up some mornings."

Stern had no idea his daughter and his secretary spoke. It was touching that they took it upon themselves to communicate about his well-beingmand typical of Peter that their secret would be casually betrayed. Stern had missed the remainder of the day after seeing Radczyk,.and yesterday, Monday, as well. Even today, he had not been certain he could rouse himself. But he had not come here seeking sympathy. He said simply that he was as well as could be expected, and Peter nodded. Amenities passed, his son was not obliged to inquire further.

And would he have answered if Peter had? Stern, pointed by his son to a small upholstered chair, settled in it with a certain morose heaviness.

No, he would not have. Somewhere in Stern's heart there was a perfect Peter, the son whom every man wanted, full of ready unspeaking sympathies, and inclinations in all matters of consequence exactly like his father's. But this figure was no more than a shadow, so removed from every day that he did not even have an imagined form. Stern dealt with the real man as best he could. He respected Peter's abilities; he was bright-always the star student-and meanly Clever. Like the women, Stern was willing to call on Peter when he was in need. But he was unwilling-unable-to yield something in return.

That was the truth. Have it. Peter reacted; Stern sat like a stone. It was all as it would ever be.

"Is it something else with Mom's will?"

"No," said Stern. He could hear the impatience in his voice, but Peter virtually demanded that his father state his business. Here, the dispenser of treatment and knowledge, his son was sovereign. This was clearly an unwelcome invasion.

"There are questions, Peter, which I need to put to someone. I mast your discretion."

"Medical questions, you mean?" As he asked, Peter moved behind his desk, the dashing young doctor, with his centerparted hair and long white coat. Even considering Kate, it was possible that Peter was the best-looking of the children. He appeared to be in peak physical condition, razor-thin and athletic.

"Yes. Medical questions. Technical questions."

"What happened to Nate?"

A reasonable inquiry. Stern himself had spent the weekend phoning Nate, who remained the first choice as medical adviser. But Dr. Cawley's personal life appeared to have rendered him as unreliable as a teenager, and Stern had tired of leaving messages.

"This is a matter with a contemporary flavor, Peter. I presumed that I could bother you. If another time would be preferable-"

Peter waved off the suggestion. "I was just wondering. So what is it?"

Stern felt his mouth drawing, preconsciously. 'Various cycles of discomfort started up in different regions of his body. Yet he was determined to proceed. The fact was he required information, not just to feed a grisly appetite for knowledge, but also because it had dawned on him over the weekend that his own well'being might be in doubt.

There were other physicians he knew. But it was hard to single out just anyone for questions of this nature. And in the end the most villainous side of his character was awakened by his son, especially in regard to his relations with his mother. Rationally, Stern could not brook any real suspicions. Never mind Clara Stern. He had lost, sometime last Friday, any authority to predict her behavior. But no woman of Clara's social class, of her experience or temperamental reserve, no mother could have turned to her son for treatment of a problem of this nature.

But here Stern sat, nonetheless, eager, among other things, to dash any final doubts.

"I wish information."

"For yourself?."

"I am asking the questions."

"I see that."

"Take it that I am inquiring in behalf of someone with a need to know."

Peter, as was generally the case with his father, wore his emotions visibly. He puckered up his mouth sourly to indicate he found this delicacy stupid. Stern, as usual, said no more. He meant simply to follow that tack, suggesting that a troubled client needed these answers. Assunting his son was uninvolved, Stern would never mention Clara-for Peter's sake as well as his own. In prospect, he foresaw this meeting very much like the encounter with a critical witness-one of those daring tightrope walks of courtroom life, exposing the witness's ugliest misconduct without giving the remotest hint that his client had shared in the behavior.

"Peter, does your practice make you familiar with the full variety of-"

What word? "In my day, the phrase was venereal disease, but I believe that is no longer popular terminology."

"Sexually transmitted diseases," said Peter. "Just so," said Stern.

"Which one?"

"Herpes," said Stern. Somehow, as this discussion had begun, 'Peter's aspect had changed. He had reverted to his role as clinician. He sat up straight in his chair, his brow compressed, his expression somber.

Now, with the word, his calculations seemed far more intricate. His hands remained folded with doctorly exactness, but his eyes rolled through changes of color like the sea, so that Stern had the fleeting intuition that his suspicions were well placed, after all. "This is a subject in which you are versed?"

"i'm versed," said Peter. "What's the problem?"

"If one is exposed," said Stern. "Yes," said his son.

"How long before the disease appearS?" :Peter waited.

"Look, Dad. This is not the kind of thing you screw around with. Do you think you have herpes?"

Stern attempted to remain impassive, but within he felt some failing motion-like the fluttering of wings. With his brooding days, his tortured emotions, he had failed to estimate accurately what would transpire here. With Peter staring him down, that was only too obvious now. They knew each other.too well. Peter had recognized, naturally, instantly that his father was the party in interest-and like any doctor, any son, had predictable concerns. If he was shocked, it was only because his mother was barely two months dead and the paterfamilias was here, already asking for a full scouting report on the wages of sin.

The atmosphere of charged discomfort slowly increased between them, while Stern gradually realized that if worst came to worst he would have no choice but to further his son's misimpressions. Meanwhile, he tried once again to steer the conversation onto more neutral ground.

"The facts which concern me, Peter, are basic. A woman is infected. A man is with her. I merely wish to know what the prospects are that he, too, will contract the disease."

"Look, that's too vague," Peter said, and once more considered his father. "Let's talk about a person, okay?

This person. How does he know there's a problem?"

"Assume the proof is positive. She has been tested."

"Tested. I see." Peter stopped for quite some time. "And you're informed?" Peter shook his head. "He's informed?"

"Just so."

"By this woman?" From Peter's tone, it was clear that he envisaged some wanton courtesan.

"As I say, assume an authoritative report."

"Right," said Peter. "And she's active at the time of contact? The virus is shedding?"

"Meaning?"

"Florid signs of the illness. Lesions. Blisters. Ulcers. A rash."

Stern, in spite of himself, recoiled somewhat. He had noticed nothing like that. But by now he had realized it was no accident that he could not recall his last encounters with Clara.

"I am afraid that my information is not that exact, Peter."

"Can you ask?"

"I would think not."

"You would think not?" Peter peered at his father. This imaginary assignation, Stern recognized, was beginning to sound as if it had taken place in an alley. Peter, disquieted, looked down to his folded hands.

"The disease is only communicated by direct skin-to-skin contact with someone who is actively infected, or prodromal-that is, about to begin.

Onset of the infection is two to twenty days from contact. Far more frequently, within the first week. If you get it. Some people are effectively immune. If you're beyond those periods, without symptoms, you're probably all right. Probably," his son repeated.

"I see," said Stern. Peter was watching carefully to see how this news affected him. "And if one is infected, how long does it last?"

"The initial efflorescence is usually three to six weeks at the outside.

But this is one of those viral infections that can come back. I'm sure you've heard that. It's usually seven to ten days on recurrence."

"And how, Peter, does one know if he is infected?"

"Well, the first thing you do is look."

"For what?" asked Stern.

Peter rested his hand on his chin, with his sour expression. At last, he stood up from behind his desk and closed the door. Then he pointed at his father. "Take down your trousers."

"Peter-"

"Fuck this nonsense. Stand up. Let's go." He was far too positive to allow any quarreling. Somehow, Stern was struck, either in irony or longing, by the recollection of the way he had foreseen this meeting, with himself in complete control.

"Peter," he said weakly again. ,,Chop-chop." Peter clapped his hands. He was disinterested and positive. His eyes were already lowered to Stern's belt line.

As a moment, it passed without incident. Body things, as he was learning, had an intense factitiousness about them, an irreducibility.

Peter dropped to one knee and removed a slender flashlight from his pocket. He gave instructions like a dance instructor. Left, right.

Pull this, pull that.

His bedside manner was entirely antiseptic, his look of scrutiny intense and pure.

"Any irritation?"

"No."

"Burning at any time?"

"None."

"Any functional problems of any kind? Urination? Emission?"

Stern decided to forgo remarks about the problems of age.

He answered no.

"Any kind of discharge?"

"None." ':Swelling." ! wish. "No."

Peter touched him once, precisely and momentarily, in the groin, probing his lymph glands.

The examination ended after Stern stood with his organ extended like a fish by the tail, dorsal side facing, and Peter ran his light the length of the limp column and over the scrotum.

"You look clean," he stated and motioned for Stern to.recover himself.

Then he added, "Hold on a sec." He slipped out the door discreetly, then returned with a small :plastic beaker. "I'd like a specimen," he said.

Stern objected. Was this necessary?

"It's a good idea, Pa. There are occasions, rare ones, where patients, particularly males, can contract HSV-2 without the usual symptoms. You could go walking around with an infection in the prostate or urinary tract, and end.up spreading it." Peter looked at him pointedly, then added that he also wanted to draw blood for something called a serum vital titer test, in which his father's present antibody levels could be compared with those in five or six weeks, to ensure there had been no infection.

"Is all this necessary?" Stern asked again.

Peter simply pointed to the small john down' the hall.

Stern went, as directed. He stood in the tiny room, petting his organ for stimulation, experiencing the usual difficulty -of performing on command. Immediately outside the door, two nurses gabbed about a patient.

Was Peter gay? The question, afamiliar One, struck like lightning, timed to arrive, as usual, so that it would inspire maximum discomfort.

Nevertheless, there was no putting off the thought. The young man was thirty years old; and his sisters and mother had always seemed to be the only women in his life. He had never had a live-in girlfriend; indeed, when his parents saw him he rarely, if ever, had a female companion.

That did not mean much. Who willingly exposed an outsider to the neurotic fun house of his family? Nonetheless, Stern, at moments, saw what in an amateurish and bigoted fashion he took for signs: Peter's close attachment to his mother. A certain prissiness. Well, even this speculation was vicious. And, if for no one else, inappropriate from a parent. The fact was-and here at last was the truth with its contained explosive effect, like a charge set off in a strongbox-that the thought always managed to please Stern vaguely. It would be a permanent advantage. It would serve Peter right. Stern, with little consciousness, shook his head while this river of resentment poured forth. Today in this smelly closed space the clarity of his ill feelings was bleakly, unremittingly sad.

Back in Peter's consultation room, his son waited with an elastic strap and a syringe. After the beaker was relegated to a nurse, Peter knelt beside his father and inserted the needle. In the meantime, Stern gathered himself for another question he knew was required.

"I take it this is the kind of matter which ought to be shared with partners?"

When Stern looked back, his son's mouth was parted and his eyes were widened. Unable to master his own pretense, Stern had not thought about the impression this question would make. There was woman number one who had the problem. Now he was speaking of other partners-using the plural. It had been quite a couple of months.

"It would probably be advisable," Peter said at last.

"Overall. If the blood work would be quicker, I'd say that you could save yourself the embarrassment. But five, six weeks." Peter shook his head. "You'd better say something, just in case. Ninety-nine out of a hundred, you're fine. But if something were to show up, you'd want them to know what it is."

"! see." Well, the Lord only knew what Margy had heard in her time, but the thought of informing her still made Stern shudder. He would never explain the true circumstances to her any more than to anyone else. It would appear to her 'to be another example of the bad faith men were always capable of. "And I take it, for the present you recommend abstinence?" he asked almost hopefully. He had resolved over the weekend to revert to ret'nment.

Peter smiled in a quickly fading trace, amused by the thought of his father with a sex life, or, more likely, by the."fact that he had the right to govern it.

"Well, you're not active. And we'll know soon whether or not you're prodromal. If it's subclinical, a sheath is adequate to protect your parmer. All in all, I'd think that's enough. Assuming you're consistent."

"'Yes, of course." Stern fluttered a hand to show that this conversation was purely speculative. Truly, he no longer cared.

Peter withdrew the lavender-topped vial from the syringe.

He shook the blood, eyed it, and went back to his desk to make various notes. While he busied himself, Stern pondered his final inquiry.

"This disease cannot be contracted by accident, can it, Peter?" He could not keep himself from asking, but the question sounded, even to him, lame and pathetic.

'"Is that how you're afraid you got it, PaT' Peter's amusement, when he glanced up, was clearly no longer. guarded.

Not that this remark seemed particularly rancorous. Peter was always waspish, sarcastic. But Stern realized that there was little chance that his daughters would not hear of some of this. Peter's professional confidence could be expected o reach only so far. This tidbit was far too delicious. Details would be sparing, but something telling would be said. Kate, for example, needed some comfort. 'You know how concerned you were because Pa was coming in late in the -morning?" The tittering, at least, would be fondly in-spired-and-far from the real problem.

"I was not thinking of myself."

"Your ladyfriend?"

Stern made a noise of assent. His ladyfriend. Peter took a second, intent on labeling the tube.

"I would love to help you harbor illusions, but the odds are pretty slim. If your friend has been tested, that means a vital culture, and ff it's HSV type 2 that's been identified, then sexual contact is almost certainly the source. You know, the old toilet-seat thingm" Peter didn't finish the sentence. Instead, he simply made a face.

In spite of himself, Stern sighed. He had been prepared for that verdict. Clara Stern, as he had known her, was a woman of attractive bearing and, as she herself was inclined to acknowledge, looks that had improved with age. As adipose and crow's-feet, all the usual corporeal failings, had overcome others, Clara maintained her pleasant eternal look, dignified and composed. Stern had always admired her because at any age she was a far handsomer person than he.

But certain women, married women, mothers prototyp-ically, became too involved with the dense network of their activitiesrathe nurturing, organizing, doing, and attending-to broadcast any ostensible sexual interest. In thtirty-odd years, he could not recall an instant of conscious jealousy, a man whose attentions, for whatever reason, had seemed to excite her. She was a person who defined by her daily conduct what was not wayward. She was on a higher plane than that.

Thus, even days later, Radczyk's news remained unfathomable. It went, somehow, beyond right and wrong. The idea of a fifty-eight-year-old woman,-this fifty-eightyear-old woman, on the eve of grandmaternity-with a sexually transmiRed disease was as horrifying as some freak-show grotesque. Would the antecedent practices erupt only in late middle age? Perhaps he had spent a married lifetime playing the fool. He refused to believe it. It was like the concept of a fourth or fifth dimension. Beyond the capacities of an ordinary mind-or at least of his. Call it machismo or personal limitation, he could not envision his wife, as she clearly had been, with another man.

And it was for this reason that she had done what she had.

In his ravaged state of the last few days-amid the torment, the anger, the reviling and utter disbelief-that fact had not been lost. Her intent had been to spare him.

This was not sentimentality or self-delusntence. Instead, he simply made a face.

In spite of himself, Stern sighed. He had been prepared for that verdict. Clara Stern, as he had known her, was a woman of attractive bearing and, as she herself was inclined to acknowledge, looks that had improved with age. As adipose and crow's-feet, all the usual corporeal failings, had overcome others, Clara maintained her pleasant eternal look, dignified and composed. Stern had always admired her because at any age she was a far handsomer person than he.

But certain women, married women, mothers prototyp-ically, became too involved with the dense network of their activitiesrathe nurturing, organizing, doing, and attending-to broadcast any ostensible sexual interest. In thtirty-odd years, he could not recall an instant of conscious jealousy, a man whose attentions, for whatever reason, had seemed to excite her. She was a person who defined by her daily conduct what was not wayward. She was on a higher plane than that.

Thus, even days later, Radczyk's news remained unfathomable. It went, somehow, beyond right and wrong. The idea of a fifty-eight-year-old woman,-this fifty-eightyear-old woman, on the eve of grandmaternity-with a sexually transmiRed disease was as horrifying as some freak-show grotesque. Would the antecedent practices erupt only in late middle age? Perhaps he had spent a married lifetime playing the fool. He refused to believe it. It was like the concept of a fourth or fifth dimension. Beyond the capacities of an ordinary mind-or at least of his. Call it machismo or personal limitation, he could not envision his wife, as she clearly had been, with another man.

And it was for this reason that she had done what she had.

In his ravaged state of the last few days-amid the torment, the anger, the reviling and utter disbelief-that fact had not been lost. Her intent had been to spare him.

This was not sentimentality or self-delusion. After all the calculations, the conclusion remained the same. There was a lapse here, a monumental breach of faith which in life, perhaps, she might never have lived to see him forgive. She had saved herself great pain as well. But in the end her kindness, her fundamental kindness, remained her lodestar, her guiding light.

Oh, Clara! On the chair, With his sleeve rolled and his bled ann still vaguely atingle, Stern teetered for an instant on the verge of tears.

With that, his life, what was left of it, the many small illusions, would disappear.

Peter would have to be told, or might even guess. He saw that and, in the sluices of powerful remorse, for a moment did not care. Then his pride, with the grinding precision of a huge laboring machine, engaged once more and brought him fully about. He rolled down his sleeve over the gauze Peter had taped inside his elbow.

"And if this illness were to appear," Stern asked, "there is no treatment?"

"There' a drug called acyclovir. Ointment or pills. It's very successful in reducing the active period, and in many people it even prevents recurrence. Generally, the disease retreats into the nerve ganglia and waits to rear its ugly little head. Sometimes it never does. Sometimes it returns every few months, in ever-weakening episodes. That's the usual course. But there are all kinds of extraordinary clinical histories. Acute cases. Florid recurrences years apart. The most,difficult part of it is prodromal-you're in a contagious phase for a day or two before the visual signs appear, and short of a culture, you can never be completely certain that you won't infect someone else. It can mess up your life pretty well. In addition to being extremely uncomfortable."

"Yes," said Stern. His mind remained on Clara. All told, the weight of events seemed again to have settled on him with all their dead-star density. The facts, the facts. He had always placed his faith in particulars. Well, now he had them, lots of them. Many facts and, he supposed, certain inevitable conclusions.

He stood up and, without allowing time for reaction, touched his son's smooth face. "You are a good doctor, Peter. I appreciate your concem.

' '

Wise and sad, Peter nodded. His eyes did not leave his father. His son seemed to have a gift, a sense for the human nuance, the pathos that trailed along with each disease, mortality's dismal gossamer.Stern was pleased to find him so worldly. In their relationship, there was rarely anything subtle.

"Look, I'm sure you're okay," Peter said. "We'll just watch it. All right?"

"Very good," said Stern. He tossed on his suit coat. "I am grateful.

And sorry, Peter, to have involved you in such a disagreeable business."

"Oh, hell," said Peter. "You know what they say."

"What is that?" asked Stern. He was at the door.

"Life is full of surprises." His son was smiling. No doubt, he was thinking already about telling his sisters.

DIXON, predictably, enjoyed competition and for years had utilized every excuse to lure Stern into joining him in various sports. As Stern was apt to say, a business meeting with Dixon generally meant he would sweat. When Stern was younger, and considerably thinner, they had played handball at Dixon's downtown club. Stern was more nimble than his appearance might suggest, but he was no match for his brother-in-law. Larger, stronger, and far more athletic, Dixon never seemed to tire of winning. In season, he would bring Stern out on Lake Fowler to fish. Stern would foul his line and cast into the hushes and lily pads; back on shore, Dixon would describe Stern's ineptness to everyone they met. 'The only man who ever went fishing and nearly took a bird. I kid you not. Cardinal up in a tree? Stern missed hooking him by inches." Stern often told Clara that he was the trophy Dixon wanted stuffed and mounted.

By now, Stern had limited this rivalry to golf. Stern had more feel for this game; he was better on land than sea.

But, as usual, he did not play often enough to offer any serious competition for Dixon, who was virtually a scratch golfer. Dixon was a daring trouble player; he loved the shots where he had to rest one foot in the crotch of a tree or fade the ball around a light pole, and he was particularly reckless here on his home course. The Greenwood Country Club was cut a century before into these rolling hills, nearly forty miles from the city. This was horse country, with hills deep in elm and oak, poplar and pine. Easton University was no more than ten minues away.

Here, with Lake Fowler, the well-to-do breathed cooler air and pretended that the city that kept them rich was nowhere near. Dixon adored this life, like every other badge of status, and had his principal home nearby, a huge stone house which sat on twenty acres on the lakeshore.

They played from an elecc cart, accompanied by a forecaddy.

Dixon usually had one or two favorites, high-school-age boys, hardscrabble types with whom Dixon could josh about their sex lives, offering them his golfing theories after each successful shot. DiXon treated these boys kindly and tipped them shamefully well. Today they were accompanied by a'young man named Ralph Peters, a black kid who lived in DuSable and traveled nearly an hour and a half by train to reach the Greenwood Club on the weekends. Next year, Dixon was going to get a golf scholarship for Ralph, who was the caddy champion. With Dixon, this was not just talk. If need be, he would endow the scholarship himself. But he would also expect a chorus of appreciation and various acts of reverence befitting a beneficent king.

Stern waited until the third tee to talk about the investigation.

"I visited with Margy."

"So I heard," said Dixon. He was practicing his swing, but Stern thought he detected something whimsical in Dixon's expression. On the other hand, he could not doubt Margy's discrefon.

This hole, like most at Greenwood, was short and narrow, a little dogleg cut into the woods, about 330 yards. The green was set to the right of the fairway, so that the hole, sketched on the back of the scorecard, looked like a lowercase p. Dixon waggled his driver mightily over the ball, then pulled his shot deeply into the trees.

"Shit. Well, Ralph will find it. There." He pointed the driver toward the hollow below where Ralph.had emerged from the woods to indicate that the ball had been located.

Stern took the ground on his drive, but the ball hopped down the fairway. With the angle, Dixon would be away. He floored the cart and they zoomed down the hill together.

Stern, wearing a tam, held it and yelled a bit over the wind.

"I looked at the records the government wanted, before turning them over. And I also examined what I presume the agents assembled at Datatech."

"And?"

"And I am concerned."

Dixon glanced back, very briefly. He drove the cart up to Ralph.

"Right there, Mr. Hartnell. You better punch out." Dixon tromped in and out of the bushes. Stern could not see the lie, but had no urge to follow. He'd seen it before: Dixon making faces, muttering, conferring with Ralph with the gravity of a general.

"I'm going for broke," Dixon yelled.

What else was new? Ralph could be heard quarreling. He was telling Dixon he could never do it. The sun gleamed through the foliage behind the two figures.

The shot, bedded on dried leaves and twigs, sounded cleanly, but a second or two on in its course took a tree with the round musical sound of marimbas. The ball rattled around in the wooded heights, breaking branches, then suddenly fell heavily to earth, like a gift from heaven, only twenty or thirty yards from the green. Dixon came crashing out of the bushes in time to see the ball drop. He turned back to Stern with a magnificent smile.

"Member's bounce."

Ralph followed along, carrying the club and shaking his head.

Watching Dixon march across the fairway toward the cart as he continued congratulating himself, Stern was taken by an intimation, soft as a whisper, of the young soldier he had met decades ago, during basic training in the desert at Fort Grambel. They had encountered one another some-how-in the barracks or the latrines. At this point Stern would have preferred some auspicious recollection of their meeting, but he remembered little, only the predictable bad judgment of youth. He had liked Dixon; worse, he had admired him. Dixon was one of those large commanding figures that Stern could never be-a shrewd country boy, a good talker with a disflnct, twangy hill accent, who looked like a mallion in his uniform, square-shouldered and jutjawed, with wavy dark blond hair. With the advent of war and the death of his mother, Dixon, full of red-hot ambition, had joined up. The service, with its grand traditions, its medals, its legends, was like a cast for an ingot. Dixon saw himself as an American hero in the making.

Stern had enlisted, too, but with ambitions less grand.

When he was honorably discharged, he would automatically become a citizen and thus put to rest the family's perpetual concerns about their outdated visas. He was twenty years old and already a college graduate, having raced through school, a dark sunken-cheeked sort with heavy black hair, much slimmer than today's model. He had done better in the-service than those who knew him now might expect; he had sealed the walls and carried the packs without relish, but he was dull to discomfort of most kinds in those days. His hungers inspired him.

Stern was never certain what there was about him that had drawn Dixon's interest-probably the fact that Stern was college-educated and quickly marked for OCS. It mattered not. The alliances of a soldier's life were easily founded, and in 1953 a hillbilly, or a Jew with a Latin accent, picked from limited entrees on the American social smorgasbord.

There was a night when he and Dixon had sat on a bunk, passing back and forth a smuggled bottle of-Jack Daniel's and a pack of Camels, talking.

About what? The future, Stern believed. They both had plans.

For Stern, the future was nearer than he imagined. One day, at the end of basic training, as he was readying to ship out for Officer Candidate School, his major announced that Stern was required at home. The officer did not explain, but the orders Stern was handed had a typical military brusqueness. In a blank was written, "Hardship furlough -mother critical."? She had had a stroke. In the hospital, he found her paralyzed and unable to speak. Her dark roaming eyes seemed to search his face meaningfully, but he was never certain that she recognized him. She was dead within a week, and Stern, now Silvia's sole support, was honorably discharged. He never returned to Fort Grambel.

All of it was left behind, his kit and duffel bag, the sadistic sergeants, OCS-and Dixon Hartnell. By now, over thirty years later, Dixon had as many faces to Stern as a totem pole-Silvia's husband, an important client, a local powerhouse in the avenues of commerce, one of the few men Stern knew well whose accomplishments he thought of as markedly overshadowing his own. He seldom remembered that yearning young man who had attached himself to him in that vaguely supplicating fashion.

Dixon hopped back in the cart, still radiant at his miracle shot. He would never willingly return to the subject of the investigation. Like someone who learned in his sleep, however, he expected Stern to force him to listen. They were at the stage now where Dixon-any client-had to recognize he was in mounting jeopardy.

"Dixon, this is a grave matter. These records are very damaging,"

"Maybe I should have taken a look at them before you turned them over," said Dixon. "Some of the problems might have disappeared." He smiled tersely.

"Dixon, I suggest you abandon such thoughts. If you follow that course, you may as well walk straight to the penitentiary and skip the intervening steps. Too many people have seen your business records. The company that put them on microfiche. Margy. Me." Stern let that sink in.

"Not to mention the chatty fellow who told the government to look for them in the first place."

Dixon looked at Stern directly, full face. His eyes were greenish, gray, a color hard to name.

"My thing get there?" Dixon asked. Eventually, Stern realized he was referring to the safe. He decided not to ask why the present discussion brought it to mind.

"Quite secure," Stern answered.

"I did it the way you said. Handled it myself. I even got Margy to cut a check in Chicago to pay the trucking company." The trucker, characteristically, had refused to take the safe any farther than the very center of Stern's office. Not much more than a foot square, the gunmetal cube must have weighed 150 pounds. After a week, Stern and Claudia had struggled to get the safe as far as it'was now, behind his desk. Out of an arch impulse, Stern had begun using it as a footrest.

"Where's my key, by the way? You said you'd send one."

"Shortly," Said Stern. He would have to remind Claudia, in as much as Dixon remained intent on keeping the contents to himself. The dial of chrome and steel on the safe looked as if it could withstand a dynamite charge. At odd moments, Stern had examined it already. Dixon, meanwhile, had floored the cart, racing toward Stern's ball. Stern held his hat again and yelled over the wind, "I warn you, this situation is perilous."

"You've said that about other situations."

"And I was correct. You were fortunate."

"So I'll be fortunate again." Near Stern's ball, they came abruptly to a halt. "Can't you do something, file something? Make some kind of motion?"

"There are no credible motions to make for the time being, Dixon. Judge Winchell will not put up with delaying tactics. It would be unwise to irritate her, as we may need her patience later."

Dixon dismounted from the cart and lit a cigarette, his back to Stern as he suddenly took to studying the woods.

Stern went on, notwithstanding.

"Dixon, your records give clear indication that someone at MD was trading ahead of your largest customer orders."

Dixon pivoted. With his chin lowered, he looked like a glowering fighter on a magazine cover, the whites of his eyes showing large and luminous with a smoldering shrewd anger. He never enjoyed being found out, one of many reasons that Stern had avoided any further mention of Margy.

"No kidding," said Dixon.

"Indeed, I am not," said Stern. "It was very cleverly done.

Smaller orders were placed on the Kindle Exchange just before you went into the Chicago markets with large orders that would affect prices everywhere. And these Kin-die orders were always written with botched account numbers, so that, after clearing, they would end up being credited in the house error account. Countervailing buys and sells, leaving a profit just a few pennies shy of $600,000. It was a brilliant scheme."

"Six hundred thousand," said Dixon. He pointed to the ball.

"Your shot."

Ralph was behind the cart a respectful distance with Stern's five iron.

Stern's drive had traveled downhill, but it had trailed to the right of the fairway-the wrong place to be on this hole-so that Stern 'was required to play left. He sliced naturally and positioned himself at an angle to the hole.

Dixon credited misfortune to various deities, like wood elves. Losses on the trading floor belonged to the bean god. Here he paid homage to the god of balls.

"Ball god!" screamed Dixon as Stern's shot tore off for the deepest woods. Ralph turned to watch it go, like an outfielder pining after a homer.

Stern took another from his pocket and hit his shot cleanly. The ball faded, not quite sufficiently, toward an area left of the green, hit the uneven ground there, and kicked, as if drawn magnetically, into a sand trap.

"Beach," said Dixon, in case Stern had not noticed. They parked the cart in the left rough while Ralph crashed around in the woods, making a hopeless search for Stern's ball.

"So what happens?" asked Dixon. "With this thing? They want the money back, right?" 'That is merely the starting point, Dixon. If the prosecutors employ the RICO statute, as I expect, the government will attempt to forfeit the racketeering enterprise-you understand: take it from you as punishment."

"What's the mcketeering enterprise.,MD,"

"The whole fucking business?"

"Potentially. Not to mention a term in the penitentiary."

"Oh, sure," said Dixon, jumping down from the cart again for his shot,

"you couldn't expect them to go easy."

Dixon's bravery was admirable. Stern had actually been,asked twice in his career by other clients facing the rigors of forfeiture about the legal consequence of suicide: could 'the government still grab their dough if they were dead? Stern avoided answering, fearing the consequences of a truthful response, since all phases of a criminal prosecution were, in fact, terminated by death.

With Dixon, of course, there was no risk of selfdestruction. He probably could not conceive of a world he did not inhabit. But Stern knew nonetheless that he had struck a nerve. To threaten Dixon's business.was to toy with the obsession of a lifetime. He had begun th'my-some years ago, driving all over the Middle West in search of clients, soliciting the small-town,businessmen whose /velihoods depended on farm prices -the merchants, the feed-lot owners, the rural banks which could use commodity futures to hedge their loan portfolios.

Dixon's strategy, he explained to Stern later, was to sign up the fire chief.

The firemen were volunteers, fought flame and death together; the fire chief was the captain of their souls. If he liked something, all would.

No trick was too low for Dixon. He carried a fireman's helmet in his think.

Now he flew between the coasts, doing deals, but his first.love remained sitting in the office, plotting strategies for the managed accounts, the commodities pools, the large customer Orders. He made money and lost it with every tick, in each future, but Dixon never lost his interest in the game, a mixture of street savvy and balls poker..Three or four times a year, he would grab his dark jacket and badge and go to the floorSfor part of the day. Even in the chaos of the trading floor, the news would go out that he was there. He stepped into the tiered levels of the pits, shaking hands and tossing greetings like Frank Sinatra onstage, commanding the same reverence, or, in some quarters, subverted 1oathifig. Dixon did not care. Stern had been in the Kindle office one day when Dixon had lost $40,000 in less than half an hour and he was still exhilarated by the tumult of the floor, the jumping and shouting of the trading crowd, what he took as an essential moment in life.

Dixon lofted his ball between the extended foliage of two tree boughs.

The ball did not bite well and rar about twelve feet past the cup.

"Tough par," said Dixon, thinking of his putt:'

Ralph stood at the edge of the sand trap like a well-armed soldier, Stern's sand wedge in one hand and the rake in the other. Stern trod down dutifully into the pit, then bedded himself in, dog-like, shaking his fanny. These shots, hit an inch behind the ball, were all acts of faith. Stern thought of fluid motion, then swung. Amid an aura of sand, the ball rose from the bunker. It traveled almost sideways when it hit the green, but it camertfolios. Dixon's strategy, he explained to Stern later, was to sign up the fire chief.

The firemen were volunteers, fought flame and death together; the fire chief was the captain of their souls. If he liked something, all would.

No trick was too low for Dixon. He carried a fireman's helmet in his think.

Now he flew between the coasts, doing deals, but his first.love remained sitting in the office, plotting strategies for the managed accounts, the commodities pools, the large customer Orders. He made money and lost it with every tick, in each future, but Dixon never lost his interest in the game, a mixture of street savvy and balls poker..Three or four times a year, he would grab his dark jacket and badge and go to the floorSfor part of the day. Even in the chaos of the trading floor, the news would go out that he was there. He stepped into the tiered levels of the pits, shaking hands and tossing greetings like Frank Sinatra onstage, commanding the same reverence, or, in some quarters, subverted 1oathifig. Dixon did not care. Stern had been in the Kindle office one day when Dixon had lost $40,000 in less than half an hour and he was still exhilarated by the tumult of the floor, the jumping and shouting of the trading crowd, what he took as an essential moment in life.

Dixon lofted his ball between the extended foliage of two tree boughs.

The ball did not bite well and rar about twelve feet past the cup.

"Tough par," said Dixon, thinking of his putt:'

Ralph stood at the edge of the sand trap like a well-armed soldier, Stern's sand wedge in one hand and the rake in the other. Stern trod down dutifully into the pit, then bedded himself in, dog-like, shaking his fanny. These shots, hit an inch behind the ball, were all acts of faith. Stern thought of fluid motion, then swung. Amid an aura of sand, the ball rose from the bunker. It traveled almost sideways when it hit the green, but it came to rest within two yards of the flag.

"Making it hard on me," Dixon said. Stern had a stroke on each hole.

Ralph handed them their putters, then drove the cart off toward the next tee.

"They have to prove it's me, don't they?" Dixon asked as the two men stood on the green. "All this crap, taking the business-they don't take my business away because somebody else did this without me knowing.

Right?"

"Correct," said Stern. He moved his putter near his shoes.

"If that is what occurred."

"Look, Stern, everybody in the place puts on trades that end up in the error account. There are a hundred, hundred fifty trades a month that go through there." This was the point which Margy had seized on. "Maybe somebody's trying to screw me, make me look like a bad guy."

"I see," said Stern. "The govemmeut, Dixon, not to mention a jury, is rarely persuaded that an employee is willing to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars and then give it to his employer out of spite." 'Me?"

"It is your account, Dixon."

"Oh, bullshit, it's the house account."

"It is your house, Dixon. And it is logical to attribute all of this to you, if the money remains in the account." Dixon suddenly showed a quick, scornful smile.

"Is that what they think?" he asked. He tossed away his cigarette and removed a piece of tobacco from his tongue, while he fixed Stern with a dry look. The message was plain: I am not that dumb. Apparently, Dixun had exercised more care than Margy had made out. There was another layer of involvement in Dixon's scheme, one that somehow isolated the error account and the unlawful profits. A flash of something, say a smile, passed between the two men before they moved off on either side of the flag.

Dixon putted first, and swore freely as the ball danced around the cup.

Stern, with a short putt to halve the whole, shocked himself by making it.

"Goddamn it," said Dixon, not for the first time. They moved onto the next tee and sat on a bench under a tree, holding their drivers, while the foursome ahead approached their second shots. The fairway was long, gleaming under the sun on the par-five hole. There were ten traps-Stern called this hole 'the march across the desert." Idling there, he briefly reconsidered the govemment's scrutiny of Dixon's bank account. Perhaps that had to do with the devices Dixon had used to conceal the money. In all likelihood. They were still. looking.

"There is another problem," Stern said. "Naturally," his brother-in-law responded. Stern told him that John had been subpoenaed. "Meaning -what?"

"They want to ask him questions about this matter."

"So?

He's a good kid. Let them ask questions."

"They are suggesting that they may grant him immunity."

Dixon squinted and studied Stern.

"What are you telling me?"

"I'm telling you that they believe he has critical knowledge. They are interested in making him a witness against you."

"And what am I supposed to say?"

"Is that prospect of concern to you?"

Dixon, perpetually cryptic, made a face-a philosopher could not have done better. Who knows what about whom? "It might be."

"I see." Stern briefly looked away. But he had known this was coming.

The tickets from the orders that had been entered in Kindle ahead of the large Chicago trades had reached his office yesterday, and John's awkward scrawl, even his initials sometimes, were on each form. The prosecutors' hopes for John were obvious: they wanted him to finger Dixon as the man who'd called.the Kindle orders in each time. But it was not clear yet that John could oblige. He took hundreds of orders a day. The possibility remained that Dixon had used John regularly because he was as un-impressionable as a stone, the man on the desk most likely to forget, and that there had been nothing memorable or overt in their dealings that would ignite John's recollections now. There was no point in asking Dixon. He could not say what John remembered, and would never answer precisely, in any event.

"Then we had best find him another lawyer," Stern said at last.

"If you think so."

"I do. I cannot represent someone whose best interests may lie in testifying against you. How could I be loyal to John and loyal to you?

It would be a hopeless conflict of interests."

For an instant the bleak morass of family difficulties, framed in this way, confronted both men. Even Dixon, Stern thought, had a mildly sheepish look.

"Who will you get for him?"

"The choice is John's. I will suggest some names. Lawyers I am familiar with." Lawyers who would talk to Stern, who would do their best to moderate the danger of John's testimony. This was very delicate.

Stern, in spite of everything, smiled at his next thought. "Your employees' manual provides that he will be indemnified for his legal fees."

Dixon rolled his eyes. "Great."

The momentary humor, however, seemed to do nothing to allay the heavy mood between them.

"Look," said Dixon, He was about to explain, but he caught something in Stern's look that stopped him. Suddenly it was obvious to them both how harshly Stern judged him for leading John into this swamp. Dixon endured this reproof another instant before turning away.

Ralph, by the cart, mentioned that they could hit. Dixon strode to the tee, swung mightily, and hooked his shot miserably, deep into the trees.

He walked across the tee, outraged, slamming his club head repeatedly into the sod, and finally flung the wood away.

Stern was standing when he returned.

"Do you have something to say?" Dixon demanded.

There was no pretense he might have been referring to his shot.

"My fee does not include lectures, Dixon."

"You think it was a stupid-ass thing to do, right? The whole fucking idea. Dumb, as bad as anything else. And you'd expect me at least to be smarter."

Stern waited.

"Just so," he answered.

With his driver, he began walking forward on the tee, but Dixon caught his hand with his gloved hand before his brother-in-law could pass. He suddenly seemed too put out for courtesies. He presented his natural self, large, rough, expansive. Since Stern had known it all along, he admitted his nasty secret-in spite of his expensive haircut and Sea Island cotton shirts, Dixon was a vulgarJan. He pointed.

"Stern, do you know why a dog licks his balls?" Stern: considered that a moment. "No, Dixon, I do not."

"Because he can," said Dixon, and looked at his brother-inlaw squarely.

Before he headed toward the cart, alone, he repeated it. "Because he can."

SOMEONE had once observed that when a man was wearing a hat it is harder to tell his troubles. Stern found surprising accuracy in this peculiar commonplace. Under a bright straw boater, with a brilliant red, white, and blue band, he proceeded down the avenues toward the River National Bank, where he would meet with Cal Hopkinson and the officer in charge of Clara's trust' accounts. The day was bright, the perfect sweet late May you expected in Kindle County.

The hat was Marta's-from a high-school play a decade ago.

Stern had found it in her room, and during one of the lengthy long-distance conversations they had recently been having late at night, she had urged him to wear it, hoping it might improve his mood. He was certain he would feel like a clown as soon as he set foot outside the house.

Instead, it proved oddly heating to think that people who knew him well might not recognize him, could believe he was someone else.

Across the marble lobby of River National, Cai Hopkin-son waved.

Together, he and Stern found the office of the bank vice president, Jack Wagoner. Wagoner was your usual inoffensive gentleman in banking, immaculately groomed and well mannered. Henry Mittler, long ago, had permanently damaged all bankers in Stern's estimate with his grudging private opinions of the baing clients who had made him rich.

Whatever disparaging bromide Henry might have employed about Jack, he was smart enough to know there was a problem. His mission was to explain to a man what his wife had done, without his knowledge, with most of a million dollars. Furthermore, the man was a lawyer. A suicide was involved. A will was in question. Bad medicine for a banker, or anyone else. The air in Wagoner's office full of antique reproductions and a good Oriental rug was decidedly uneasy. A single file folder lay in the center of Wagoner's otherwise immaculate desk.

"Mrs. Stern issued written instructions to dissolve at least $850,000 in assets in her investment account on March 20th." With that, Wagoner produced a handwritten letter on Clara's stationery. Cal and Stern looked it over together on the corner of Wagoner's desk, then Stern took up the document himself. The hand was strong and clear. She wrote a one-sentence direction, setting forth the amount and granting the bank the discretion to liquidate those securities it deemed best. Holding the note, he recalled the other piece of correspondence Clara had set herself to a few days after. Many messages left behind, but no long explanatiops. Stern, without thinking, briefly worried his head.

"May I ask who dealt with her?"

Wagoner knew all the answers. His assistant, Betty Fiori, had received Mrs. Stern's call and told her that written instructions were necessary with an amount of that size.

"And what then became of those funds?" asked Stern.

"They were disbursed," said Jack, "pursuant to Mrs. Stern's directions."

"How?" asked Cal.

"By certified check drawn against her investment account."

Wagoner had obviously spoken to his lawyer and was answering only as questions were asked. He now presented a white slip by which Clara had requested certification; she had wanted to reassure someone that her check would be good. Stern recognized her signature on the form, but the amount, a little over $850,000, was written in another hand.

"Whose writing?" he asked, pointing.

"Betty's."

"And to whom," asked Stern, "was' this check made payable?"

"We looked for the canceled check." He pushed a button on his telephone console and asked that Ms. Fiofi be summoned.

She appeared at once, another person in a dark blue suit.

She recited the steps she had taken to find the wayward check. Their own check-reconciliation department had searched; their bank; the Fed.

The trust officers, who normally received the canceled checks and statements on this account, had looked high and low. It was this tracing process, clearly, which had gone on while the bank had been holding Cal at bay.

"I'm positive it hasn't cleared," Ms. Fiofi said. "Can we stop it?" asked Cal.

"Stop?" asked Wagoner. "It's a certified check. We've guaranteed payment."

"It hasn't been presented."

"How could we stop it?" asked Wagoner.

"It's stale, isn't it?"

Stern spoke up. The question he had asked before had not yet been answered.

"To whom was this check made payable?"

Ms. Fiofi looked to Wagoner.

"We don't ordinarily make a record of that," he said. "We have no reason to."

"You do not know?" Stern spoke to Ms. Fiofi. Wagoner might never answer directly.

"We don't know," she said. "Usually, you have the returned check.

Sometimes we'll put a note on the requisition. It wasn't made payable to Mrs. Stern, if it helps. I remember that."

"You do?" asked Stern. "Yes."

"Clearly?"

He was in the mode of cross-examination now. Familiar ground.

Something, he suspected, had made an impression on her.

"There is a particular reason you recall?" She shrugged.

"Not really."

"You remember the name?"

"I don't, Mr. Stern. I've racked my brain."

"But it was not an entity? A corporation? Partnership?"

"No, I'm sure of that."

"Not a charity or a foundation?"

"No."

"An individual?"

"I believe so."

"I see," said Stern. He knew the rest. It was obvious now why she remembered. "A man's name," said Stern finally.

Ms. Fiori, involuntarily, allowed her teeth to close a bit against her upper lip.

"Yes," she said.

Yes, thought Stern. Of course.

For a moment no one in the room spoke.

"So some fellow is walking around with my wife's check for $850,000 in his pocket?"

It was absurd, of course, but the humiliation was unbearable. It raced through him, like acrid fumes, and seemed to rome its way to his eyes. He knew he was flushed. Cal at last said something.

"Jack, there has to be a way to stop that check."

"Cal, it's certified. We'd be buying ourselves a lawsuit for wrongful dishonor. We don't know what kind of transaction was involved here."

Wagoner, provoked by Cal, glanced as an afterthought at Stern. He had been indelicate. "I promise you this much. We'll let you know when the check is presented. If you want to get an injunction at that point, God bless you."

Stern was already on his feet. He spoke to Wagoner and Ms. Fiori, thanking them for their assistance, told Cal he would be in touch, then left the office. He was-againm reeling.

Outside the bank's revolving doors, he placed Marta's skimmer on his head and watched as the wind took the hat away and bounced it down the pavement, weaving among the pedestrians. When he turned, Cal was beside him, watching it go.

'TI1 chase it," Cal said, but did not move.

Stern gestured that he ought not bother. They walked in the direedon of the hat without speaking.

'TII bet," said Cal at last, "when everything is said and done, we'll still have a chance to unwind that transaction.

She couldn't have had the slightest idea of the tax implications of what she was doing."

Stern barely contained himself. What a numskull Cal was, always congratulating himself at length because he was not even dumber. Who gave a damn about the money? Here at last, three decades along, Clara had found the way to curtail his interest in her wealth. When he turned back, Stern found his eyes fastening on the dark spot behind Cal's ear.

"I am not concerned, Cal. Whatever it was, shah be." He caught sight of the banner on his hat; it was resting against a mesh trash bin a hundred yards away.

He took a step in that direction, and then stood still while that ugly interrogatory suddenly burned through him: Who? Oh yes, it was time for that again. Who was it? In the first few days, Stern with considerable discipline, and an aversion to pain, had refused to lower himself to this debased parlor game. But eventually the outrage boiled up in him and he could not suppress his dismal curiosity. It would have been more noble to be able to claim that it was vengeance for Clara's sake he was after-to find and punish the heartless scoundrel who'd inflicted what became a mortal disease. But his needs were more basic, and entirely his own. Whether or not it was a lurid interest, he simply had to fill in the picture.

In these moods, he suspected virtually every man who came into his view.

Was it the mailman or, as in some filthy story, a salesman trayeYing door-to-door? Today he'd learned that it was someone who needed money-perhaps an impoverished student of hers whom she had fallen for and sought to mother; or a straggling musician in a garret who wanted a permanent endowment? Perhaps a young man starting out in business. Or an older, married fellow who needed cash to finance his divorce?

Once or twice, at home, he'd picked up Clara's leathercovered address book and had gone through it page by page, weighing prospects with every male's name, no matter how anlikely. Any man would do. How about Cal?

Perhaps his surprise at the money's disappearance was only an elaborate act. With a lover's gratitude, Clara had made a gift of what Cal had long superintended. But Ms. Fiori surely could not have failed to recall Cai's name with him seated right there. Perhaps it was Dixon. Of course, Clara's distaste for him seemed so sincere, and Dixon with his plasticcoated penis was, by Peter's evidence, not likely to be spreading--or contracting any such disease. Nor had Dixon the need for anybody else's money. How about Nate CawIcy?

He had the sex life of a chimpanzee. Perhaps all hisslmlking about was a reflection of guilt. Or the pompous rabbi at the temple? He certainly was an object of Clara's esteem and generosity.

Abjectly, unwillingly, Stern on the street corner placed his hand across his heart. Cal was down the avenue waving Stern's hat to show it had been safely recovered. Stern studied the throng of suited men striding the street. Who? he thought, seething with hatred, weakened by shame. Who?

In MD's offices in the Kindle County Futures Exchange, Stern asked the receptionist for John Oranurn and took a seat. Dixon had a showpiece office a few blocks south of here, a place with exposed brick walls and banners and baffles used for sound deadening that was often pictured in architectural magazines; that was the site of MD's local trading room and central executive offices. But the order desk and back office remained here in a bright, functionallooking space in the KCFE.

After a few moments AI Oreco, Dixon's number-two person in Kindle, affable, half bald, too fat, greeted him. Dreading this 'meeting, Stern had put it off much longer than he should have. Finally, this morning he had left a message that he was coming, but John apparently had been needed on the floor. They would have to go get him. From his desk drawer, AI grabbed his red plastic trading badge, engraved with his initials and MD's clearing number, and pulled his navy-blue ttoor jacket off a hook. Downstairs, at a security desk, Stern was signed onto the floor for fifteen minutes. Two years ago, a fellow in a wig had placed dozens of trades and disappeared without settling the losing transactions. Now, if Stern exceeded his granted time by more than a minute, a cadre of security officers would spill across the floor and pull him out as unceremoniously as a spy.

This was an exciting place. On the Exchange floor, the profusion of color and the volume were exceptional. It was like being on the playing field in a thronged athletic stadium. The huge black tote boards thirty feet overhead flashed in optic shades of orange, red, green, and yellow as their digits fell, while a red band of local and national news raced by below. Young people-runners, traders, order clerks-dashed about in their colored coats and corduroys, each looking purposeful, hyped-up, singleminded. The floor was confettied with discarded orders. In the meantime, in the tiered trading pits, the fundamental business went on, the brokers, the locals, the top stair men, forty and fifty deep, buying and selling in a screaming melee of surging hands. Fingers up and out; beckoning or refusing. From their black wrought-iron observation posts, the pit reporters overhead copied down each fill. For all the electronic circuitry, the phones and faxes and computers that took information to and from this place, at the junction point one still depended on physical skills: visual acuity, strong lungs, and good ears.

The din, the fierce voices, rang out incredibly. At the windows three stories above, various gawkers stood with' their faces pressed to the glass.

In this world, greed had annealed with some kind of benighted manliness, so that there was at times'an atmosphere of savagery. Young men-too many of them Jewish for Stern's comfort-moved about with astonishing swagger.

Twenty-eight years old, thirty. Kids who had barely schook. Downstairs, at a security desk, Stern was signed onto the floor for fifteen minutes.

Two years ago, a fellow in a wig had placed dozens of trades and disappeared without settling the losing transactions. Now, if Stern exceeded his granted time by more than a minute, a cadre of security officers would spill across the floor and pull him out as unceremoniously as a spy.

This was an exciting place. On the Exchange floor, the profusion of color and the volume were exceptional. It was like being on the playing field in a thronged athletic stadium. The huge black tote boards thirty feet overhead flashed in optic shades of orange, red, green, and yellow as their digits fell, while a red band of local and national news raced by below. Young people-runners, traders, order clerks-dashed about in their colored coats and corduroys, each looking purposeful, hyped-up, singleminded. The floor was confettied with discarded orders. In the meantime, in the tiered trading pits, the fundamental business went on, the brokers, the locals, the top stair men, forty and fifty deep, buying and selling in a screaming melee of surging hands. Fingers up and out; beckoning or refusing. From their black wrought-iron observation posts, the pit reporters overhead copied down each fill. For all the electronic circuitry, the phones and faxes and computers that took information to and from this place, at the junction point one still depended on physical skills: visual acuity, strong lungs, and good ears.

The din, the fierce voices, rang out incredibly. At the windows three stories above, various gawkers stood with' their faces pressed to the glass.

In this world, greed had annealed with some kind of benighted manliness, so that there was at times'an atmosphere of savagery. Young men-too many of them Jewish for Stern's comfort-moved about with astonishing swagger.

Twenty-eight years old, thirty. Kids who had barely scraped their way through high school had bought seats on the Exchange and traded for their own accounts, often making millions. Others would lose their shirts or trade away an accumulated fortune in a matter of days. It made no difference. Those who went into the pits wore the macho pride of bullfighters. Like cavemen they lived on the unpredidictable whims of wind and rain, markets, seasons.

This, they believed, made them tough. The risk made them high. Stern had heard stories, amusing if not true, of handjobs delivered in the jostling trading pits by certain female clerks. erity was not the point of these tales.

They emphasized the exhilarated air that many believed they breathed here. 'They had it better than ordinary dripspmoney, the blood of life, was always passing through their hands in staggering amounts. Once, years ago, when Dixon was still often on the floor, Stern had met him for lunch and found him conletting with four younger colleagues, all traders.

'I got this one,' a man'had said, moving in front of one of the elevators.

'For what?" a second asked.

'A bill." 'A big bill?"

"Right."

Dixon laughed and dug through his pockets. He stepped before the second elevator.

Eventually, the five of them passed the stakes down to Stern. A thousand dollars a man. In cash. They were betting on which elevator would come first.

A1, a dozen feet ahead of Stern on the floor, pointed to John in the MD trading booth, a narrow gray counter space that looked like a hotel newsstand. Between the pits, the various clearing corps had these tiny preserves where orders and fills could be phoned back and forth from the floor. Every inch down here was precious. Ten people would work in quarters closer than steerage.

John was on the phone now, writing furiously, talking 'back. Upstairs at the other end of the line, Dixon, doing his ugly deeds, had found him. He must have asked for John by name. Was he counting on John's loyalty or his ignorance? Probably both. John was eager to please him.

Dixon had mentioned that John had asked repeatedly to be advanced into the hurly-burly of the trading pits. He was not ready, Dixon said, had not been around long enough.

He kept John on the order desk, although John filled in down here whenever he could. Luke all the runners, the clerks, this business's perpetual flotsam and jetsam, John apparently shared the common dream:

Get experience. Get a seat. Get rich. The pits remained one of the few places left where an unpromising young person, a high-school loser, a kid without an electric guitar or four-three speed could still hit it big. John, Stern took it, wanted one more chance to make it.

John slid out of the booth while AI took his place. His son-in-law greeted Stern with much the same look of dismay Peter had recently.

After a futile effort at conversation, they returned to MD's office. The only space John had of his own was a desk in the midst of the tumultuous back office. John stopped there to throw down various papers, then directed Stern to a conference room. A magnificent photo of Kate stood on the desk amid John's piles. His daughter, Stern thought again, was an exceptional beauty.

Even chatting with his father-in-law, John looked childishly uncomfortable. His huge shoulders sloped, and he idly fingered an envelope on the desk. He wore the uniform of the floor, MD's unstructured navy cotton jacket, corduroys, and'a knotted tie dragged three or four inches below his open collar. A photo ID hung from his pocket.

What was there about this young man that Stern found so infuriating? He was reminiscent sometimes of a comic-strip oaf, so large and amiable that he deserved a balloon over his head: Duh. He was not dumb. Clara, for years, had been at pains to make that point. He had had no difficulty finishing college, long after his athletic career had ended.

But there was a fecklessness about him. Large, apple-cheeked, blond, plumper than in his playing days, he looked like an inflated two-year-old, with as little guile.

Stern was, convinced that the present matter would render him numb. He would have no intuition about how to proceed and few resources with which to manage the strain of the coming months. Stern had seen these situations throughout his profeSsional life: a family member, a business colleague, wn a rope by a prosecutor, offered freedom in exchange for testimony. Some tossed it back, with royal indifference. But not many. Most tried to save themselves, bargaining with the truth and appealing to those they implicated for understanding. They ended up scorned by everyone. It was hard to imagine John having the suppleness to endure this storm.

Stern had stood to close the door and after a 'brief preface came to the point.

"Dixon Harmell is being investigated by a federal grand jury."

"'Ooo," said John. He looked like a carpenter who had just walloped his thumb.

"Yes. It is very unpleasant."

"What for?"

"Well, I think I should let someone else explain the details to you. In general, the government seems to suspect some form of improper trading ahead of customer orders. Has anyone from the FBI attempted to speak with you? A chap named Kyle Horn?"

John shook his head. He didn't think so. "What does he look like?"

"Big fellow." Big blond goyishe,looking lunk in a Cheap sport coat, thought Stern. But that would not do.

John again shook his head uncertainly. You would think FBI credentials might make an impression, even on John, but there was never any telling.

Stern removed the subpoena from his briefcase and tried to explain what it meant.

"Due to our relationship-yours and mine-the prosecutors were courteous enough to allow me to receive this for you.

However, because I already represent Dixon, you should consult with another lawyer before you answer the government' s questions."

What kind of questions?"

"I could speculate, John, but that would probably notbe best."

John squinted. He didn't get it, of course. Stern explained that the government believed he had valuable information.

"They want to use me to get him?"

"Exactly."

The large baffled look Stern would have predicted rose up in John's eyes. A deer in the road. He had no idea what to do. The conflicts were between all the simple things that he took as harmonious. Loyalty.

Truthfulness. Selfpreservation.

"John, you and your lawyer must decide whether you wish to negotiate with the government for immunity. If that is the case, then your lawyer will give the prosecutors a prediction, a proffer, of what you would say."

"Yeah,"' said John, "but what if I don't want to talk?"

"Again, John, that is a good question for you to put to your lawyer. But the government can always choose to grant -you immunity without regard to your desires, in which event your choices are between answering questions and jail."

"Jail?" John took this in, too, with continuing ponderous reflection. "I really don't know that much."

As this conversation proceeded, Stern had gradually felt his heart declining, and with this response, it plunged the remaining distance.

'Not that much,' said John. But more than nothing at all. Dixon would be safe only with virtual amnesia on John's part. Even the vaguest memory of who was behind the trades would do for the government, especially if they succeeded in tracing the profits into Dixon's hands.

And sitting here, his son-in-law exhibited fi discomfort most telling to a practiced eye. There was no outraged inquiry from John about what this trading ahead had to do with him, or how the prosecutors might have gotten his name. He knew the govemment's interest in him was well placed.

"What does he say about all this? Dixon? Can you say?"

Stern shook his head. But he felt for an instant like holding his breath. A moment of the most delicate sort had arisen. With somebody else., another employee, Stern would have ventured a comment whose direction was as faint but discernible as an idling wind: 'This is, of course, a critical matter for Dixon, his entire life and business are at stake." But John was without subtlety. He might ask an impossible question-'You mean I should lie?"--or, even worse, take Stern's comments as a commandment. In all, Dixon and Stern-would have to trust John's lawyer to make the appropriate assessments and to offer the correct guidance.

"Where am I going to get this lawyer from?" John asked. "!

"I have some names I might suggest, if you would like."

"Oh, sure."

"'MD will indemnify you-pay your expenses so you need not worry about that."

Stern was working on the list right now, writing on a piece of office stationery, names and phone numbers. George Mason. Raymond Horgan. No one would quite manage to reconcile the diverse needs of John's circumstances as well as he could have, but that was out of the question, and Stern, in any event, saw the wisdom of his not serving as scOUtmaster on this trail. Just these few minutes had changed his estimate of John for good.

John took the list and shrugged. He had better get back to the floor, he said. He continued to wear his usual look, furtive and confused.

Watching John hulk off to the elevator, Stern felt a ruthless anger with Dixon gathering again. How could he? How could he have embroiled this boy in the usual piggish market high jinks? But the answer was too obvious. Dixon with his infallible calculation of what was best for himself had no doubt recognized that his greatest protection was in a family member less experienced in the business. Easiest probably to give sotto-voce instructions, knowing they would not be questioned, or, if the time came, willingly recalled. Soon, Stern was going to have to turn his attention to the issue of when and how to get out of the case.

If there was an indictment and John was a government witness, Stern could never handle the matter at trial. Cross examining his daughter s husban was unthinkable. Perhaps he should also give a list of lawyers to Dixon and exit post haste. But he recognized his own lack of conviction. Just now, Stern was not eager to sever any other long-term relations. And he had resisted breaking with Dixon for many years.

Part of that, of course, was for Silvia's sake. Nor should one overlook the force of gratitude. Much of Stern's present practice, in which he most often represented lawyers and bankers and corporate officials, could be attributed to the fact that he had become known as Dixon's lawyer. It had been his exit from the grimy world of the police courts into the arena of high-class crime-embezzlements and frauds, tax matters, bribery, and now and then a murder of passion. Dixon-a classy borderline operator-had, by the peculiar logic of these things, elevated Stern, and it was virtually an instinct in him never to give short shrift to anyone who had helped him in his practice.

Yet he knew that the things that attached him to Dixon. were not simply.external. After thirty-two years practicing law, though his acquaintances were legion, his admirers many, Stern, in a way he seldom felt inclined to meditate upon, was apt at times to feel somehow abandoned-left to himself. Oh, there were hundreds of persons he cared for, whose lives and ideas interested him, and with whom he felt an eager mutuality. He got on the elevator in the courthouse and there were always half a dozen people to 'greet him. He was well known, likable, eager to. please, and reluctant to give offense. Stern had his circle, mostly men near his age, primarily lawyers and judges, a number of them Yiddish speakers like his mother, subtle, clever people whose talk of books and sports and business gossip he regularly shared over lunch and sincerely valued. Good company- But he had in mind more than that. He meant the kind of unguarded male affinity that young men on teams, in gangs, on street corners had. Did women, domestication, destroy that? Or the fieme struggles of the daily world where every man was your enemy? Who knew? Yet Dixon remained. He was present. Stern could pay him no further compliment. But, like a granite marker beside the road, Dixon seemed to be the man who had always been nearby.

My brother-in-law, thought Stern, alone in the tiny room where John had abandoned him. Brother. In. Law. What kind of peculiar term was that?

TO Kindle County Symphony Hall, with its wedding-cake balconies and ceiling frosted with wreaths of gold, where Clara Mittlet and Alejandro Stern had Passed their initial evening together, Stern now came on his first night out with Helen Dudak. The coincidence did not strike him until Adolph Fronz, the elderly conductor, raised his baton, and then the thought quickly added to Stern's discomfort. He had very nearly broken this engagement; only his kindly, impulses toward Helen and his reluctance to offend her had made him carry through. It was a sad fact, shameful, awful-choose your pejorative ad-jective-but Radczyk's report had taken something from him that even the moment in the garage doorway had not. He had been a larger and more essential failure than he had imagined. Sex mattered. Ever and always. This he was learning, and his feelings now-alternating between vertiginous rage and desolation-left him deeply disinclined toward any female. The notion of spending an entire night attempting to be the charming, alluring gentleman of a few weeks before was simply out of the question. At the last moment, having spied tonight's tickets for one of Clara's many symphony series thumbtacked to the kitchen bulletin board, he had phoned Helen to propose this change. 'I cooked,' Helen said simply. Music, then supper later, perhaps? 'All right." Helen was obliging. He found himself enormously relieved.

In the dark hall, while Fronz twirled and the players strummed and tooted, he would be alone, free from the need to prattle. Afterwards, the weariness of the work week could overcome him.

"I don't quite know why," Helen told him at intermission, "but I wouldn't have picked you for symphonic music. More quartets," she said,

"or a single guitar." They stood in the lobby, blinking in the sudden lights. Couples Clara and he had seen here for years lifted their hands in greeting.

But no one came near. With an entirely unpredictable force, a gust of grief and remorse blew into Stern, as he realized he had started his new life. For Helen, he smiled ruefully.

"I am indiscriminate." Stern touched his ear, "Tone deaf. I cannot tell the difference between the Kindle symphony and the high-school band." He had kept this fact from Clara for thirty-some years, though when it turned out that Marta could not tell one note from another, she must have entertained suspicions.

"Oh, Sandy." Helen held his wrist as they laughed together at his failings. Why was it that he always forgot how much he liked Helen Dudak until he was beside her? She looked marvelous. Her fox-colored hair had a crisp oufiine that betrayed a trip to the beauty shop, and she wore a simple black dress peeled back from her shoulders. Against all expectation, as the lights went down once more, he found himself pleased to be here.

"So you went to the symphony for all those years and never knew what you were listening to?" asked Helen, as they were driving off afterwards.

She was turned fully about to face him, seated girlishly on her knees.

It was typical of Helen and her instinct for important nuance that she had returned to this subject. They were headed toward her home for dinner. In the end, there was no way to say no. Besides, Helen's company was soothing. And after all his laments over the untmstworthiness of women, he was now fuI1 of a more familiar feeling which they had always reliably satisfied: he was extremely hungry.

"Clara enjoyed it."

"I recall. But" Helen said, then stopped.

"Yes?"

"It's nothing."

"Please."

"I guess I was wondering why you would go now."

"Ah," said Stern, hoping to conjure up some tactful,response, and vaguely frightened to find her so astute. Out the window, the center city flashed by, uninhabited, ghostly in the isolated pools of mercury light, the doorways dark. Helen, to his relief, continued on her own.

"I suppose I was going to give you advice."

"Feel free."

"No," she said. "There's really no comparison between my circumstance and yours."

"Duly noted," Stern said. "You were thinking?"

"Oh, just that, as awful as it is, there are things to enjoy in being alone again. The liberty of it. Finding what's your own."

As the streetlights flowed across her, Helen turned back to measure his response. "I'm sure this is terribly offensive."

"No, no," said Stern. He was eager to agree, pleased to show that he understood her good intentions, and happy to foster the thought that he had suggested the symphony out of some unthinking reflex. And, in fact, this was a valuable notion. A good solid person of real judgment, Helen had hit on something that he otherwise would have missed. Whatever his misery, parts-large parts of him-had accepted his new bachelorhood with relish. Not just the brief period of cavorting. The moment fight now was one more instance-relaxed, at ease, and able to speak about himself in a way Clara seldom encouraged. Clara had her minute agendas, her quiet steps which she always danced.

For many years (Too many years! he thought, and felt again the accustomed iron point of guilt) he had recognized in. some unspoken way that she utilized all this silent plarmingas a means to escape torpor and depression. But the point was that she had done it, he had known it, adjusted to it, and now it was no longer there, like a ticking metronome gone silent. Wounded and reeling, his soul had nonetheless expanded in the recent circumstance, reentering regions closed off for years.

Helen served a splendid supper. She made a salad of shrimp remoulade, and cooked a small piece of blackened fish. She stood over the iron skillet with the smoke rising,. drinking her wine and chatting, like a cooking-show host.

Rick, her younger child, a sophomore now at Easton, dreamed, like many nineteen-year-olds, of being a criminal defense lawyer. Helen relayed his questions. Did Stern believe most of his clients were innocent? How could he defend them if he didn't? How did he feel when he found out they were guilty?

These were old questions, the puzzles of a lifetime, and Stern enjoyed answering Helen, who listened alertly. Some spoke of the nobility of the law. Stern did not believe in that. Too much of the grubby boneshop, the odor of the abattoir, emanated from every courtroom he had entered. It was often a nasty business. But the law, at least, sought to govern misfortune, the slights and injuries of our social existence that were otherwise wholly random. The law's object was to let the seas engulf only those who had been selected for drowning on an orderly basis. In human affairs, reason would never fully triumph; but there was no better cause to champion. Helen sat back, drinking her wine, attentive.

For dessert, she brought out berries. She lifted the wine bottle toward Stern, but he shook it off. Helen had drank freely; Stern had had a single glass. He was drinking too much lately, which never before had been his habit; his head was sore on many occasions.

"As usual," he said, "I have done all the talking; and an way that she utilized all this silent plarmingas a means to escape torpor and depression. But the point was that she had done it, he had known it, adjusted to it, and now it was no longer there, like a ticking metronome gone silent. Wounded and reeling, his soul had nonetheless expanded in the recent circumstance, reentering regions closed off for years.

Helen served a splendid supper. She made a salad of shrimp remoulade, and cooked a small piece of blackened fish. She stood over the iron skillet with the smoke rising,. drinking her wine and chatting, like a cooking-show host.

Rick, her younger child, a sophomore now at Easton, dreamed, like many nineteen-year-olds, of being a criminal defense lawyer. Helen relayed his questions. Did Stern believe most of his clients were innocent? How could he defend them if he didn't? How did he feel when he found out they were guilty?

These were old questions, the puzzles of a lifetime, and Stern enjoyed answering Helen, who listened alertly. Some spoke of the nobility of the law. Stern did not believe in that. Too much of the grubby boneshop, the odor of the abattoir, emanated from every courtroom he had entered. It was often a nasty business. But the law, at least, sought to govern misfortune, the slights and injuries of our social existence that were otherwise wholly random. The law's object was to let the seas engulf only those who had been selected for drowning on an orderly basis. In human affairs, reason would never fully triumph; but there was no better cause to champion. Helen sat back, drinking her wine, attentive.

For dessert, she brought out berries. She lifted the wine bottle toward Stern, but he shook it off. Helen had drank freely; Stern had had a single glass. He was drinking too much lately, which never before had been his habit; his head was sore on many occasions.

"As usual," he said, "I have done all the talking; and about myself."

"You're wonderful to listen to, Sandy. You know that."

"Do I? Well, I appreciate a receptive audience." Helen looked at him dh'ectly.

"You have one here," she said somewhat softly. They were silent, considering one another. "Look," said Helen Dudak.

"You know it. I know it. So I'll say it. I'm available. All right?"

"Why, certainly."

She raised her dark eyebrows. "In all senses."

For an instant, Stern's heart actually seemed to shiver, What was it about Helen? She had a way with facts which could be utterly disarming.

She laid out what was on her mind with no more ceremony than a butcher tossing meat onto the scale. But they both knew they had come to an auspicious pass.

"You' re not ready," she said immediately. "I understand that." She reached for her wine and quaffed it, her first overtly nervous gesture.

"But when you are, you are. We're on our way to the twenty-first century, Sandy.-There are no proprieties left about this kind of thing.

Not everyone goes nerve-dead in mourning."

He was not sure what he'd say if she gave him the chance.

Certainly it would not do to explain his circumstances to Helen, that l'dce a vampire he had been out ravishing when he was supposed to be dead, while now he had been laid into his crypt with a stake right through the heart.

Fortunately, however, explanation did not appear necessary.

This was, Stern sensed, well scripted, and Helen had assigned herself all the lines. She had a missionary role.

She was going to heal Stern, sell him on himself. In a second she would be telling him that he was still attractive. He had known Helen for decades now and recognized this forwardness as uncharacteristic. This was not Helen's true nature, but rather the new and improved model, head-shrunk and reorganized. So much of this seemed self-consciously political. The formerly colonized nations should engage in self-determination. Speak your mind. Admit your desires. You were equal and entitled. He was less hopeful than she about the virtues of this revolution. But, for tonight, it was just as well. He would play his part.

Here sits Mr. Alejandro Stern; history's first bald coquette.

"You're quite an attractive man, Sandy."

He could not suppress his smile. Again, she misunderstood.

"Do you think that the only thing women find attractive is a twenty-year-old body?"

Here was one of the five or six highest-order mysteries of life. What did women find attractive? Attention. That he knew. Strength of one kind or another, he had long supposed. But the physical element entered somewhere as well.

"Whatever that might be, Helen, I think I lack some of the essential ingredients."

"I don't think so. I think you have all the essential ingredients.

Maybe some of the inessentials-" Her hand trailed off in space and they both laughed merrily.

God knows, there was no sense in pretending he did not enjoy this. He did. Given the frame of mind with which he had started the evening, her honesty, affection, her excitement in his presence seemed a heartening miracle. He took her hand.

"Helen, this is a charming offer. I am sure it Will obsess me." As usual, he enjoyed being elusive. He was back to his essential aspect, the foreigner, unknown and hard to figure. His ambiguous look was apparently too much for her. She shrank back and shook her head. "God, I've made a hash of this."

"Nonsense."

"Oh, Sandy." She covered her face with both hands. "I'm drunk. I can't believe this." She sat, eyes closed, suddenly flushed, suffering intensely. The sight of dear, honest Helen so humiliated moved him terribly. He was beginning to take on the emotional lability of an adolescent. For now, no matter. He stood at once and from behind her chair wrapped his arms around her.

"Helen," he said.

"I'm drunk," she repeated. "I let myself come on like a lush sitting at a bar."

"You appeared the true, kind soul you are. I am positively alight with flattered pride. And," he said, "I am enormously interested."

"You are?" She Craned her neck straight back, so that she was looking at him upside down, a cute maneuver somehow befitting a person half her age. Her smile, too, was girlish.

"I am," said Mr. Alejandro Stern. He cared for her much too much not to embrace her. He leaned down to meet her, full of kind intentions and wholly unprepared for the spectacular jolt that lit him from the first contact.

Helen, too, felt this and actually groaned. He came around the chair, took her in his arms. He touched both her breasts.

"Upstairs," she said, after a moment. She took him by the hand and led him to her bedroom. There he opened Helen's dress, pulled down the bodice, and helped her remove her brassiere. Her breasts were wide-set and flattened somewhat by age and the toils of female experience, but the sight, to Stern, remained deeply exciting. She left him to begin turning down the spread. Helen had loosened his tie and he pulled it from his collar.

It was then that he remembered Peter's caution. Stern remained stock-still. He was without indispensable equipment. This would be terrible.

"Helen," he said. She looked at him, but his mouth seemed merely to grope. "Helen, I find this most embarrassing-" "Ohhh," said Helen.

"Aren't you contemporary?" She pointed across the bed to a nightstand.

"The top drawer."

Amid the pantyhose there was a package of condoms.

He tried not to start. Helen, who had slipped her arms back into the top of her dress, so that it was languorously draped, smiled faintly.

"I'm not offended, if you're not. To tell you the truth, it's a necessity." He did not understand. "Birth control," she said.

"Why, Helen," said Stern. This news,: somehow, pleased him.

"Don't get too excited," she said and tossed aside the bedcover. "I'm in menopause. Like everyone else. Just not as far along."

Stern fingered the package. The economy size. Twenty-four and most of them gone. Dear Lord, modern life was disconcerting. Helen had come back around the bed to him.

She pushed her arms free of each sleeve.

"Where were we?" she asked.

Afterwards, he lay with Helen in her bed. Somehow, toffght, he had been less adept. He had fumbled with that stupid latex thing, and their nervousness expressed itself as an almost comic courtesy. 'Is that all right?" 'Oh yes, yes, please." Nonetheless, they lay here, quiet and adhering to one another, fully content. At some point, he thought, he was supposed to leave. But not just now. In an idle way, it occurred to him that he was a truly vile creature, one of those sly, conscienceless mpscallions out of some French bedroom farce, vowing chastity and then throwing himself on the first woman that passed into sight. What was wrong with him?

But he did not feel vile-or wrong. He had supposed from listening to TV and the movies and cocktail talk-from wherever it was these ideas came-that these couplings, called casual, were supposed to be loveless and numb. But here in the soft dark he found himself aswarm with gentle feelings. This woman, like Margy, would he dear to him for life. Was that self-deception? Or had pop mythology just missed the point. Was it intimacy and connection that everyone was seeking? He thought, oddly, of Dixon. Did the master swordsman also experience his thousand interludes this way? Yes. Probably. Even for Dixon there must have been more to his wandering than the chance to brag. He craved acceptance, tenderness, female succor, before returning to the world made harsh by men. So, too, Mr. Alejandro Stern. His life as he had always known it was gone, and the road down which he marched was largely unknown to him. What was ahead? The last months, he recognized quite suddenly, had been rife with fear. But not right now. For the moment, with Helen curled in the crook of his arm, her breathing against him slowing as she dove near sleep, he had stepped aside, taken time out, cooled himself in the refreshed air of night. For today, tonight, for the first fraction of tune since it had happened, he was able to declare himself, however briefly, at peace.

For the occasion, Stern borrowed the 1954 Chevy Of his law school classmate George Murray. At this time in America, automobiles had only recently ceased being shaped like tea-kettles and Stern regarded this vehicle, which came equipped merely with a heater, as sleek and impressive. He had not made the acquaintance of many girls in the United States; there seemed to be so few opportunities. For years, he had been ahead of himself in school and, accordingly, was of little interest to the young women around him. And since he was seventeen, he had worked each weekend, driving a punchboard route that took him all about the Middle West in a dilapidated, foul-smelling truck owned by Milkie, his grubby one-eyed boss. Over time, his inexperience seemed to compound itself. Foreign-born, Hispanic-accented, Jewish, he was apt in female company to feel like something set down here from another universe.

So he was grateful for Clara's ease with him. He crossed his feet trying to race her to the car door, but she remained amused and casual.

Somehow, he made this dour young woman comfortable. As much as he aspired to her, blindly and instinctively, she perhaps thought he was all that she deserved.

"You know," she said, as soon as he was seated, "this was really my idea. I begged my father to ask you."

"This," said Stern, gesturing to the two of them, "was my idea. You, however, put it into action.".

"Oh, you are smooth." She smiled. "Daddy says that. He thinks you' re very bright."

"Does he?" Stern, unaccustomed to city driving, watched the road in desperation. If this car suffered any injury, he would have to flee the state. Murray had made that clear.

"What do you think of him?" she asked. "My father?"

Stern, in spite of himself, was too distracted to prevent himself from groaning.

Clara laughed out loud. She touched his arm as he moved the gearshift along the column.

"I am terrible, aren' t I? I'm not like this, Mr. Stern.

It's all your fault. Do you know that I am usually so quiet? People will tell you that about me."

"What else would they tell me?" Stern asked. He had fallen into a companionable mood. She smiled, but it was the wrong question.

"Tell me about Argentina," she said after a moment. The concert was Ravel. She spoke to him about the music, making offhand reference to passages that she supposed were as plain to him as if they were words written on the page. At the intermission, he bought orange juice. Only one bottle, for her. His normal penury had guided him without reflection and he saw at once that he had disconcerted her by making his lack of means so plain. But she refused to be flustered. She offered him the straw that had been punched down through the cardboard bottle cap and made him take a sip. And there something occurred. The concert hall was crowded; the grand acoustics of the building amplified the hubbub, and the lobby lights were stingingly bright after the prior hour in darkness. But the moment to Stern grew more intimate than an embrace. Somehow her character had become as clear to him as the notes which had been played: she was kind. Committedly. Unceasingly. She cared more for kindness than social grace. This vision of her overtook him, and Stern, in a kind of swoon, felt himself suddenly immersed in that warm current and his heart swimming toward her.

"That was wonderful," she told him as they moved along beneath the theater lights after the concert. She had carried her coat out the door, and they stood, buffeted by passersby, as she struggled with one sleeve. Summoning himself, Stern asked her to accompany him to Chinatown for dinner. He had contemplated this moment all week. He would have to take her somewhere. Chinatown, he eventually decided, answered the imperatives of economics and romance, and the thought of the meal-he was thin in those years and always hungrymhad tantalized him for days. She refused, however. The money, surely, was on her mind.

"I must tell you, Miss Mittler, that I intend to take a telephone next week." This was true. He had held off only because he was not certain Henry would allow him to keep his office. But the remark, spoken in jest, succeeded in amusing her. This, Stern recognized at once, was a kind of rare power with her. Under the marquee lights, Clara Mittler easily laughed. She was wearing a tiny pink hat, with a trimming of white veil, and she reached up to hold it.

"Next week," she said. "We'll make a separate outing of it. Why rush ourselves tonight?"

Agreed. He offered her his arm and she took it. They strode off together through the symphony crowd, the men in overcoats, the women in fur stoles and jewels. Stern felt a swell of pleasure. He was certain that someone there looked up and thought, What a handsome young American couple.

"This is my responsibility," said Stern. "You should have no doubt about that."

"Why would I have any doubt about it? I'm callin you, ain't I?"

Stern continued to keep his eyes closed. Never in his life had he undergone a moment like this. Never. He had always treasured his honor. One hand crept absently along the desk until he recollected that this furtive search was futile.

He was going to buy cigars today. That was a promise to himself. A sworn oath.

When he did not speak, she said, "I need you to tell me what-all I gotta do."

"Of course."

"How long is this goddamn thang gonna last, anyway?" What was it that Peter had said? Three weeks to a lifetime. He told her simply that one could never be certain. He had no wish to get into details.

"That's great. I suppose I gotta come down there?"

"Here?"

"where else?" She was apparently confused about treatment or diagnosis.

"I would think everything necessary can be done in Chicago.

' ' "Well, I'd think so, too," she said, "but it in't gonna be like that."

He had no idea what outraged impulse she was giving vent to now. when the thought of Helen came to him abruptly, he could not breathe. He sat back in the chair rigidly, dumb.

Surely, there could not be a problem there, too. Peter had virtually promised. And if he was wrong twice? Stern's eyes were now open wide.

Margy asked if he was there.

"I am sorry." He asked her for a moment and pulled himself closer to the desk, gripping the glass by its green edge.

All that control he had exerted, that excessive, ugly compulsive grasp he always had on himself and had always quietly despised-it had a purpose. He saw that.now. "You know I only got three weeks," Margy said. "Three weeks?" he asked.

"Till I'm supposed to be there. This thing says June 27th."

What thing, he almost said. But he did not. A miracle process of reconstruction was immediately at work. Oh, he was still alive. He understood now: she had been served with a grand jury subpoena. He slapped himself on the chest, where he could feel his heart pounding.

Answering his questions, she provided a short account of events the day before: The subpoena had been served by Chicago FBI agents, local functionaries uninvolved in the investigation, who merely dropped off the paper, telling her she would have to testify on the twenty-seventh about the documents called for.

"You are quite right," said Stern. "You must come here. I was thinking for a moment that they might not require a personal appearance before the grand jury, but since they told you otherwise-" He was lying fabulously now-in an instant he would have the entire conversation retooled. "So you say the.twentY-seventh." He reached for his appointment book, but Claudia had it. He did not bother to retrieve it.

"Yes, that is fine. Well, I shall see you here then."

"That's all?" she asked.

"No, no," said Stern, "of course not. I must meet with you, review the documents, determine why they have bothered you."

"But you're my lawyer. It won't be like John. Like you said-you're responsible."

"I must check with the Assistant United States Attorney to be certain.

But I must say-" Stop, he told himself. Cease.

He was blathering, still electric with reYef. "Margy, put the subpoena on the fax machine. Right now." For a moment they were on the line together, unspeaking, difficult small things gathering in the hushed whirring. Then Stern announced that Claudia was summoning him to another call, a fiction out of whole cloth, and placed Margy on hold until the subpoena copy was laid on his desk. It sought corporate records and, properly, should have been served on him as the corporation' s lawyer. He had not taken Klonsky's warning to mean they would go this far. But Chief Judge Win-cheil had let the prosecutors get away with this tactic in other cases where they had argued it was necessary to be sure that employees would be exacting in producing documents. And as usual, Stern noted, the govemment's informant had been on target in identifying who would know MD's records best.

The contents of the subpoena were in most regards predictable. Listed first were approximately two dozen dates; the government wanted every ticket written on the central order desk those days. By asking for records of all of MD's business on each date, the government was continuing its effort to obscure its interests by not focusing on individual transactions. But amid this volume of papers would be the tickets John had written at Dixon's instruction for the orders that had ended up booked to the error account. Once again, the informant was right on the mark.

In the sUbpoena's second paragraph, the grand jury requested all MD's canceled checks for amounts over $250 written in the first four months of the year. This, Stern took it, was a continuing step in the govemment's efforts to trace into Dixon's hands the illegal profits made trading ahead. It was also an encouraging sign; apparently, as Dixon predicted, the subpoena to his bank had been unavailing. Stern had spent an evening or two examining copies of the records the bank had produced and could see nothing nore noteworthy than the occasional six-figure personal checks for investments and purchases that were part of Dixon's millionaire life-style. Certainly, there were no large deposits from unexplained sources.

"What is this last item?" Stern asked Margy, as he got back on the line.

His pulse had retreated to normal. He read: "'All account opening documents, purchase and sale records, confirmations and monthly statements for account 06894412, the Wunderkind Account." Do we know what that might be?"

"I been lookin at that," said Margy.

"And?"

"And he's a clever old dog. You got the error-account statements I gave you?"

Stern put her on hold a moment while Claudia pulled the file..

"Look at Jan 24," she instructed. "You see where the error account's got a buy and a sell of fifty thousand bushels of oats?"

He saw it. Dixon someone, to indulge the formal presumptions-had bracketed these orders around a surge in oat prices caused when Chicago Ovens bought more than two million bushels that day in Chicago.

"Trades make a profit of about forty-s'rx thousand, right?"

He was in no position to follow, let alone challenge her arithmetic. He simply agreed.

"Now look at the next day. You see where there's a buy of two April 90 silver contacts in thet Dixon's instruction for the orders that had ended up booked to the error account. Once again, the informant was right on the mark.

In the sUbpoena's second paragraph, the grand jury requested all MD's canceled checks for amounts over $250 written in the first four months of the year. This, Stern took it, was a continuing step in the govemment's efforts to trace into Dixon's hands the illegal profits made trading ahead. It was also an encouraging sign; apparently, as Dixon predicted, the subpoena to his bank had been unavailing. Stern had spent an evening or two examining copies of the records the bank had produced and could see nothing nore noteworthy than the occasional six-figure personal checks for investments and purchases that were part of Dixon's millionaire life-style. Certainly, there were no large deposits from unexplained sources.

"What is this last item?" Stern asked Margy, as he got back on the line.

His pulse had retreated to normal. He read: "'All account opening documents, purchase and sale records, confirmations and monthly statements for account 06894412, the Wunderkind Account." Do we know what that might be?"

"I been lookin at that," said Margy.

"And?"

"And he's a clever old dog. You got the error-account statements I gave you?"

Stern put her on hold a moment while Claudia pulled the file..

"Look at Jan 24," she instructed. "You see where the error account's got a buy and a sell of fifty thousand bushels of oats?"

He saw it. Dixon someone, to indulge the formal presumptions-had bracketed these orders around a surge in oat prices caused when Chicago Ovens bought more than two million bushels that day in Chicago.

"Trades make a profit of about forty-s'rx thousand, right?"

He was in no position to follow, let alone challenge her arithmetic. He simply agreed.

"Now look at the next day. You see where there's a buy of two April 90 silver contacts in the error account?"

"Yes." According to the posting notes in the error account statement, this trade, like the oat transactions the day before, had been made under an account number of which MD had no record. Therefore, all the trades had been set over in the error account.

"Now guess what the cash value of the silver is? Surprise you that it's a little under forty-seven thousand?"

Everything was a surprise at this point, but Stern, recognizing his role, merely said "No."

"Now look down the error account statement," she said. "See the two silver contracts again?"

"'Journal transfer to A/C 06894412." "Stern read the note from the statement, then looked again at the subpoena. This was the number of the Wunderkind account. As usual, he did not understand.

"See, he used the profit he made in oats on the twentyfourth to buy silver on the twenty-fifth. The cost of the silver gets debited to the error account, and after it's paid for, he makes accounting entries and journals the silver into this other account, Wunderkind. See? He's turned the profit into silver and he's got it in his hot little hand."

"And does anything similar happen on other occasions?"

"Far as I can see, it's every doggone time. Makes some money tradin ahead, then he throws on an error position to absorb the profit and shifts it over to the same account."

"Wunderkind?"

"You betchum."

Stern explained it to himself to be sure he understood: it was a complicated device to move the profits made by trading ahead out of the error account. Once the profit was in hand, he would buy new contracts, making some mistake that would also put the new trade in the error account; after the error account paid for the new position, it was transferred to the account of Wunderkindmwhatever or whoever he was.

This was why Dixon had given him that sly look on the golf course.

"And what happens to all the positions which this Wunder account holds?"

"Dunno, cause I ain't got the records yet. He probably closed them right out and put the money in his pocket."

"And Wunderkind denotes what?"

"Beats me. Maybe it's the name on the account. Only thing is, I can see from the number it's a corporate account."

Stern nodded. So this race was heading into its home stretch. If the government could show that Dixon controlled this Wunderkind account, they would have the link they needed to blame all this on him. But from his expression on the golf course, it was probably a fair bet that Dixon had some final feint in store, another clever dodge to keep the feds from tracing these dirty dollars to him. A corporate account, Margy said. Perhaps the corporation's stock was held in trust, and the trust was controlled and funded from offshore. In the course of the IRS investigation a few years ago, Stern had seen Dixon utilize ploys like this, cagey maneuvers that would have done the CIA proud. It was John who remained the principal concern-what would he say to the government?

If he stonewalled them or went haivesies with the truth, Klonsky and Sennett would threaten to prosecute John-and mean it. Stern shook his head again over the delicacy of his son-in-law's situation.

Stern asked Margy to be sure she had the records pulled together by the Monday before her appearance.

"Shore. I'll just work all weekend. What else is new? Think maybe I'll get in there Sunday night," said Margy in a leisurely way. "Stay over by the Gresham."

"Ah, yes," said Stern. "I See Claudia waving. It must be most urgent.

Many thanks," he told Margy,."many thanks," and put down the phone, feeling queasy and grateful and free.

TWICE in the last week, Stern had gone home in the morning to change for work and to look over the mail from the day before, having spent the night at Helen's. They had been out three times since their evening at the symphony-dinner, the theater-and she demonstrated on each occasion her ability to make him sweep aside the vexing detritus of his wrecked life. With Helen, he tended to hear only her beguiling musical laughter, her clear firm voice, and to feel, of course, the urgent throb of his reinvigorated romantic life. Dear, sweet Helen-she remained intent on improving him.

In yesterday's mail, Stern this morning found another copy of Westlab's bill, a pink form this time, bearing a red block-letter stamp which said OVerDUE. Yes, indeed, he thought at once. His most recent speculation was that, given the nature of the problem, Clara had consulted a female physician; he had gone paging through her phone book once again, looking for a name, even while he felt it would be fruitless. What could this doctor tell him? What could she change? But his curiosity was not all a matter of reason.

He took this overdue notice as a direction from fate, and with Westlab's bill and his checkbook in hand he set out, as soon as he was dressed, to find the place where, in the middle days of February, a specimen from Clara Stern was cultured, examined, and, with clinical exactness, named.

What if it was a mistake? he thought suddenly as he was driving, and then realized, as he had a hundred times before, that diagnosis was not the final issue. Clara had had a reason to suspect a problem. Only in the Bible and the tales of King Arthur did the virtuous have relations in their sleep.

Stern had never recognized the lab's address, but his street guide placed it on a small court tucked between two prominent commercial avenues, no more than five or six blocks from the Sterns' home in the Riverside neighborhood.

And there it was, a low, flat-roofed brick building with casement windows, a construction style of the 1950s. He had been driving by Westlab for twenty years and never noticed.

Within the building's glass doors there was little public space, a small waiting area with four plastic bucket seats bolted to a bar of steel, and a glass partition. At this window, ' he asked for Liz. She was beckoned and came forth, just as Radczyk had described her, dark and small, with short black hair cut into a fringe around her face.

She wore gray slacks and heavy makeup; liner was glopped below her bottom lashes as well. She smiled attractively, accustomed, you could tell, to dealing with the public.

"I am Mr. Stern," he said. "This bill was sent to my wife before she passed away in late March. In the confusion of events, I am afraid I neglected it."

"Oh, that's all right," said Liz emphatically. A hand proffefing absolution, casual but complete, passed vaguely by her nose.

He waited just an instant.

"There was probably a doctor's bill as well. Either we never received it or it was misplaced. I would like to contact the doctor to be sure the bill has not been overlooked, but I am not certain who that was.

Could you give me the name of the physician who ordered the test? I am the executor of my wife's estate, if there is any concern."

"Oh, no." Liz waved a hand the same way and, with Stern's copy of Westlab's statement was gone at once, receding into the visible office space, illuminated as in most buildings of that era by too much glaring fluorescence. From somewhere farther back came a vague antiseptic smell. Banging through the file drawers, Liz called out to another woman about something else, then returned, paging through a folder.

She had not quite arrived at the window when she spoke.

'Calling,' he thought she had said. "Pardon?"

"Do you know hun? Dr. Nathaniel Cawicy?His office is over on Grove.

About three blocks. Here's the address." By now she had laid the folder down before Stern and showed him the test requisition, a long form of small type and boxes which had been filled out in the usual indecipherable doctorly hand. Nate's name and office address were stamped at the top of the form, but there was no question he had been the one to give the orders: he had signed, in a scribble, and had written "Viral culture for HSV-2" in a block for comments at the bottom of the page.

Weak and suddenly chill, Stern glanced up to find Liz looking at him oddly. Perhaps she was reacting to his dumb response or had recollected Radczyk, or had finally noticed what the test was for. His first impulse, however, was that he must continue to pretend, and he removed the gold pen from his inside suit pocket to write down Nate's address.

There was no paper around, however, and instead, without' speaking, he turned away.

"Did you want to pay this?" Liz was holding the bill.

He wrote out the check falteringly. He could not get the numbers right and had to tear up his first effort.

Nate! Outside, Stern fell heavily onto the cherry-colored leather of the front seat of the Cadillac. There was undoubtedly a way to explain.

Drinking too' much, or overcome by the involvements of his personal life, Nate had allowed this to skip his mind. Nonetheless, Stern was badly shaken.

Nate was fuddled at times but steady. It alarmed him for incomprehensible reasons to think of a doctor as unreliable or inexact.

He reached for the car phone; this model had come equipped with one.

Stern had no use for it-his daily drive to the office was no more than ten minutes, and he could walk to both courthouses-but out of his love for gizmos and toys, he had let Claudia get him a number and he used the phone on any occasion. Now he flipped on the ignition, dialed information and then Nate's office.

"He's not in. Can I help you, Mr. Stern?"

"I must speak with him." He had shown Nate courtesy enough; he felt entitled to an immediate response. "It's something of an emergency."

The nurse paused. You could tell what she was thinking:

Patients--everything was a eftsis.

"He's at the hospital." She repeatet the number. "Try to page him. He's in the middle of rounds, though. I'm not sure you'll get him."

He left his numbers-office, car, homemthen dialed University Hospital.

When he reached the page operator, he described the call as urgent.

Behind him, near the doors of Westlab, a mother was dragging a screaming child up the walk toward the building. Stern turned about fully to watch this scene. The little boy apparently knew what was coming, for he was carrying on fiercely, almost lying on the ground. The mother herself was overcome; eventually Stern noticed that she was crying, too. "This is Dr. CawIcy."

"Nate, Sandy Stern."

"Sandy?" In his voice, there was a catch of something, frustration or disbelief.

"I shall be only a moment. It was important that I speak to youabout Clara."

"Clara? Jesus, Sandy, I'm in the middle of grand rounds."

Nate took a second to contain himself. "Sandy, can I talk to you about this later?"

"Look, Sandy, is it on this Westlab thing? Is that why you're calling?

I've gotten your messages."

Nate, as he'd anticipated, was going to explain. In a prescient moment, Stern Saw how compulsive and foolish he would look.

"I know it is a silly obsession, Nate, but-"

In a rush, Nate interrupted again.

"No, no, Sandy, it's my fault. I'm sorry I've made you chase me around, but I did look into. it. Okay? I checked my files, I called Westlab, nobody knows what it's about.

They have no records of any kind over there, and I don't either, so I don't know what to tell you. It's just a mistake; I'm sure. Okay?

We've all checked thoroughly. Just let it go. All right?"

Stern found himself looking down at one palm, pink and completely empty.

What is it? he thought. What now? But there was already something moving through him in a subdued rumble, so that it was only another instant before he finally made the connection: Nate was lying. He had been lying all along. For just the faintest second, Stern needed to remind himself to breathe as he listened to Nate's words go stumbling on. What more was he missing? he wondered. And then, as 'so often of late, he decided that he had no wish to know.

Afterwards, he was unsure how the conversation had ended.

The receiver, with the lighted touch pad on its back, was rectadied and he was looking at his hand on it before he had recovered. He started to redial, but a sage voice urged him to gather himself first. He had learned something in the courtroom. A Yar, called out, lied about that.

Nate would deny misleading him. If confronted, he would tell Stern that, no matter what the form said, it was wrong. He needed to be composed-far more than he was now-to deal with this.

He slowly placed the car in gear and pulled out of the lot.

When he had driven a block or two, under the large stout trees that rose up along the parkways in this part of town, the thought drove through him, sharp and sudden, as if he had been impaled: She had hated him.

Despised him. That, somehow, was what animated all this deceit. He could understand what motivated Nate; that had taken only a few minutes' reflection. He was lying out of cowardice-because he did not want to face Stern with the facts. Not merely Clara's unfaithfulness. That was the symptom, not the cause. But the disease, a kind of brutal and unremitting spousal discontent, was too painful to disclose. And yet it was obvious in every act, in the reeking mess she had left behind for her husband to discover. Never able to speak her mind, she had settled for a graphic demonstration, a life, a home, bespattered and fouled.

And was he to pretend-now that he never knew this? Along River Drive, he was approaching one of many vista points, a space of concrete, with an old Greystone wall bordering the river, and a line of park benches looking out toward the green hills of Moreland and the fashionable suburbs on the western bank.

Abruptly he parked and crossed the street. He leaned over the thick wall, watching the swift waters sluicing by with their hidden, welling currents, twinkling, lambent-La Chandelle-then fell back onto one of the benches.

Only in the years when the children had gone off one by one to college was anything apparent. By the time Kate departed, a brooding desperate quality had come over Clara, a suffering lightlessness that would not yield.

Unfalteringly polite, she was regularly out of sorts, and he was unable to soothe her. In the most indirect of approaches, lie had suggested counSeling, which she instantly rebuffed. Always mute about her discontent, Clara complained now periodically about his unavailability.

The office. His trials. His cigars-it was during this time that he was forbidden to smoke at home. The message in retrospect was clear: He still had his life, in which she had never been included. She had little left. Shocked to be rebuked so directly, Stern had avoided her.

He accepted a series of engagements out of town-a lengthy trial in Kansas City, Seminars and demonstrations of courtroom techniques. He had gone flying across America for months, until he had shrewdly suggested the irresistible, a trip together to the Far East. In Japan, with its monstrous cities and mysterious gardens, they came together again.

But before that, during the Kansas City trial, on one of his rare days at home, he had had what he saw now was the opportunity to look into her heart. The trial, concerning a nasty conspiracy of politicians and union officials, had gone on for fourteen weeks. Stern would fly home on Friday nights, leave again midday Sunday. He was present in body only; he spoke on the phone most of the Weekend or worked at the office downtown preparing for the upcoming government witnesses. On one of those Sundays, Clara had asked him to come with her to a showing of Japanese pots, raiku-ceramics fired directly in the blaze, then rolled in straw for markings. Clara was a passionate admirer of all the Japanese arts. Stern did not have time for this outing, but he agreed, hoping to appease her, knowing she would feel free to buy a substantial piece only if he was along.

She pointed at one pot after another. Did he like it? Once or twice, he made the mistake of allowing his impatience to show. When he saw the effect of this, he began to gesture toward the shelves himself. This one? That? She found his sudden eagerness patronizing and abruptly suggested they leave. 'Certainly there must be one,' he said. She yearned for few physical possessions.

Tersely, Clara shook her head and went ahead of him out the door. A moment, like so many of late, of wholly different aspirations. At the head of the staircase in the dark gallery building, he stumbled and reached back for her hand. The iron newel saved him. When he looked up, Clara had her brow drawn down wearily in irritation, and a rare edge was in her eye. She might as well have proceeded with the pronouncement: He did not please her, in a deep abiding way. The hand he had reached back for, he remembered, had remained at her side.

He had believed that was past. Instead, it seemed now that this was to be Clara's parting look. Guilt had overcome her in the end and she had left behind a message begging forgiveness. But she apologized only for her conduct. The rest could not be changed. Clara's heart, too, had been set to the fire and inkcribed with this hideous grudge. Better she should have torn apart the house, broken all the china, slashed the pictures on the Walls. Instead, full of rage and despair, she had smashed and destroyed herself, and left him to wound himself whenever he stooped for any of the pieces.

He spoke to her of Argentina.

His father had come from Berlin in 1928 to serve as a doctor in the agricultural settlements of Russian Jews who had arrived in the late 1880s and put down near Santa Fe.

There Bruno Stern had met Marta Walinsky. From subsequent comments, Stern took it that his mother believed she had acquired the sum of life's meaningful attainments by marrying a physician. Jacobo came at once, and four years later Alej."andro; Silvia five years after that.

In the same way some actors are always on stage, Papa was always a doctor. He wore a full beard and he was wedded by the heat of fierce anxiety to his professional manner. He walked through the streets of Entre Rios in his white coat and brought it home to Mama to launder. He wore three-piece woolen suits in every season. His fingernails were carefully pared and his hands were whitish and bathed at the start of every day in lavender cologne. He hung his stethoscope about his neck, picked up his medical bag, and walked down two streets to his infirmary each morning. Mama told him that Papa was important. He made people better.

They respected him. Papa loved respect. Something about respect-Stern never knew the precise dimension of his father's failure-brought the family when Stern was almost five to Buenos Aires, with its gracious, cosmopolitan air.

One more unfortunate move. The city folk took them for rubes, and Mama's country relatives treated them at once as disagreeable porterios.

In the United States, word that Stern had grown up as a Jew in Argentina was taken as suggesting dangers only slightly less than if his father had stayed on in Berlin. To be sure, amohg the Argentines there were many anti-Sem-ites.

Mama's cousin Ritella recalled from her rocking chair with emphatic flourishes the Seroaria Trtigica, tragic week, when she was in her teens and roving mobs had entered the Jewish quarter in Buenos Aires with iron bars and barrel staves, beating any Bolshevik they found, which was taken loosely to include virtually any Jew. But for the most part, the years ithe late 1880s and put down near Santa Fe.

There Bruno Stern had met Marta Walinsky. From subsequent comments, Stern took it that his mother believed she had acquired the sum of life's meaningful attainments by marrying a physician. Jacobo came at once, and four years later Alej."andro; Silvia five years after that.

In the same way some actors are always on stage, Papa was always a doctor. He wore a full beard and he was wedded by the heat of fierce anxiety to his professional manner. He walked through the streets of Entre Rios in his white coat and brought it home to Mama to launder. He wore three-piece woolen suits in every season. His fingernails were carefully pared and his hands were whitish and bathed at the start of every day in lavender cologne. He hung his stethoscope about his neck, picked up his medical bag, and walked down two streets to his infirmary each morning. Mama told him that Papa was important. He made people better.

They respected him. Papa loved respect. Something about respect-Stern never knew the precise dimension of his father's failure-brought the family when Stern was almost five to Buenos Aires, with its gracious, cosmopolitan air.

One more unfortunate move. The city folk took them for rubes, and Mama's country relatives treated them at once as disagreeable porterios.

In the United States, word that Stern had grown up as a Jew in Argentina was taken as suggesting dangers only slightly less than if his father had stayed on in Berlin. To be sure, amohg the Argentines there were many anti-Sem-ites.

Mama's cousin Ritella recalled from her rocking chair with emphatic flourishes the Seroaria Trtigica, tragic week, when she was in her teens and roving mobs had entered the Jewish quarter in Buenos Aires with iron bars and barrel staves, beating any Bolshevik they found, which was taken loosely to include virtually any Jew. But for the most part, the years in B.A. that Stern recalled were not dramatically different from what he might have experienced growing up in Chicago or New York. In the area north and.west of Corrientes and Callas, nearly 300,000 Jews-many of them, like his mother, the children of Russian immigrants who had come to the Littoral provinces late in the nineteenth centurymmaintained a full community rife.

There were three Yiddish dailies, kosher butcher shops and bakeries, the tiny storefront synagogues. 'These were poor people-shop-keepers and factory workers, dockhands and meatpackers -who, as Mama put it, sold their labor to survive.

To Clara, as she sat across from him in the Chinese restaurant in a booth whose sides were magnificently tooled with red-eyed dragons with green tails, the familiar details were not emphasized. He spoke' of the Indians who trod barefoot in Entre R'[os; the country's uncouth gauchos.

He explained. the crazy quilt of Argentine culture, with its diverse European elements of British uprightness, Italian amplitude, and Hispanic bravery and guilt. The excitement of a.far-off place and its customs thrilled her; you could see it in her face, but she sat silent as a cat. At times, you.would think she was not capable of speaking.

He, in the meantime, carried on with animation about what he most often felt inclined to hide.

Her luminous look felt to Stern like a kind of homage.

Afterwards, she accepted his arm and they walked through the park back to George Murray's Chevy.

"You really must stop calling me Mr. Stern."

"Very well. What are you called, then. Alejandro, is it?"

"Most people call me Sandy."

"Very goo amp;" she said. "Sandy." Even with her perfect manners, he could tell that she struggled not to react to the inanity of the name. He joked that at last they had been introduced.

"Oh, I knew who you were."

"Pardon?"

"I recognized you. From Easton."

"Did you?" He was quite surprised. By his private calculations, she was too old to have been at the college while he was in law school, and he was certain she had not been a law student. There had been only nine women to enter in his three years and he had decided she was quite attractive and not liable to be forgotten.

"I'm sure it was you. I saw you in the law school library all the time.

You never seemed to leave."

"Ah, yes," he said forlornly, "that certainly was me." He asked what had brought her to the law school.

"A fellow." She looked down at the walk. "He was in your class. He was like you. He'd been in the service." Stern asked his name, but she flapped her hand. No account. "He didn't make it through."

Stern uttered a sympathetic sound. Of his class of three hundred, only about 120 had received degrees. The overheated atmosphere of law school and its occasional terror still returned to him at times in dreams. They had reached the car and Stern held the door.

"I am shocked to find I was so memorable," he remarked inside.

"Oh." She smiled a bit. "You had a GI haircut."

"Ah," said Stern. He could read her thought: he had appeared so terribly out of place. The story of his life. Foreign-born scholarship boy with government haircut. At Easton he would have looked like an arrival straight from the immigration dock. She touched his arm. It did not surprise him that she already recognized the large place occupied in him by pride.

She said merely, "Please."

He tried to save the momenL "1 am flattered that 1 made any impression."

She looked down at her lap. So he saw it for the first time: Clara Mittler biting back her words. She knew a difficult social pass and had an infallible intuition for when to withdraw. He had learned to imitate her at this, in the way married couples will after decades, how to keep his silence when it was best, but he never had the same mastery as she.

The subject drifted past; the sting receded. He started the car and drove, again tensely studying the streets. "Did you enjoy law school?"

"To endure," said Stern, "not to enjoy."

"That's what my father says. I used to study in the law school library when I was an undergraduate. I wanted to go myself, but he wouldn't hear of it." She labored with the thought. "And what about Easton, Sandy?" She used his name deliberately. "Did you find it a pleasure to be out in the hills?"

Here Stern showed more caution. This was apparently her alma mater.

What could he say? There in the rolling countryside, thirty miles from the hub of Kindle County, Easton University had been built in the 1870s as an Episcopal alternative to the land-grant universities. By now, it had a magnificent faculty and a world-class reputation. But it was full of foppish fellows in tweed coats, boys from Brooklyn and Iowa who carried on as if they were princes and dukes. Easton was more Yale than Yale, a palace of pretensions. It had been an astonishing three years to Stern. Some people took him as exotic; others as a waif.

"Easton," said Stern, "I found to be much farther from. the city than mere geography might suggest."

"Oh, yes," She nodded heartily. "I used to think the same thing all the time when I was teaching." -"Teaching?" asked Stern. For a few moments, he learned a thing or two about her. it turned out that after college she had been a grade-school teacher at the Prescott School in DuSable. The students were almost exclusively black-"colored," they said in 1956-poor youngsters whose poverty surrounded them like a vast gulf between them and the rest of the world. On the coldest mornings, attendance was down substantially because of the number of children who did not own coats.

"Nothing was wasted," she said, "Every moment was worthwhile. Whether you succeeded or failed."

"What caused you to stop?" asked Stern.

"In the dark car, she made a heavy sound. "I quit almost two years ago."

Move to strike as nonresponsive, Stern thought. The nomenclature of the courtroom was always in his mind these days, one more American dialect he wished to faultlessly master.

"For a particular reason?"

"I thought I had something better to do."

In George's car, they both became silent.

When he said good night to her beside the iron standards of the pointed fence that bounded Henry Mittler' s handsome Georgian home in Riverside, she shook his hand and smiled against her will, and made him promise to call her about dinner next week. He watched her dash up the stairs, full skirt and petticoats hoisted. She ran through the doors of the house, which were large enough to front a mission, without turning back.

Was she close to tears? 'Something had happened. She had been here, then gone, as warm in her own troubles. A fascinating young woman, bright and tenderhearted, and from the eagerness with which she spoke of seeing him again, he was sure that no snub had been intended. But as he stared up in the dark at the ocher brick and iron flower boxes that hung on Henry Mittler's home,,the weight of grim conviction settled on him.

He would never:really know what lay inside.

With his usual abject look, Remo Cavarelli aided in the marble corridor outside the court-m of United States District Court Judge oira Winchell.

Stern hung on to Remo like an old tie-one too garish and oddly proportioned to accompany any part of the current wardrobe. With his coarse hands and North End speech, Remo was an embarrassment to the young lawyers in Stern's office, who were accustomed to Stern's current trade-business people and professionals overcome by material appetites or caught up in ambiguous circumstances. But Remo had been a client for nearly three decades, and Stern would not abandon him. He had first approached Stern in the teeming halls of the North End police court and reappeared every.few years in the midst of one scrape or another, a tough block of a man with the roughened brown face of a mariner.

Remo was a thief. He stole as a profession, with attitudes not unlike a professional hunter's. He admired what he stole; he enjoyed taking it; he looked forward to doing it again. And he regarded apprehension as part of his calling.

Each time he went to jail, and he had done three stretches 'already-he lamented the effect on his family. On the last occasion, Stern remembered, Remo had wept wildly as he contemplated separation from his young son. But he had come of age among men who made bluff pronouncements about the time they had done. And so, when he was caught, Remo Cavarelli plead guilty.

That was how he intended to answer the indictment pending against him here for conspiring to loot an interstate shipment. Not today, of course. Like a man with a toothache, the only thing that Remo regarded as worse than his present predicament was its solution. But sooner or later,.after Stern had arranged another continuance or two, Remo would approach the bar and publicly admit his culpability.

And this time it would be against the advice of his lawyer.

The government's case was extremely weak-a conspiracy depending entirely on Remo's coincidental appearance at the site where a hijacked refrigerator truck was being unloaded of its cargo of beef sides. Stern had encouraged Remo to go to trial, even offered to adjust his fee, but Remo was not interested. Trials were for people who had a gripe. Remo had none. At this point, with his fourth conviction, Remo was likely to be gone for a number of years. But he remained resolute.

Before the courtroom door, Remo pumped Stern's hand and Stern took a moment to explain what would happen today. The period for pretrial motions was now past, and judge Winchell would set a trial date. Remo was to do nothing more than stand at Stern's side before the bench. His appearance was not required, but Stern urged Remo to attend nonetheless.

He would look like a tamed ruffian beside the lawyers as they spoke a language he could not understand.

His coat hung on him with an evident foreignness; his broad tie formed a hue knot and elevated the,collar points on Remo's polyester shirt.

Remo's head would list slightly throughout, and his large rough hands would Cling to his sides pathetically, as if, like awkward sensors, they could feel the cold weight of the bars. Stern had seen Remo perform this routine before, and standing beside Sandy, he would break even the hardest heart.

Today he would get the chance. Moira Winchell had started out as a federal prosecutor, and went on to spend a number of years as a big-firm litigator, one of those lawyers who attended to complex civil lawsuits, trading Himalayan masses of documents and seldom bringing cases to trial. Ten years ago, she had been the first woman named a federal judge in this district; by now, she had been elevated by her colleagues to chief. Moira was rightfully celebrated as the triumphal conqueror of generations of discrimination.

But, alas, there was a reason Moira had succeeded when others had not.

She was a tough cookie. And the bench had made her tougher. Facing the manifold burdens of life as a federal judge-crowded dockets, churlish lawyers, middling pay, and almost unlimited power-some people did not respond well. They came to the bench thrilled by the acclaim of their peers and became, in a short period of time, as temperamental as Caligula. Moira Winchell was one of them -snappish, sarcastic, even, at moments, downright mean. Stern had tried cases against Moira years ago, during the time she was a prosecutor, and forged with her a relationship of mutual regard. More recently, the judge and her husband, Jason, a-law school professor, had passed occasional intermissions with Stern and Clara at the symphony. There, soothed by the music, Moira was amiable, if a little haughty. But in her courtroom she was harder than granite.

"Mr. Stern, where are we going with this matter?" From the substantial height of the dark bench, Judge Winchell addressed him as soon as the clerk called the case for status. She gave no apparent attention to Moses Appleton, the Assistant United States Attorney who Stood beside Stern on the shoulder opposite Remo. Moses, a young black man, was a crackerjack lawyer-he figured for great things-but the prosecutors, all of them, were like cigar store Indians to many of the judges: fungible young functionaries routinely clamoring for vengeance.

Stern promptly complained about the prosecution, claiming that they had not provided enough information on the case for him to determine whether it should be "resolved without trial," an oblique reference to a guilty plea.

Judge Winchell, who had heard it all before, motioned him silent. -In the large old courtroom, lawyers, each awaiting his or her turn at the podium, sat by the dozens on the dark-lacquered benches, attending to the judge like a reverent congregation and all the while registering legal fees in six-minute increments.

"Two weeks for the government to file a Rule 801 statement, supported by 302s and grand jury testimony. We'll set the trial for two weeks thereafter. No continuances. Give them a date," said Judge Winchell to her minute clerk, who sat almost at ground level, four feet below. The clerk, Wilbur, who took his cues from the judge, called out a date next month like anannouncement of doom.

Remo, beside Stern, spoke up for the first time. "So soon?" he whispered. "Hush," said Stern.

On the bench, Judge Winchell whipped her straight dark hair back over her shoulder.

"Mr. Stern, might I have a word with you?" She started down the stairway beside the bench and, as Stern approached, waved Appleton away.

He was unnerved. Stern knew what was coming.

"Sandy," said Moira Winchell, suddenly beside him at his height, "I was terribly sorry to hear about Clara. We all think of you." She placed her long hand on Stern's shoulder and gave him a level look of real sadness. He found himself oddly moved by the judge's sincerity. Here in the strong light of the courtroom, where Moira did not bother with makeup, Stern was impressed by the toll reflected in her features. Her pretty Irish face was deeply lined now; her eyes held no amusement. One tended to forget the earnestness that underlay all her efforts. The world watched her, she knew, waiting for a serious mistake.

"Your Honor is most kind."

"Call," she said. "We'll have lunch."

Then she drew her black robe around her 'again as she ascended to her superior place. Her face was already wrinkled with its familiar look of irritation. More lawyers. More disputes. More decisions. Onward.

Both Appleton and Remo had waited a few feet away. "Moses," said Stern in the corridor, "I shall speak with you." Then he led Remo into the attorneys' room, a serene chamber with ancient oak desks and black-and-white photos of various judges of the court of decades past, all floured with dust and askew on the wall. Stern quickly summarized what had occurred. The judge would soon demand a final decision about whether Remo would plead guilty. Stern, again, urged him to proceed to trial, but Remo was clearly indifferent to this advice.

"This here thing," Remo said, "is Friday time. You know what I mean?"

Stern did not. He shook his head.

"What's your religion?" asked Remo. "Catholic, right?"

Stern shook his head once more. With his Latin accent, he had long found that Remo's mistake was often made. After all these years, he was certain that it would shock poor Remo to learn the truth. But Remo made no further inquiry.

He was caught up with what he was saying.

"See, in the Roman Catholic religion, for all the time I was growin up, the priests say, No meat on Friday, don't eat meat on Friday. You know?

Fish, that's okay. Jell-O mold, that's okay. But no meat. See, but guys done it.

Lotsa guys. Sometimes you'd slipup or somethin, you know.

You'd be eatin a steak, then you'd think like, Jesus, what day is this? Sometimes it'd be on purpose. I remember, when I was at St. Viator's, there's a group a us, we'd go for burgers just on Fridays. We'd sit in a booth in the window and wave to the Sisters when they went walkin by.

I'm not kiddin." Remo laughed to himself, and wobbled his large dark face. "Oh, we was bad.

"Then all the sudden the priests change their minds. See? it's okay now. Have whatever you like, no problem. But what happened to all the guys who's down bumin in hell for eatin meat 'on Fridays, huh? You think they let them out? I asked the Father, you know, cause I'm wonderin. I asked, Those guys get out or what? Oh no, he says.

God's,rules is God's rules. You don't fuck with them. You know. I mean, he don't say you don't fuck with them, but you get what I'm sayin.

"So that's this here thing-it's Friday time. It's bullshit. I didn't do notbin. Honest to God, I cross my heart, it wasn't my job. You know, I heard about this thing, so I shown up and all, I figured could be I'd get a piece.

"But maybe these guys and I, maybe we done some things before. See? So that's how it works out. It's Friday time, on account of what we done before. So what can you do?"

Remo shifted his large shoulders and raised his hands. He did not control God's universe; he merely understood a few of its rules. In his mild brown eyes the look of conviction was deep. Stern, inclined to quarrel, stifled himself.

Behind Remo he saw Sonia Klonsky, burdened with numerous case files, drifting by. He called after her and quickly shook hands with his client, leaving behind the one man in the courthouse who had no doubts about justice.

"I must have a word with you about Margy Allison," he said, coming abreast of her. Klonsky had apparently spent a typical morning for a trial Assistant: shifting between courtrooms, leaving messages with the clerks and other 'young prosecutors so that her cases, up for status or motions, could be passed while she ran between court calls.

Stern attempted to complain about the govemment's conduct in not serving him with Margy's subPena,-but she showed no remorse.

"You knew what our position was." Klonsky strolled ahead, intent on her next court appearance. "Who's going to be her lawyer?"

"Is she a subject?"

"Not at present."

"Then I intend to represent her."

Klonsky was prepared for this, too. "Stan thinks there's a risk of conflict."

"Can you explain that?"

"No."

"Then you may thank the United States Attorney for his ethical vigilance on my behalf and inform him that I shall be Ms. Allison's lawyer." His smile was personable; he meant to be firm, not snippy. "May I ask, as Margy's counsel, a few questions?"

"If you insist."

"What do you wish from her?"

"Some documents." Klonsky smiled but did not slow her pace.

"Some questions. I have to go to Pivin." She Pointed to the courtroom of Judge Albert Pivin, seventy-eight years old and still presiding over an active calendar. Stern followed her inside, but the clerk saw her and called her case immediately and Stern went outside to wait across the hall from the courtroom doors. Emerging a few minutes later, she greeted him with a somewhat rankled look. Apparently, she had thought she was free of him.

"Sandy, look. Personally, I don't care what I tell you. But you know how Stan gets. He's running a tight ship."

Stern followed her to the cloakroom, where she retrieved a light raincoat, then proceeded down the central alabaster stairCase of the courthouse. Her business here was apparently concluded.

"Whaustice.

"I must have a word with you about Margy Allison," he said, coming abreast of her. Klonsky had apparently spent a typical morning for a trial Assistant: shifting between courtrooms, leaving messages with the clerks and other 'young prosecutors so that her cases, up for status or motions, could be passed while she ran between court calls.

Stern attempted to complain about the govemment's conduct in not serving him with Margy's subPena,-but she showed no remorse.

"You knew what our position was." Klonsky strolled ahead, intent on her next court appearance. "Who's going to be her lawyer?"

"Is she a subject?"

"Not at present."

"Then I intend to represent her."

Klonsky was prepared for this, too. "Stan thinks there's a risk of conflict."

"Can you explain that?"

"No."

"Then you may thank the United States Attorney for his ethical vigilance on my behalf and inform him that I shall be Ms. Allison's lawyer." His smile was personable; he meant to be firm, not snippy. "May I ask, as Margy's counsel, a few questions?"

"If you insist."

"What do you wish from her?"

"Some documents." Klonsky smiled but did not slow her pace.

"Some questions. I have to go to Pivin." She Pointed to the courtroom of Judge Albert Pivin, seventy-eight years old and still presiding over an active calendar. Stern followed her inside, but the clerk saw her and called her case immediately and Stern went outside to wait across the hall from the courtroom doors. Emerging a few minutes later, she greeted him with a somewhat rankled look. Apparently, she had thought she was free of him.

"Sandy, look. Personally, I don't care what I tell you. But you know how Stan gets. He's running a tight ship."

Stern followed her to the cloakroom, where she retrieved a light raincoat, then proceeded down the central alabaster stairCase of the courthouse. Her business here was apparently concluded.

"What exactly is it Stan Sennett has told you about me?"

"Oh, don't be like that. He has a great deal of respect for you.

Everybody there does. You know that. Frankly, he looked very concerned the first time I told him you were involved in this case. I'm'not supposed to admit that, am I?"

"Oh, Mr. Sennett has no fear of me," said Stern. "Old prosecutors merely love to praise their opponents. It adds immeasurably to the thrill of victory." This gallantry, of course, was intended for the U.S.

Attorney's consumption.

Like all men lacking self-confidence, Sennett was easily flattered and the South American in Stern was always alert to appease those in power.

Klonsky was laughing out loud.

"Come on," she said. "We're just taking you as seriously as we should."

She pushed out the doors of the courthouse.

Spring was in its finale, the winds still sweet and the air light, just before it took on the burdens of summer.

"What you are doing," said Stern, "is limiting the information I receive, in order to protect your informant."

From her look, he could tell she felt he was trying to bait her. She did not answer.

"Please," said Stern. He took her by the arm momentarily.

"I must ask you one or two more questions about Margy.

Allow me to buy you coffee. I did not eat breakfast." He pointed to a little restaurant on the corner called Duke's,' and to his surprise she came along without complaint. He meant what he said-he was hungry-and he found Ms. Klonsky, in spite of himself, pleasant and challenging company. Primarily, of course, he hoped that in a more amiable atmosphere she might be less resolute about guarding America's secrets.

Ms. Klonsky, as she had just demonstrated with her remark about Sennett, was not really equipped to be discreet. She understood the role, but her large, expansive character was still not comfortably confined by lawyerly proprieties. Like many young attorneys, she was imitating the mentor-Sennett, in this case-rather than making allowances for herself.

Duke's was little more than a lunch counter, a greasy spoon with an open grill under a spattered aluminum hood, and a number of old Formica tables. Klonsky set her files down when they were seated and lifted her face to the frying smells.

"Wonderful," she said.

"That is an overstatement. Reliable will suffice. You have never been?" 'She shook her head.

'The proprietor," said Stern, "is the little dark fellow you see in the kitchen. A Rumanian. He is best known for his sausage, which he makes himself and which he aptly refers to on the menu as 'Ruination." Will you eat?" Stern akeady had the menu in hand.

"I shouldn't," she said. "I've put on twelve pounds already." But she picked up the laminated card nonetheless.

"Your son-in-law got a lawyer, you know. I was a little surprised by your referral."

"Oh, well," said Stern, and smiled fleetly. He, on the other hand, was well practiced in appearing agreeable yet.remaining silent; how John chose his lawyer was not the prosecutor's business. He had been troubled not to have heard something from his son-in-law, but Klonsky's remark made it clear that he had followed Stern's advice and retained Raymond Horgan. There were many people in the legal community puzzled by Stern's affinity with Horgan.

They'd had celebrated battles while Raymond was the Kindle County Prosecuting Attorney, culminating in some uncomfortable moments three years ago when Stern had crossexamined Horgan, Who appeared as a prosecution witness at the murder trial of Rusty Sabich, Raymond's former Chief Deputy. But the law, much like politics, made its own strange bedfellows. Horgan's large firm liked to send cases they could not handle due to conflicts to Stern, who could not compete for the other legal work of the big corporate clients, and he n. aturally reciprocated.

"What's really good?" she asked.

"The sausage, if you have the stomach for it. I am not certain it is suited to your present condition."

"I doubt it," she said. "I've just started eating meat again. For the protein."

"A vegetarian?"

"Oh, I've been very careful for years about what I eat. I was once very sick." She looked directly at Stern, the hinge of some tentativeness clear in her eye. "Cancer," she said.

The waitress came then, saving Stern from a response. Ms. Klonsky had a disconcerting directness, a willingness to proceed past the recognized borders with little thought, a trait which made Stern uneasy. She asked for a single scrambled egg, while he ordered an omelette and tWO servings of the sausage. He promised her a bite.

"What was I saying?" she asked. Stern did not answer, but she remembered herself and said simply, "Oh, yes."

"You appear a picture of health now."

"I think I am. I mean, I wouldn't be in this condition-" She lifted a hand. "But so much of it is outlook. You really never forget about it.

You tell yourself you're well. You search for signs that you're not, and when you don't find them, you rejoice and tell yourself that you can go back to believing that you're infinite, the way you did before."

"How old were you?"

She raised her eyes to remember. "Thirty-five, thirty-six just about."

Stern shook his head. That was young, he said, for that sort of thing.

"Well, you know how it is. You get to the hospital feeling why me, how me, and then there are plenty of people in the same condition, and worse." She had asked for tea and interrupted herself to fish the bag in and out of the cup when the waitress brought it. "It didn't seem so unusual there. But I was a very young thirty-six. My life was in chaos. I was in law school, but it was the fourth postgraduate education I'd started. I had no idea what I was doing. My relationship with Charlie was going through its one millionth crisis-" She raised her hands for emphasis, one wrist today bedecked with a mw of bright plastic bracelets, "It just seemed so unbelievable to me that I was being shown the door, when I didn't even feel I'd arrived." :The expression made Stern laugh. "What were your other postgraduate programs?"

"Let's see." She raised her hands to count and again lifted her eyes to the grimy acoustical tiles of Duke's ceiling.

"From college, I went out to California for graduate school,in philosophy, but I wasn't ready for that, so I enrolled in:the Peace Corps-remember that?-and was in the Philippines for two years. When I came back, I started graduate school in English, which is where I met Charlie. I left that because I couldn't imagine actually writing a dissertation. But, of course, I'd finished all the class work before I figured that out. Then I taught for about a year and a half then I went back to the U. as a graduate student in education. Then:I gave up on the educational bureaucracy as hopeless. Naturally, I owed a fortune in student loans at that point. So I began thinking about getting a decent-paying job. Which 'led to law. There were some things in between, but they didn't last long enough to mention."

"I see," said Stern. "It does sound as if you had a hard time getting started."

"Not starting," she said. "That was no problem at all.

Finishing was hard. I always believed that I was not an achievement-oriented person, but when I got sick, I was really unhappy that I didn't have a single thing I could look back to that I'd completed. It was as if I'd.passed through and never even left tracks.

It was pathetic. I was getting radiation. I was lying there with my hair falling out, recovering from surgery, and I had Charlie bringing me volumes of Hart Crane. I actually started writing my dissertation right there. And, naturally, one morning I vomited all over it. That, needless to say, was a low point." She sat back, gripped by her own story. She picked up a dull steel fork off the table and stared at it.

"I'm talking too much," she said.

"You are charming, Sonia," he answered, and immediately felt he had been drawn into her habit of saying more than one should. He rushed on to something more neutral. "So you became a health-food person in the wake of your illness? My daughter, who is a lawyer in New York, comes home with a knapsack full of bags and bottles of such things. I've learned to ask no questions."

"Oh, yes. That's me. Ms. Natural here. We drive around all day on Saturday and shop. Charlie has written poems about it. It really is better for you. But the doctor has been dropping some pretty broad hints about more protein."

"Your husband is a poet?"

"A living, breathing, write-every-day poet. He actually puts it in our tax return: 'Poet." He has another job, naturally. You have to. Charlie likes to say we have the same employer.". She smiled. "He's a postal clerk. He was an instructor in the English Department at the U. for years, but he couldn't hack the politics. And he makes more money this way and gets more time to write. It's an absolutely impossible, impractical life, to which he's completely devoted." She smiled once more, somewhat fitfully this time. Perhaps she felt she was being disloyal. She looked again at the silverware and took a second to praise her husband's verse.

The eggs came then.

"God," said Klonsky, "what is that black lump?"

"Ruination," he said. "What else?" Stern cut a piece and lifted it toward her, but she made a horrible face and raised both hands.

"It makes me queasy just to see it. It looks like something excreted."

Stern dropped his fork to the plate."

"Young woman," he said darkly, "this is my breakfast." She began to laugh then, a fine trilling note full of joy and congratulation. He laughed himself and she got caught up in her own amusement and went on until she had to use her napkin to wipe her eyes. She managed to say,

"Bon appetit," and began to laugh again.

He started to eat in spite of her.

"That's right," she said. "Don't let it get cold."

"It happens to be good. And I am quite hungry."

"You must be." She broke down one more time. She tried, with a few false starts, to control herself. *'Are you.sure you will not try some?" He lifted his fork in a perfect deadpan, and set her off once more. This time he laughed himself for quite some time.

She told him he was a good sport.

"I am accustomed," Stern told her. "My daughter in New York lectures me about meat. She has ruined a number of meals."

"What's her name?"

Stern told her.

"Marta. That's beautiful. I'm thinking about names all the time now It seems so important. The first thing. And I don't want my child to feel that I've done what my mother did to me."

"You do not care for Sonia?"

"I hated it as a child. My mother was this very heavy lefty? A big-deal labor type, until her union threw out the Commies. I was named for a Russian revolutionary killed in the revolt of 1905 and I resented being somebody else's symbol. I wanted to be called Sonny. Which threw my mother into a rage. She thought I was being anti-feminist. Then I got to be forty years old and a lawyer, and all of a sudden I wanted a name that would sound professional. So I'm Sonia in the office. And my old friends still call me Sonny." She laughed at herself. "That's a little like what you do. You say Alejandro in court, but you introduce yourself as Sandy."

Stern smiled in an allusive way, reflecting his own inscrutability, but he was flattered to think he had been so closely observed. It was natural really, he told himself, for her to keep watch on a likely adversary.

"My mother was an obliging sort. She called us by different names, depending on the locale. I had a Yiddish name. A Spanish name. And, of course, she desperately wanted me to fit in here. Even at the age of thirteen, I could recognize that it was not an optimal period for Alejandros in the U.S. I suppose you may take my using Sandy as a sign of weakness on my part." This was very much as he thought of it-that he had yielded. His mother was a powerful person in her home. He seldom spoke of her but she was still with him every day, with her dark shrewd eyes, her teeming social ambitions, and her desperate pained hope that his father would somehow become the man she had envisioned instead of the poor wounded thing he was. Stern tended to remember her as she appeared on the nights she and his father went to the opera. The rich gown made a somewhat opulent display of her large proportions; her reddish hair was held in place by a diamond-studded comb, and her entire figure appeared gripped by her fierce determination to be seen, and remembered. He had always known that every fiber of strength in him derived from her.

"So how did you settle on Marta?" Klonsky asked. "Was it a better world for Alejandros by then?"

"She is named for my mother," said Stern. He laughed at that and shared a look with her, the complexities of these facts seemingly lost on neither of them. Then he lifted his fork. "Last bite," said Stern.

She covered her mouth amid a muffled retching sound and Stern played along.

"I'll have you know, young woman, this is the best breakfast I've had for days." For effect, he rang the tines of the fork against the dish, but the remark, intended in jest, somehow carried a forlorn suggestion of his personal plight. Ms. Klonsky gave him a sideways look, sweet and sad and lingering, and Stern suddenly was deeply embarrassed.

He had disciplined himself to avoid this approach to anyone: Pity me.

Feel for me. He looked down once more at his plate.

"You were going to tell me what you wished with Margy," he said. He heard her sigh. But when he looked up, she had folded her hands and gathered herself.

She corrected him: "You were going to ask some questions. ' ' "I thought you might tell me about the Wunderkind account."

"The number's on the subpoena."

"Why is it, Sonia, that this account is of such interest?"

She shook her head firmly. "No can do, Sandy."

"You expect me to bring this woman to the grand jury without any idea what she may be venturing into?"

"I've told you, she's not a subject. I'll be happy to put that in writing. If she tells us the truth, she has nothing to worry about. You know the drill, Sandy." 'But the secretiveness-"

".Doctor's orders," she said. "That's how we're doing it."

She was speaking again of Sennett. Stern, despite himself, made a sound. This had seemed from the inception to,be too significant a matter for an inexperienced Assistant. Now he could see quite clearly that Stan Sennett was behind the scenes, pulling the strings, pumping the levers, palpitating at the thought of a case that would get his name in The Wall Street Journal and bring a moment of disquiet to that den of thieves in the Exchange, as he saw them; with,their granite palace along the river.

Sennett was a wiry, humorless little man, with the narrow, bird-boned physique of a runner. He was married to a probate lawyer named Nora, an ascetic type with a fixed jaw. Stern always imagined the two of them in a home with no dust and little furniture, eating carefully and going out for weekend runs. Stan had started out as the Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in Kindle County under Ray Horgan, but he had gotten a yen for California and joined the Justice Department in San Diego. As the choice for U.S.

Attorney he had been roundly welcomed-Stan was intelligent, experienced, and more or less independent of the mayor and his dark cabal.

It was, however, one of the sad facts of political reform everywhere that incorruptibility was not the sole attribute Of good government.

Sennett was the kind of grim bureaucrat, a person of strong discipline and limited vision and courage, who seemed to turn up too often in prosecutors' Offices. Everybody's chief deputy, he never quite seemed to believe he had assumed the mantle himself.

In Stern's judgment, he had a dangerous mixtue of attributes for a man in power: he was vain glorious and insecure, quick to make judgments that were not always correct, and entirely 'beyond persuasion once he had done so. When you sat with him, presenting a problem, pleading for mercy or simply trying to make a point, his small shining eyes would follow you while his expression remained forbidding. 'No,' he. would say the instant you had finished a ten-minute presentation. 'No can do." Few words of explanation, little warmth. No argument. He would stand and shake your hand and see you to the door.

Now he was using Klonsky as his cat's-paw. That was for appearances, but the fact was, this was his case. Stern wondered if Klonsky knew how quickly he would push her aside when the lights of the videocams filled the room. In the meantime, a dark, high-density fluid of regret poured through Stern, the stuff of gloom. Sennett would b.e dogged in the hunt; Dixon, whatever his evasive maneuvers, was in for a long, bloody fight. Lost in these reflections, Stern geached forward and picked up the check.

"Oh, no," she said. As they walked to the door, Klonsky insisted on paying her share. Stern eventually recognized that this was a point of propriety and took two dollars from her. Duke, with his fried-up hair, received their money and bade them, with heavy accent, to return.

Outside, he shook her hand and told her that Margy and he would see her the following Tuesday. She faced him with what was already becoming a familiar look of ambiguity and regret.

"Thank you for asking me. I enjoyed our conversation."

"As well." He made a brief, cutaway bow, Mr. Alejan-dro Stern, the foreign gentleman. She smiled at that and, with her heavy files slung across her body, went off toward the new federal building down the block. Pigeons with their shining gray heads arose fluttering in her path, and a rash of underground air, breathed up through a grate in the walk, raffled her skirt. As he watched her go, it came to him again, an intimation clear as the arrival of spring, that he was alone. The usual affairs of the day, the courthouse, his children-they did not seem to do. Like nausea or hunger, a deep-sprang bodily response, the sense of his own un-connectedness overcame him, just as it did certain mornings, and to his surprise he stood for some time watching the figure of Sonia Klonsky whittled by distance and the phenomenon of aging vision, until she was no longer distinct amid the dark forms on the street.

AT night, he saw Helen rumore often, each week. The 'logic seemed irrefutable. Why should he be home in an empty house when Helen, a channing,,m, dinner companion, was available? Various adolescent intuitions told him that he was moving with too much dispatch toward an undesired destination. But she was such pleasant company, and who, reasonably, would choose loneliness? He was fifty-six and going steady.

And, like some teenager, he was also screwing his brains out. in fin de sibcle America, it seemed, this was how men and women paid respects. The hell with notes and flowers. :Let's get it on! One afternoon, Helen met him for lunch at his club in Morgan Towers. In that upright atmosphere, with the waiters in frogged coats and the bankers and business folk waxing genial, Helen grasped his hand and said, "Fuck me, Sandy." She had had a glass of wine and her eyes looked very green.

And did he resist? Not on your life. Mr. Alejandro Stern, at 1:27 in the afternoon, rented a room in his own name across the street iway bow, Mr. Alejan-dro Stern, the foreign gentleman. She smiled at that and, with her heavy files slung across her body, went off toward the new federal building down the block. Pigeons with their shining gray heads arose fluttering in her path, and a rash of underground air, breathed up through a grate in the walk, raffled her skirt. As he watched her go, it came to him again, an intimation clear as the arrival of spring, that he was alone. The usual affairs of the day, the courthouse, his children-they did not seem to do. Like nausea or hunger, a deep-sprang bodily response, the sense of his own un-connectedness overcame him, just as it did certain mornings, and to his surprise he stood for some time watching the figure of Sonia Klonsky whittled by distance and the phenomenon of aging vision, until she was no longer distinct amid the dark forms on the street.

AT night, he saw Helen rumore often, each week. The 'logic seemed irrefutable. Why should he be home in an empty house when Helen, a channing,,m, dinner companion, was available? Various adolescent intuitions told him that he was moving with too much dispatch toward an undesired destination. But she was such pleasant company, and who, reasonably, would choose loneliness? He was fifty-six and going steady.

And, like some teenager, he was also screwing his brains out. in fin de sibcle America, it seemed, this was how men and women paid respects. The hell with notes and flowers. :Let's get it on! One afternoon, Helen met him for lunch at his club in Morgan Towers. In that upright atmosphere, with the waiters in frogged coats and the bankers and business folk waxing genial, Helen grasped his hand and said, "Fuck me, Sandy." She had had a glass of wine and her eyes looked very green.

And did he resist? Not on your life. Mr. Alejandro Stern, at 1:27 in the afternoon, rented a room in his own name across the street in the Hotel Gresham. They were at the elevator when Stern recollected that he lacked a necessary item. In the hotel's sundry shop, the attendant proved, of course-of course!-to be an older woman, with a heavy tailored suit and a strong German accent. Already giddy from the loss of inhibition and the lunchtime wine, Stern stuck up his courage and was able to clearly pronounce, "Prophylactics."

"Of course." The woman nodded ponderously as she searched through-the warren of old-fashioned cupboards where the rubbers were hidden.

Eventually, she offered an entire box of different brands. "Good to use them," she added, in the most cordial hotel style. In the elevator, Stern and Helen had been unable to contain their laughter. There-after, that was their watchword. At the most intimate moment, Helen was apt to drone, "Good to use them."

Making love to Helen was inevitably that kind of goodspirited enterprise, and often highly educational. She had read all the books; she had practiced every maneuver. There was nothing she was going to miss. Some developments that took Stern by surprise were, naturally, the result of thirty years with one lover in which the zones of exploration had been long established. He was mystified the first time Helen had extricated herself from his embrace and nudged him onto his back, then moved below. His first thought was that he was the object of a visual inspection, a prospect which he found far more exciting than he would have imagined, but she was soon otherwise occupied, busy with her mouth and fingertips.

"Did you like that?" she asked afterwards.

He answered slowly. "The wings of a dove."

Yet, even making allowances for his lack of prior experience, he still found in Helen a disconcertingly determined interest in the sexual act.

This was not a roundabout complaint concerning Clara. Whatever inadequacies she may have felt-and who could doubt the evidence?-he had never been dissatisfied. But for Helen the actual moment of encounter, the performance, was supreme and seemed to acquire a detached dreamlike rapture that Stern sometimes experienced in museums. They were, both of them, the thing observed, pure phenomenon: her body, his, with their rosy tumescent glow and throbbing veinous parts, the glistening pinkish shaft probing and disappearing. He watched with Helen's bold approval. She slipped her hand down to provide yet one more stimulant.

Like a door prize, there was always something new. One day she tweaked the nipples of his chest while he worked above her. Another time, she lifted her legs and gently moved his hands so that his thumbs kneaded at the delicate little bead which he could reach as he pumped inside her.

She presented herself from the rear, the side. She faced him and sat athwart Stern on a dining room chair. Naked, stimulated, he would drag around the furniture as She instructed as a prelude to the latest innovation. He told her afterwards that the combination of sexual exertion and stoop-labor threatened a coronary occlusion.

"You're in good shape," Helen said and reached below to pet him admiringly.

Stern could tell that Helen was immensely proud of her role as pathfinder and instructor. But occasionally the unlikelihood of these antics would overcome him. In the hotel room the afternoon they had received the peculiar blessings of the German lady in the sundries shop, Helen stood upon two dressers and Stern caught the sight of their forms on the dull slate-green surface of the television tube: a short man, with the tip of his erect penis nipping up just above the bottom of his white belly, which hung on him like a flour sack, his hands dug into the flattened shapes of Helen's buttocks, crouching slightly and pressing face and tongue upward into the wet odoriferous reaches of that mystical passage. It looked like a circus trick or the played-out fantasy of a Cheap pornographer. The image remained with him for hours, lurid, fascinating, but nonetheless disturbing. Was this some more essential self, or a brainless imitation of what others aspired to? Who were they supposed to be?

A part of him remained ill at ease with this emphasis on the physical, not what he'd thought of as his best realm.

But whatever his misgivings after the fact, he enjoyed these encounters as they were occurring. He admired Helen's lack of restraint, and her agility. When he thought of her, it was with appreciation and desire, even while he discouraged himself from pressing for exact answers about the true state of his feelings for her. His friends and acquaintances welcomed Helen openly. It made for fewer reminders of Clara and her passing, which no one wished to contemplate. The Harthells invited Stern and Helen to a ritzy summer cotillion that Silvia had organized at the Greenwood Club.

At first delighted to be included, Helen became uncomfortable with the pretense of the evening once she had arrived. Whenever backs were turned, she rolled her eyes at Stern and made faces, conduct which upset him, with his lifetime adherence to certain rigid courtesies. "You don't like all this schmaltz," she murmured to him at one point.

Helen's honesty was wonderful and endearing, but he also realized how uncertain it made him. She could set him on edge a dozen times a night with her straightforward observations, particularly of him. Was he brave enough to face Helen and her facts? She wanted to know everything about him and then make it better. At one point, turning away from the bar and looking across the enormous tent that had been pitched for this affair, he observed her in animated conversation with Silvia and found himself alarmed. This was a mismatch, Stern thought suddenly. His sister was a woman guarded by layers of the most protective refinements, much as the petals lay about the center of a rose. His first impulse was that she was somehow in danger.

He whisked Silvia away to dance.

"So?" asked Stern. His sister had known Helen only remotely over the years, having encountered her principally at family affairs.

"A charming person," Silvia answered, somewhat formally. He would have expected a similar response from Clara, who, no doubt, would have thought a contessa or professor a more fitting companion for Stern. At that point,.Helen came whirling by in Dixon's arms, looking happier than she had all evening. Helen, like most women, enjoyed Dixon's company.

'Is he the one who is in so much trouble?" she asked Stern as they were driving home on the highway cut between the dark hills.

"He is," said Stern simply. With her unfailing sense for what was important to him, Helen listened carefully to everything he told her about his practice, but he could not recall exactly what he'd said which led her to piece this together.

"Well, you'd never know it," Helen said. "He's quite entertaining."

"When he wishes to be," said Stern.

In the dark, she placed her head on his shoulder. Clara, raised in the fading era of rigid female posture, would never have been capable of this gesture, and he drove the hour back to the city with Helen drowsing, a.warm, comforting weight upon him.

Two nights later, they had a different kind of evening.

Helen's daughter,' Maxine, came to town with Rob Golbus, her husband of only a few months. Maxine had been Kate's childhood friend, and Helen proposed an evening out with all three couples-Kate and John, Maxine and Rob, Stern and her. With the perfect resourcefulness one expected from Helen, she figured out entertainment pleasing to everyone and bought tickets to a Trappers game, Stern was always delighted to spend a night in the handsome old park with its brick outfield walls and cantilevered upper decks, where skied fly balls occasionally came to rest as homers.

But there was soon an irritating undertone. Too much seemed to be assumed. Maxine spoke repeatedly of Helen and him visiting St. Louis, so that he began to feel both put upon and cornered, while Kate seemed coltish and jumpy all evening. When Helen casually-too casually-mentioned a remark Stern had made to her one morning this week at breakfast, Kate burst into the unnerved tittering one would have expected from an early adolescent. When John offered to go downstairs for refreshments, Stern eagerly rose to lend a hand.

With their order placed at the counter beneath the stands, they stood in silence. His son-in-law, laconic as ever, put on his glasses to watch the televised version of the game on the screen above the old fry grill. ,

"How is the matter proceeding?" asked Stern eventually, desperate for some topic of conversation. He thought, perhaps, to ask if Kate was bearing up; it had occurred to him that the stress of John's problems might have contributed to her worn look and high-strung mood.

"The matter?" John looked at him.

"The grand jury business." Stern had lowered his voice slightly.

"Oh." John poked his glasses back up on his nose and reverted to the TV.

"Okay."

"Klonsky, the Assistant United States Attorney, tells me you have found a lawyer."

"I guess." John hitched a shoulder. It was time for sports; the rest of this was bad news, workaday stuff.

"You are in excellent hands. Raymond is very experienced."

John removed his glasses.

"Oh, I didn't end up with him. I've got a guy named Mel."

"MelT' asked Stern. "Mel Tooley?" It was an article of professional decorum never to speak ill of another lawyer to his client, but Stern could not restrain the note of contempt. Mel TooIcy had not been on the list Stern had given John. The only list of Stern's where TooIcy might appear would be one naming the despised of the earth.

TooIcy, who had been the chief of the Special Investigations Division in the United States Attorney's Office unfl he entered private prac-ftce approximately a year ago, was one of those lawyers who seemed to be attracted to the profession because it legitimized certain forms of deceit. Stern's disagreements with TooIcy over the years were celebrated; legendary. No wonder Klon-sky had said she was surprised by the referral. How had John wandered into the clutches of a creature like that?

His son-in-law had already gathered up the box containing the tissued dogs and the beers and was mounting the concrete steps back to the boxes. Fraught with paternal anxieties and lawyerly rules, Stern followed, lecturing himself. It was, in a word, none of his business how John had chosen his counsel-even Mel TooIcy.

Halfway up the stairs he ran into Kate, literally, jostled against her as she was on her way down. They both exclaimed. Stern laughed, but she seemed startled to see him and jumped back. Here in the stairwell, better lit than the stands, he again noticed her appearance. She was nicely turned out in a sort of maternity sailor suit with a large red bow, but she looked drawn and, most shockingly, seemed to lack her childish blush. It was more than pregnancy, Stern suspected. John's situation was taking its toll. He instantly had the thought that this was the face of Kate's true adulthood. Whatever he had long expected was now in its onset. He touched her hand.

"Katy, are you all right?"

Fine, she answered, just on her way to the ladies' room.

She touched her stomach and added that it was for the third time.

"But is everything else-?"

"You mean John?" When he nodded, she seemed to wince fieetingly and touched her stomach again. She began to speak, then stopped herself. "I shouldn't say anything."

Kate had been briefed, he saw, fully informed. She had the facts, the procedures. In all likelihood, she knew a good deal more than he did.

"I quite agree. I merely wanted to reassure you."

"Daddy-"

"I have seen these situations often, Kate. Trust me. It will turn out all right."

"I only Wish, Daddy."

"You must be patient. It will all probably go on longer than any of Us like. But you should not worry."

"Daddy, please.. You're starting to sound like Mommy. She never wanted me to worry. 'Don't worry, Katy, don't worry."

"She had lifted her hands in imitation, quick, bird-Ye shapes.

"Sometimes I wonder: Did she think if I worried I was going to break or something?"

He considered this lament, so unlike her, not sure how to respond.

"Daddy, it's not that easy. Believe me." With that, she sighed, a despairing sound, and took another step down. "I have to go to the bathroom," she announced, and moved off in that direction. Stern watched her depart. What was that last bit about? But he thought he could read the portents in her mood clearly. She was worried not merely for her husband-but by him. Kate, not unlike her father, had learned more from John, and about him, than she had cared to know. John lumbered on, he slept nights, but his wife now had her eyes open. To himself, Stern briefly groaned and muttered one of his mother's Yiddish phrases. As he emerged into the open night air, the crowd was roaring over a fabulous catch by the right fielder Tenack. Ascending, Stern had seen the ball go by Yike a shooting star.

By prior arrangement, Rob and Maxine went off to spend the night at Kate and John's-a chance for a more intimate visit. Helen begged Stern to stay with her. "Just to sleep," said Helen, who had barely been able to rouse herself in the car. The large, somewhat secluded house which Miles and she had built only a year or two before the end of their marriage seemed to haunt her at times, especially after one Of the children visited.

In her room, Helen without ceremony shed her clothes, leaving them on the floor in a single heaP, and threw herself down naked on the bed. The intimacy pleased her, he knew: to 'be able to bare herself without reflection or fear of his scrutiny under the strong overhead light. See what you like.

Helen had clearly done her best, but in truth she still looked somewhat pounded-on by experience-blotched and slackened here and there, her legs varicose-etched right up to her seat. Not that any of these observations were critical. He was hardly a physical example himself, and he had not withstood two pregnancies. He had been oddly troubled of late to find white hairs growing in his pubic region. But he and Helen were approaching the same point-not quite on last legs, but battered, wobbling, losing the battle to the major forces of physics, gravity, and time.

This was one set of facts beyond the power of even Helen's will.

Stern, who had developed his own routine here, covered Helen in bed, shooed out the cat, and locked the doors. Yet for reasons he could not fathom he was not at ease. He was disturbed at moments by the thought of what it might spell for Dixon to have John in the hands of unfriendly counsel; but these were the kinds of worries that for decades he had been able to quell at night. Dozing off, he thought for an instant about Kate, looking transformed by the world of adult woe, then Nate Cawley, still to be cornered. Tomorrow he would catch him. Soon. And yet each time Stern felt himself gentling down to sleep, he rose like some float in the water. Eventually, it became a night of restless dreams. In,the one that he remembered, Stern, from ground level, had seen a bird, lifeless in the snow, beneath the needled boughs of an evergreen. This bird, an old ragged thing with plumage of black and white, was gently lifted by. a female hand. She stroked the old bird's chest, stated that his wing, which was held erect from his body, was broken but would mend. Her voice struck a note of joy and congratulation. Waking in Helen's room, with the strong morning light haloing the edges of the heavy drapes, Stern recalled nothing of this woman but that encouraging prediction. Helen continued in the shallow breath of sleep.

He reached over to touch her shoulder. But he was certain that the voice he had heard when he was dreaming had not been hers.

Kate had bought Stern an answering machine. For all his love of gadgets, he'd sworn that this was he'd never own. He was a slave to the telephone as it was. More to the point, it always Pained him to listen to his voice on tape; his accent sounded So much more distinct than he imagined. But he could not ' i Kate most spurn his daughter s generos ty. On the machine, days left a bright message or two (lately, as John's problems had deepened, Stern thought he could occasionally detect a lieaden undertone in Kate's greeting); Helen also often re-coried a pleasant word, so that Stern, despite himself, lOOked forward to coming home and fiddling with the buttons. Tonight, however, the first voice he heard was Peter's.

"It's time to schedule your blood test." Typically blunt-and indiscreet. Stern, in the empty house, actually reached to the side of the machine to lower the volume.

But the message was a familiar reminder. He lurked by the window, awaiting Nate Cawley. He had spent a number Of evenings working at the dining-room table in the hopes.of spying Nate as he drove up; Stern had given up on reaching him by phone. While he waited, he opened his mail.

There was a brief note from Marta reminding him that she would be home in a couple of weeks, over the Fourth of July, to continue sifting through Clara's things.

On paper, Marta was terse, but she had taken to calling late at night, on the verge of sleep, sometimes even waking Stern for long, meditative conversations. Marta had continued to dwell on Clara's death-she recognized it as an enormous passage. And in her casting about, which she willingly shared, Stern, as usual, found much common ground with his older daughter. Sitting up in bed, he listened to her talk, mumbling responses, half-drowsed but intent.

Marta had always been a person of somber character; Stern could not remember her as frolicsome. Even at seven or eight, she seemed perplexed by the fundamental nature of things. Why does a woman marry only one man? Why do we eat animals if it is wrong to treat them cruelly? Can God see inside things or merely their surfaces? Stern, much more than Clara, valued Marta's dark, contemplative side and was, inevitably, moved by her internal struggles. She was the child with whom he felt most in touch. Second in his own family, he understood her occasional mighty battles with Peter, her unrestrained-if momentary-resentment of him.

He had been so pleased when she went to law school, not merely because he was flattered to be imitated, but more because the law, with its substance, its venerated traditions, and its relentless contemplation of social relations, seemed capable of providing one set of proposed answers to the questions with which Marta had been so long preoccupied.

But neither law school nor practice seemed to have lessened her brooding or uncertainty. She took the bar exam in four states before deciding to remain in New York; she'd found three different jobs before accepting the present one, the lowest paying, most tenuous, least promising. She was a single professional in New York, caught up in the usual New York swirl of consumption-the latest restaurants, stores, and events-but late at night there was an unguarded tone of deprivation. She was unsuccessful in her relations;with men, stalled in her career, baffled by life, and more or less alone. Stern looked down to her note, with strong ensations of her.

Marta's quest-soulful, troubled, Yearning-was nowhere near its end.

Out the window in the lengthenillingly shared, Stern, as usual, found much common ground with his older daughter. Sitting up in bed, he listened to her talk, mumbling responses, half-drowsed but intent.

Marta had always been a person of somber character; Stern could not remember her as frolicsome. Even at seven or eight, she seemed perplexed by the fundamental nature of things. Why does a woman marry only one man? Why do we eat animals if it is wrong to treat them cruelly? Can God see inside things or merely their surfaces? Stern, much more than Clara, valued Marta's dark, contemplative side and was, inevitably, moved by her internal struggles. She was the child with whom he felt most in touch. Second in his own family, he understood her occasional mighty battles with Peter, her unrestrained-if momentary-resentment of him.

He had been so pleased when she went to law school, not merely because he was flattered to be imitated, but more because the law, with its substance, its venerated traditions, and its relentless contemplation of social relations, seemed capable of providing one set of proposed answers to the questions with which Marta had been so long preoccupied.

But neither law school nor practice seemed to have lessened her brooding or uncertainty. She took the bar exam in four states before deciding to remain in New York; she'd found three different jobs before accepting the present one, the lowest paying, most tenuous, least promising. She was a single professional in New York, caught up in the usual New York swirl of consumption-the latest restaurants, stores, and events-but late at night there was an unguarded tone of deprivation. She was unsuccessful in her relations;with men, stalled in her career, baffled by life, and more or less alone. Stern looked down to her note, with strong ensations of her.

Marta's quest-soulful, troubled, Yearning-was nowhere near its end.

Out the window in the lengthening evening, against a magnificent streaked sky, the BMW at last circled around the Cawleys' drive. Stern was out the door and halfway to the auto before he saw that Fiona was driving. He stopped in his tracks.

"Sandy." She smiled and stepped from the car, carrying a small bright sack from some shop.

Stern stood in the grass. He wore his suit pants and a handmade shirt, monogrammed over the pocket; he had removed his tie. Glancing down, 'he noticed he was still Carrying Marta's note. Stern explained to Fiona that he had mistaken her for Nate.

':"t took his car today. Mine's conking out whenever I use the air."

"Ah," said Stern, and rocked on his toes. With Fiona:and him, it was always awkward.

"Actually," she said, "there's something I've been meaning to show you.

Come in for a minute." Fiona set ioff for the front door, keys in hand, without allowing him the chance to refuse. Stern moved reluctanfiy in her wake Up the pea-gravel walk. What new treachery of Nate's did she wish to disclose? Fiona set her package down on a candle:table near the doorway and snapped on some lights.

Stern said he had an appointment shortly, a remark which Fiona, predictably, reigned not to hear.

'This is really the most curious thing," she said.

"Come upstairs. I want you to see this." Fiona stopped to release the collie from the kitchen. Stern declined her offer of a drink, but Fiona paused to pour a bourbon over ice, and quaffed half of it aonce, easy as water.*'It's so hot," she said. The dog, in the meantime, jumped all over them both, then, rebuked, followed placidly as they walked toward the staircase.

Upstairs, Fiona opened the door to the bedroom and passed down a hall into the bath. Stern hung back, hesitant to follow. There was a certain stimulating intimacy in being with a woman in her bedroom. It was not the bed so much as the privacy of the scene. The room was clearly Fiona's, finished to her taste in crepe de Chine and ambiguous pinkish shades. The strong scents of powders and colognes, too sweet American smells, rose here. A long umber negligee lay as a sort of inviting preconscious thought, discarded beside the bed on an upholstered chair arm, suggesting a languorous form.

"Here," said Fiona, "this is it. Come here." She was in the bathroom, the door partly closed. When Stern pushed it open, Fiona was studying a tiny paper bag. Her drink had been set down on the counter. "I saw this last week. I couldn't understand why Nate would keep something with Clara's name on it in his medicine cabinet."

In his surprise, he virtually snatched it from her-the small patterned bag from a local chain pharmacy. Two computer-generated prescription receipts, little tags that conveniently assembled all the information required by Medicare or insurers, were stapled to the lip of the bag, overlapping one another. On the top one, Clara's name, address, and phone number were printed. Stern could feel a large vial inside the sack. It was pointless to ask what Fiona was doing roaming in her husband's medicine chest.

Undoubtedly there had been many such expeditions: the pockets of his suits, his daily diary, his wastebasket.

Fiona would have no trouble with the kind of low tactics divorce-coui-t hostilities required.

"Indomethacin," Stern read the tag. "This is for Clara's arthritis, I believe. Nate told me he had brought some to her."

Fiona passed him an odd look.

"If he brought it to her, how come it's still in the bag?" .Stern made a sound. She was right about that. But the answer was obvious. Nate had had two prescriptions filled: that was why there were two tags. When Stern flipped to the lower one, he saw the word "Acyclovir" and his heart skipped. Quickly, he withdrew the clear brown container 'from the bag. What in the world would Nate Cawley need with this stuff?.

"What is it?" asked Fiona.

Stern was intent on the label on the bottle. In the blank ollowing the word "Patient,"

"Dr. Nathan Cawley, M.D.," was listed, and Nate's office address and phone were also printed there. 85 ACYCLOVlR 200 MG CAPSULES. ,%VO (2) CAPSULES FIVE TIMES DAILY FOR FIVE DAYS, REMAINDER ONE (1)