The Burden of Proof

I

don't know where this thing will end up, and I don't want to have to testify. I can't play the game as hard as you guys do. Any of you."

"Sonny, there are no games involved."

"Oh, please! How can you say that? After you sat there telling me you were going to search for those records, when you had them in your office all the time. And I fell for that routine. That's what I really can't believe. Do you know what I've been wondering all day-what was so important you had to drive a hundred miles to find out about it?

What would you have done with those documents if I told you the government's whole case depended on em.

His mouth parted vaguely as he realized what she was saying: he was being accused. He sat heavily on the milking chair, which was behind him.

"You misunderstand," he said again.

"I understand fine. I thought you were my fucking friend."

"I am your friend."

"Pardon me, but bullshit. Friends don't do this to each other. No matter who their clients are. Do you want to know how I found out?"

He nodded mildly, afraid that, if he showed greater interest, in her great anger she might refuse to say.

"I walked in this morning," she said, "feeling sort of cheerful, and there's Kyle Horn waiting for me. He had a nice weekend, too-he went through all the checks from MD what's-her-name brought into the grand jury last week. And guess what he found? A check written out of your client's Chicago office to a cartage company here, with a little note on the bottom: 'DH Personal." Think DH is trying to hide something, maybe?"

Margy again, thought Stern. Had Horn merely been exhaustive, or had someone provided him a clue about what he might find in those stacks of negotiated checks?

"So, naturally, he want a grand jury subpoena, and he's out to the cartage company before noon and comes back with the bill of lading and lays it on my desk. 'Your idol,' he says. 'Shit happens." I'm not nffive, Sandy. I understand you have a job to do. But you don't seem to care a bit about the position you put me in."

"Oh, Sonny, I care enormously." His tone-soulful, plaintive-took even her aback, and she stared at him a moment, weighing his sincerity.

Finally she winced and turned for the door.

"My client," he said to her, "will not return until late on Thursday."

She shook her head at once.

"Don't ask for an extension, because you won't get it from Sennett-or from me. You and the safe and everything in it are in the grand jury on Thursday morning."

"That is not possible without conferring with my client."

"Then you better get a lawyer, Sandy. I mean it. This isn't amusing or cute or anything else. Don't put yourself in a vulnerable position with Sennett." She stopped herself.

"Jesus, I'm doing it again. Look. You need a lawyer."

"A lawyer?" asked Stern.

Sonny seemed to hear the sounds first and bolted about facing the stairwell. It had not occurred to Stern that they were not alone, but he recognized the wind-sprung hairdo and the flowing gown, even before the face, so much like his own, appeared over the banister.

"Who needs a lawyer?" Marta asked.

THE ensuing scene it the bottom of the staircase was brief and confusing. Stern, at the height of emotional turmoil, found himself sorely annoyed with Marta ,1. for her grand entrance and her failure to announce herself earlier.

Never one to brook criticism casually, Marta defended herself stoutly, reminded him that she had written and that she had been letting herself into this house with the same set of keys for nearly twenty years.

"I called Kate. She said she left you a message last night.

Don't you even listen to that machine?"

Finally daunted, Stern made no reply. Instead, he noticed Sonny, who seemed awestruck by the unpredicted outbreak of spirited family emotions. He made the introductions, while Marta, in her familiar way, removed the paper from his hand.

"This is a grand jury subpoena," she said.

"Ms. Klonsky has served me this moment."

"Again!" exclaimed Marta. Clearly she recalled the day of the funeral.

"You people are too much. Haven't you ever heard of an office?" She took one step toward Sonny.

"Get out," Marta said.

"Oh Lord." Stern held his head. He reached despairingly after Sonny, but she was at the door long before him, and was gone with no further remark than "Thursday," as she pointed at Stern.

"My God, Marta. Your tongue!"

"You mean you're happy about this?"

"Marta, this is a most complicated circumstance."

His daughter tipped her head querulously and her face abruptly took on a new'light.

"Is that the girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend?" asked Stern. Flummoxed, he managed to ask who had spoken to her about his girlfriends. It was a serial connection, asit turned out. Maxine had called Kate last night, after hearing from her mother;

Marta had spoken with Kate this afternoon when she had not met Marta here, as planned. Kate said she was not well, but that Stern would be expecting Marta, since she had left a message last night.

The discussion of last night apparently brought out the rest. "Is she?"

Marta asked. "Your girlfriend?"

Deeply troubled by all thiswSonny, the subpoena, the image of a tom-tom network of females wailing over his shortcomings late into the night-Stern could not contain his irritation. Why did his children, in their twenties, extend to themselves an irrevocable privilege to be irreverent, even rude?

"Does she appear to be in any condition to be my girlfriend?"

Marta shrugged. Who knew? Who understood proprieties at the end of the century?

Stern, ready for another subject, asked about Kate.

"She says it's nothing physical. She's tired. But she sounds upset. Is something going on around here?"

"Ay, Marta," answered Stern, who finally took his daughter in his arms.

He asked about her flight, whether she was hungry. They decided to go out for dinner.

"What about this?" asked Marta of the subpoena.

"I should call someone now, I imagine."

"I could represent you," Marta said. "I've had a couple clients get grand jury subpoenas, nothing like this but, you know, you could tell me what to do. I don't havea lot of experience in court, but I'd love to try. it. I'm licensed Indeed, thought Stern, not to mention in three other states.

Nonetheless, as a holding action, the idea held some appeal. Stern would never feel completely comfortable as the client of one of his competitors. And criminal lawyers gossiped so freely.

He would hate to read some clever item in the papers about his visit to the grand jury. All in all, this was the sort of thing he would be just as,lmppy to keep in the family "?,ring it along,TMsaid S' " ' her. tern. We can speak over dinMarta ran upstairs. There were things of Clara's she had discovered during her afternOOn sifting through the dressers that she wanted Stern to see.

That, stud Stern, "is a cameo your grandfather Henry gave her when she was sixteen. I have not seen it in years."

Stern held the pendant above a small silver-stemmed menu light on the table. By the same warm glow, Marta studied the female silhouette.

"It's beautiful."

"Oh, yes. Henry had a fine eye for such things."

"It's strange she nevtr gave it to one of us. Don't you think?"

Perhaps she could not bear to part with it. Or to think about her father. Perhaps this was marked for the first granddaughter. It piqued him to think that Clara had some plan which had gone unfulfilled. He asked Marta what else she had discovered.

"This is amazing." Marta peered into her enormous bag and withdrew a huge ball of tissue, from which she slowly unwrapped a splendid sapphire ring. The stone was very large, guarded by a row of diamonds on either side, the setting platinum or white gold.

"Dar Lord," said Stern as she handed it over. It was the kind of item, so grand, that these days one could not even afford tO insure it. He studied the ring at length. "Where on earth did you find these things?"

"There was a little Japanese black lacquer box at the bottom of her second drawer. I guess it was her private place or something." Marta touched the ring. "You don't know where she got that? It looks old."

Her rivate place, indeed, thought Stern. 'Could Nate possib13 have provided a gift so lavish? Once more, he had that sensation of the earth failing beneath him, as he grappled with Clara's secrets. Then he clenched his eyes, stabbed b uilt. Oh. he was a shabby, suspicious fellow.

Y g,, ' -ndoubtedlv the ting your mother "ThiS, Sall, ' received the first tune she was engaged."

"Engaged!" cried Marta.

Stern smiled a bit. "You did not know that your mother married me on the rebound?"

"God, no," said Marta. "Tell me. This sounds juicy."

She had leaned across the table and the waitress had to shoo her back in order to set her dinner down before her.

The establishment was called Balzini's, a glamorized neighbor hood place in Riverside, with an Italianate theme and fake fireplaces and tablecloths of crimson linen. The steaks were reliable. He would always be enough of a s)n of Argentina to enjoy a piece of grilled beef, Iut it was hardly what he would have expected Marta to choose. Apparently, how ever, over the years she had found that they made a generous chopped salad.. ' 's and that the court He told her Hamilton Kreir name, ship had ended precipitously. But he said no more. If Clara had not wanted to share this part of the past with her children, it was not his place to do so. Her privacy now remained Clara's final and most valued treasure.

At the same time, Marta was the least likely of the three to be thrown off by any revelations. Marta, whose relations with Clara were most difficult, in some ways knew her best.

Stern's most telling recollection of the two would remain seeing Marta at ages four and five, dark-eyed, standing beside her mother at the sink and questioning each habit: Why do you peel the carrots? Why do you wash your hands before you touch the food? What if we just went outside and ate vegetables off the ground? How can germs hurt you if you can't even see them? On and on. Clara, a woman of some patience, was inevitably exhausted. 'Marta, please!" This became the signal, as it were, for more intense inquiry.

There were occasions when Marta actually drove Clara from the room.

Having become acquainted early with her mother's vulnerabilities, Marta was less' inclined to worship Clara than her brother and sister were; she saw her mother more as others very likely did. These were not, in all measures, pleasant observations; overtime, Stern had acquired a strong flavor of Marta's opinions. Her view of her mother probably came down to a single word: weak. Marta had little use for Clara's homebound realm, her music and her garden, and the occasional synagogue functions and teas. She regarded her mother as inert, with her dignified manner and cultivated habits sheltering her from turmoil, inner and outer, that she lacked the spirit to address. Marta saw the world by her father's measure: action, achievement. Her mother was not a doer, and was accordingly diminished in her daughter's eyes. Over time, they had come to have a relationship that could be described as proper. Clara was wounded by Marta's reproaches. Still, she remained available to her. In the universe of relational disasters-Peter and his father, for examplemMarta and Clara had managed to make do. They recognized and reverenced, in spite of misgivings, their world of attachments.

"Was this her broken heart?" Marta asked, touching the' ring her father held.

"Perhaps. Is that.how you saw her, Marta-a person with a broken heart?"

"I don't know. Sometimes." The judgment, like most of Marta's observations, cut him deeply. She went on with no recognition of that.

"It's hard for me to think of you guys floundering. Having sad romances. When I was achild, I thought what every kid thinks: that yoU two were perfectly matched, that you'd just been out there waiting for each other. Silly, huh?" Marta looked up shyly, her small eyes flickering her father's way. No doubt, over time, Marta had also developed an unforgiving view of her parents' marriage. Stern long assumed it had contributed to her ambivalence about men, her shifting attachments. But now, suddenly, her line of sight rose far past Stern, carried off by recollections. "God," she said, "I can remember one night-I must have been eleven or twelve, and I found myself sitting up in bed, in the dark. Kate was sleeping, it was warm and the wind was slapping the blinds, and I thought, Oh, he is out there! This one man, this perfect man. It was so exciting, that thought." She closed her eyes, shook her head, suffering. "Did you ever think like that?"

Stern wondered. His adolescence, as he recalled' it, seemed full of other passions: the stalled complex of feelings that arose around the memory of Jacobo; his fiery determination to be American. At night, in bed, he planned: he thought about the clothes he sawwhe could remember being preoccupied with a pair of red suspenders for weeks-the way the young men dug their hands into their pockets; he mumbled phrases in English, the same words again and again, with the same sublime frustration, feeling each time that he could not quite hear himself for the sound of his accented voice. There was not much romance in him then, yet he knew what Marta meant: that romance of perfect union: heart on heart; each word, each gesture immediately..known; the soul's image reflected, a fit l'dce puzzle pieces. He was still now, his blood suddenly racing as his mind lit once more on the image of Sonny.

Already, the picture was fading somewhat, was a fraction more remote S ,principle' of reality had begun tr,;,, [, om.e. bracing neart with much ao, -; v.."y,,:.*n=, oumsling his ,,o,,,,tc loam ano a teeling of injustice.

He smiled weakly at his daughter and said, "I understand."

"Now, of course, it's not one man I think about, it's any man. There's something about the whole thi, Men and women0" aL 'rig I can t get. -, au snool her head, the thick, un governed hairdo went in all directions. "Lately, I've been tormenting myself trying to figure out if men and women can be hue friends without sex. Do you kan remember one night-I must have been eleven or twelve, and I found myself sitting up in bed, in the dark. Kate was sleeping, it was warm and the wind was slapping the blinds, and I thought, Oh, he is out there! This one man, this perfect man. It was so exciting, that thought." She closed her eyes, shook her head, suffering. "Did you ever think like that?"

Stern wondered. His adolescence, as he recalled' it, seemed full of other passions: the stalled complex of feelings that arose around the memory of Jacobo; his fiery determination to be American. At night, in bed, he planned: he thought about the clothes he sawwhe could remember being preoccupied with a pair of red suspenders for weeks-the way the young men dug their hands into their pockets; he mumbled phrases in English, the same words again and again, with the same sublime frustration, feeling each time that he could not quite hear himself for the sound of his accented voice. There was not much romance in him then, yet he knew what Marta meant: that romance of perfect union: heart on heart; each word, each gesture immediately..known; the soul's image reflected, a fit l'dce puzzle pieces. He was still now, his blood suddenly racing as his mind lit once more on the image of Sonny.

Already, the picture was fading somewhat, was a fraction more remote S ,principle' of reality had begun tr,;,, [, om.e. bracing neart with much ao, -; v.."y,,:.*n=, oumsling his ,,o,,,,tc loam ano a teeling of injustice.

He smiled weakly at his daughter and said, "I understand."

"Now, of course, it's not one man I think about, it's any man. There's something about the whole thi, Men and women0" aL 'rig I can t get. -, au snool her head, the thick, un governed hairdo went in all directions. "Lately, I've been tormenting myself trying to figure out if men and women can be hue friends without sex. Do you know the answer to that one*" she asked her fatln' in her natural, direct way.

"I fear I am of the wrong generation. I lack experience.

The two women I counted as hue friends were your mother and your aunt. No doubt, that is not a valuable perspective."

"But it's.always there, isn't it?" asked Marta.

"SexY"

"That seems to be the ca," answe again-fleetingly-of Sonny. rea tern, and thought His daughter ate her large salad, ruminating.

"Do you still count Mommy as a friendg" Marta asked.

"Even now?"

Well, here certainly was a question for a child to put to a parent. How much hope could he hold out?

"Am I allowed to answer only yes or no?"

For the lirst time she displayed a look of impatience, displeased by his forensic gambit.

"Marta, we seem to have done a great deal to disappoint you2 ' ' "I'm not asking you guys to apologize for your lives.. I'm really not.

I just wonder. It seems so depressing. You know, you spend thirty years and that's what it comes to with. somebody rotting away in a garage. I think about it.

What was she to you at the end? In the beginning? Was she the One?

Probably not, huh?"

His first impulse,' of course, was not to answer, but Marta in these moments had a sincerity that was unbearable--for all her worldliness, the prickly hUmor, the boldness, she searched with the same innocent urgency that Sam had mandence Day eve celebration was going on down by the river. After ten, the racket of the fireworks began, a few miles away; from the window in the gable he could see the shuddering glow reflected at instants against the thin clouds. He was one of those imraigrants who still became weak with sentiment-and gratitude-on the Fourth of July.

What an idea this country was! The flourishing of the liberal democracies, with their ideal of equality, remained in his eyes, along with advances in medical care and the invenfon of movable type, humankind's grandest achievement of the millennium. His life in the law-at the criminal bar, in particular-was somehow bound up with those beliefs.

He lay on the bed hoping to slip off. He tried to read, but the turbulence of the day rode with him: his confrontation with Nate; Sonny steaming like some departing ship toward the horizon; the vexing legal complications he was headed for; and the spirits wakened by his conversation with Marta. His daughter asked-demanded-her entire life that her parents speak to her from the soul. It was in some ways the most disturbing event of the day.

At one point he quietly moved downstairs to reexamine the pillbox, but Marta apparently had it with her. Instead, he parted the curtains and stared at the Cawleys'. It was all beyond him now. He would have to speak to Nate once more, but where in God's name did such a conversation even begin? 'Now, Nate, as long as we were on the subject, I had just another question or two about your affair with my wife." Stern shook his head in the dark.

Then he returned to the bedroom. Even after months, Clara's scent remained here; as much as the unspeaking furnishings, she Was present.

Lying in the bed, he expected. Clara to emerge from the bathroom at any instant, a comely middleaged person, flattered by the full lines of her nightgown, hair shining, face creamed, distracted as she often was, humming faintly some musical theme.

Ah! he thought without an instant's preparation, ah, how he loved her!

His recollecfon of her was suddenly overpowering, the most particular details returning to him with painful exactness: the soft wave in which she wore her hair for years; the harmless sweet smell of her French bathwater; her pink gardening hat;. the tiny peculiar ridge, flange-like, on each side of her nose. He remembered her slow way of lifting her hands, her slender fingers and the slim wedding band-gestures somehow articulate with intelligence and grace. These memories stormed over him so powerfully that he felt he could embrace her, as if in this urgent heartsore fondness he could clutch her from the air.

The freshness of his love stunned him; it wrung his heart and left him weak. He had no idea what dark crabbed corner of madness she had wandered off to. He could deal solely with the woman he had lived with, the person he knew. That woman, that person, he missed terribly.

There in that moment, c16se and potent, he waited until at last the ghost was somewhat faded. Here was what he had attempted to communicate to his daughter, this eternal ocean of feeling. Then he lay under the intense beam of his reading light, wrapped in his Paisley robe, unstirring, holding for this particle of time to what little more he could of the presence-mysterious, defined, animate, deep-of Clara Stern.

On Wednesday morning, Marta came down to work with Stern. Claudia and Luke, one of the office men, who had both been with Stern more than a decade, marveled at her-how pretty she was., how mature and poised. Then she and Stern occupied themselves drafting a motion to Chief Judge Winchell, asking that the date of Stern's grand jury appearance be continued. Although it ended up less than three pages long, the motion took hours to compose, because the problems presented, as Marta recognized first, were complex. Ordinarily, communications between a lawyer and his client for the purpose of securing legal advice were privileged-the government could not compel either the attorney or the client to disclose them. But was the privilege properly invoked here?

"That's it?" asked Marta. The safe, a cubic foot of gunmetal, still stood behind Stern's desk. "And you've never opened it?"

"I have no combination, and no permission from your uncle."

Marta set a toe against it; she wore pink socks under her huaraches. Her legmas much as showed when her billowy skirt fell away-was, Stern noted, dense with hair.

"Jesus, what is this made of?. Lead? This thing would survive nuclear war."

"Dixon values his privacy," said Stern simply.

"Well, that's a problem, don't you think? How do we say that you received the contents for the purpose of providing legal advice when you've never seen them?"

Stern, who had not focused previously on this dilemma, reached for his unlit cigar.

"But, on the other hand," aid Marta, "doesn't it tend to disclose confidential communications if you admit you've never opened the safe?

Doesn't that reveal the client's instructions and show that the client has, in essence, told the lawyer that the contents ar6o sensitive he will not or cannot share them? And what about the Fifth Amendment in Dixon's behalf?"

Marta went on a bit about that. She had a large, subtle mind. Stern, well aware of his daughter's brilliance, was nonetheless impressed by her facility with matters to which she'previously had had little exposure. She had gone to Stern's library and digested the leading Supreme Court case as soon as they arrived, absorbing its difficult distinctions without lengthy study. Marta was wholly at ease in one of those complex areas where the law's abstractions occasionally became as unavailable as higher mathematics.to Stern himself.

Eventually, as they sat together drafting, they determined that their legal position foi now was simple: given the potential applicability of attorney-client privilege, Stern could not properly proceed without instructions from Dixon.

Accordingly, they asked the court to continue the subpoena briefly to allow Stern to consult with his client when he returned to town. Marta wrote each sentence on a yellow pad, reciting it aloud, and she and Stern edited, trading words. Stern, who by long habit did all such work alone, was delighted by the ease of this collaboration. When the motion was complete, Marta signed it as Stern's lawyer.

"What happens if she orders you to testify tomorrow?"

Marta asked. She was referring to Judge Winchell.

"I have to refuse, no?"

"And the government will move to hold you in contempt. She won't put you in jail, will she?"

"Not tomorrow," said Stern. "I would expect the judge to give me time to reconsider, or at least grant a stay, so we could go to the court of appeals. Eventually, of course, if I persist after being ordered to produce-" His hand drifted off. This happened, on occasion, lawyers jailed for resisting court orders detrimental to their clients. Among the defense.bar, such imprisonments-usually brief-were regarded as a badge of honor, but Stern had no interest in martyting himself, particularly in Dixon's behalf. "I am in your hands," Stern told his daughter.

"No problem," Marta said, and hugged him. "But be sure you bring your toothbrush."

On Thursday morning at ten o'clock, at the precise moment he had been scheduled to appear before the grand jury, Stern and Marta entered the reception area of the chambers of Moira Winchell, chief judge of the federal district court. The allocation of space reflected the proportions Of another century; while the judge's chambers were grand and cavernous, the outer rooms constructed for secretaries, clerks, and criers were stinting, the desks and office equipment wedged together a little like a packed trunk. The narrow waiting area was bounded by a hinged balustrade of broad spindles. When they arrived, Sonny Klonsky sat on the sole available seat, flushed and pretty in spite of her grim demeanor. Stern's heart spurted at the sight of her, then settled when she fixed him with a baleful look. He reintroduced Marta.

"We're waiting for Stan," said Klonsky, and with that, the United States Attorney pushed through the door, narrow and flawlessly kempt, humorless as a hatchet blade. Even to Stern, who regarded himself as fastidious about his personal appearance-treating himself to custom-made suits and shirts and even, once a year, a pair of shoes from a bootmaker in New York-Stan was impressive. He was the sort of fellow who did not cross his legs for fear of.wrinkling his trousers. He greeted Stern properly, shaking his hand, and managed a smile when he was introduced to Marta.

With that, they were ushered into the chambers. of the chief judge.

Because of the secrecy of grand jury matters, the hearing-much to Stern's good fortune-would be conducted here in private. Although the judge's court reporter arrived through a Side door, carrying his stenotype machine, the transcript would be held under seal, unavailable to reporters, the public, even other lawyers.

In the privacy of her chambers, Moira Winchell was personable. She wore a dark dress-no robe-and came out from behind her enormous mahogany desk, larger than certain small automobiles, to venture a cordial word to each of them. She had met Marta more than a decade ago-Stern had no recollection of this-and greeted her warmly. "Are you practicing with your father now? How wonderful for him."

The arrangement, Marta indicated, was temporary. As the greetings went on, Sonny ended up at Stern's shoulder. She was almost exactly his height-he had made no note of that before-and he turned, without a thought of resistance, to stare at her, her strong face and handsome features. Like any good trial lawyer,s, her attention was entirely on the judge; she took no notice of Stern at first, and when she finally felt his gaze, she provided him with a quick distracted grin and turned away, following the judge's suggestion that they all be seated at the conference table.

The furnishings here were in the ponderous Federal mode, massive pieces of handsome dark woods, ornamented only with deep, many-planed with no European gewgaws. Huge arched windows rose on two sides of the chambers, but the light remained somehow indirect, as if, in the dark style of the late nineteenth century, the architects had turned the building obliquely to the path of the sun. The judge as usual spoke her mind without inviting comment.

"Now look, Stan, I've read this motion. How can you refuse Sandy time to talk to his client?"

Marta, without expression, caught her father's eye. Sonny, rather than Sennett, answered for the government: The United States Attorney was present merely for emphasis, to let the judge know that the government viewed this as a signal matter. There was a history here, Klonsky said.

The government had been seeking the documents it believed were in the safe for many weeks.

"Are you telling the court," asked Marta, "that the grand jury has heard evidence about the contents of the safe?"

This was an adroit question, turning the tables on the government in the hope that they might reveal something about their informant in order to support their position.

But Klon-sky veered at once from that course, saying that she was not commenting at all on what the government or grand jury knew.

"Then on what basis do you even issue the subpoena?" The two young women went on contending. Stern, who had accepted his daughter's caution to say nothing, sat back with peculiar detachment. With no speaking part, he did not feel fully himself. Sennett, at the far end of the table, kept his hands crossed primly as he listened; he was customarily a person of few words. The court reporter was taking down nothing, awaiting the judge's instruction to go on the record. Stern after a moment realized he had lost track of the argument. Without looking back, he could not tell which of the young women was speaking; each had the same heated tone and confident timbre. The thought, for reasons he could not fathom, made him dizzy and sick at heart.

"Look. Look," said the judge at last, "let's cut through this. With documents missing, the government clearly has a broad right to inquire.

So I'm not going to entertain any motion to quash, if that's what you have in mind next, Marta. But I must say that the privilege questions here are not simple ones-they seldom are when an attorney is subpoenaedMand I cannot conceive of how Sandy could be forced to answer without being given the opportunity to consult with the client. So that will be my ruling."

She pointed to the court reporter, who began to type now.

The parties identified themsolves for the record, and the judge permitted Marta and Klonsky to briefly gtate their positions. Then she allowed the motion.

"Off the record again," the judge said to the court reporter. "What date do we fix?" She asked Sonny, "When does the grand jury meet'gain?"

"Next Tuesday, Your Honor," she answered, "but that's a special session called to hear just one witness." She meant John. The government wanted Stern nowhere near when his son-in-law went before the grand jury to implicate Dixon.

Apparently, they contemplated lengthy testimony.

After consulting the grand jury's schedule, Judge Win-cheil set the subpoena over two weeks. Klonsky looked down the table to Sennett, who shrugged: nothing to do. Clearly, they had wanted to move more quickly.

The indictment, as Tooley had guessed, was not far away.

"On the record," said the judge to the court eporter. "Mr. Stern, you shall appear before the grand jury on J-uly 20.

If there are privileges to be asserted, we'll take them up on a question-by-question basis. I'll make a note of the date and I will be available if you need me. So ordered," concluded the judge. The court reporter folded the tripod on his machine.

"One more thing," said the judge, "for all of you." She waved away the court reporter, who had paused, thinking they were going on the record again. "I don't like to see lawyers in the grand jury. It's a dangerous practice for both sides. I encourage you to resolve this among yourselves. Sandy, you're ably represented. Very ably. The same is true of the government. With all these good lawyers, I find it hard to believe you can't arrive at a proper solution among yourselves. I expect reason to prevail." She flexed her brow and looked about the table at each of them. Hell to pay, in other words, for anyone who was unyielding.

In the hailway, the company parted. Sennerr, outside the judge's presence, abandoned the semblance of a pleasant demeanor and walked off with a stiff look and no comment.

Klonsky tarried only long' enough to tell Marta that she would wait to hear from her. Once more, she said nothing to Stern. As the elevator descended, Stern felt the weight of his troubles. Marta, on the other hand, was exuberant.

"What a gas!" she cried on the way from the courthouse. The judge was right; she had done very well. Stern complimented her at length. "Can I come back if we don't work this out?"

Her plans were to return to New York tonight.

"You are my lawyer," answered Stern. "I cannot proceed without you."

But he intended to allow no repetition of this scene, exciting as it may have been. He had phoned Dixon's office before they left for the courthouse, and Elise, his secretary, had promised that Stern would be his first call.

It was time to play Dixon the music, the short, sad song.

This party was over. Stern kissed Marta in the courthouse square and sent her toward home, where she and Kate were to go through the last of Clara's things. He returned to the office, his mind, with customary dolefulness, on his brother-in-law.

BY five o'clock'he Stern had still not heard from Dixon. He had talked to Elise twice in the interval, and on the last occasion, near 3 P.. she had said that Dixon had a critical problem in New York on the Consumer Price Index future and was flying out again tonight.

"Tell him if he leaves town without making time to see me I shall resign as his lawyer."

Elise, accustomed to trivial banter from Stern, paused, waiting for the punch line, then took the message without comment. Stern called Dixon's home next, but reached only Silvia. They spoke for almost half an hour about the islands, Helen, Marta's arrival. Eventually, Stern asled if Silvia knew where her husband might be. He was due home shortly to pack, she said, and Stern made her promise that Dixon would call.

Late in the day, Stern sat by the telephone, reviewing the FBI reports on Remo Cavarelli's case, which Moses Appleton had provided at last. As Stern expected, the agents' memoranda reflected little hard evidence against Remo. His three cohorts were, as they said, dead bang-caught in the truck with their hands on the beef sides-and each had pled guilty weeks ago. But they were all tough professionals, old school, and would keep their mouths shut. The only proof against Remo was his dim-witted arrival-the agents stated that he literally had walked up to the truck and looked in at the arrest taking place-and the remark by one of the thieves that "our guy made arrangements." The government would claim this referred to Remo, who supposedly was going to dispose of the loot, a rnle which would account for his late appearance on the scene. So far as Stern could tell, the government had no real basis for their suspicions. Assuming that the prosecutors found no proper excuse to bring out Remo's long criminal record in front of the jury, he stood a reasonable chanc of acquittal. The case should be tried. Stern, who had not been to trial in almost four months, since the weeks before Clara's death, welcomed the prospect. The only problem was convincing Remo. The phone rang.

"Stern here,"

"Daddy." It was Marta. She and Kate had finished for the day. They were leaving shortly for the airport and wondered if Stern wanted to meet them for dinner before her flight.

They hoped to reivial banter from Stern, paused, waiting for the punch line, then took the message without comment. Stern called Dixon's home next, but reached only Silvia. They spoke for almost half an hour about the islands, Helen, Marta's arrival. Eventually, Stern asled if Silvia knew where her husband might be. He was due home shortly to pack, she said, and Stern made her promise that Dixon would call.

Late in the day, Stern sat by the telephone, reviewing the FBI reports on Remo Cavarelli's case, which Moses Appleton had provided at last. As Stern expected, the agents' memoranda reflected little hard evidence against Remo. His three cohorts were, as they said, dead bang-caught in the truck with their hands on the beef sides-and each had pled guilty weeks ago. But they were all tough professionals, old school, and would keep their mouths shut. The only proof against Remo was his dim-witted arrival-the agents stated that he literally had walked up to the truck and looked in at the arrest taking place-and the remark by one of the thieves that "our guy made arrangements." The government would claim this referred to Remo, who supposedly was going to dispose of the loot, a rnle which would account for his late appearance on the scene. So far as Stern could tell, the government had no real basis for their suspicions. Assuming that the prosecutors found no proper excuse to bring out Remo's long criminal record in front of the jury, he stood a reasonable chanc of acquittal. The case should be tried. Stern, who had not been to trial in almost four months, since the weeks before Clara's death, welcomed the prospect. The only problem was convincing Remo. The phone rang.

"Stern here,"

"Daddy." It was Marta. She and Kate had finished for the day. They were leaving shortly for the airport and wondered if Stern wanted to meet them for dinner before her flight.

They hoped to reach Peter, too. Eager to see Kate in particular, Stern agreed. He went down the hall to terminc if Sondra could assist on Reino's trial, and to solicit a second opinion from her on the strength of the government's case.

When Stern returned to his office, Dixon was sitting on the cream-toned sofa. Wearing a double-breasted blazer and yellow socks, he had his feet up and was smoking a cigareRe. He was brown and wholly at ease; the top of his forehead was peeling. Araazed by his entry, Stern only then noticed the leather key case thrown down on the sofa beside him.

He'd forgotten having given Dixon a key.

"Silvia says you broke up with your girlfriend. I thought you had better judgment than that, Stern. She's an intereating gal."

Stern had heard similar criticisms ften this week, but he did not care to discuss the matter, especially with Dixon, who only meant to divert him.

"Dixon, have I mentioned before that you are my most difficult client?"

"Yes." He flicked his ashes. The crystal tray was on the sofa beside him. "What's up?"

"Many matters."

Dixon turned his wrist. "I've got ten minutes. The car's downstairs. I have a meetingat LaGuardia at 9 p.m. I spend two years working on this thing and it goes to shit in a week. Honest to God," he saia.

Stern considered his brother-in-law with a stark humorless look and sat down behind his desk.

"You are going to prison, Dixon."

"No, I'm not. That's wt/y I hired you."

"I cannot remnke the facts. I have no comprehension of your motives.

But I understand the proof. It is time we consider the alternatives."

Dixon caught on at once.

"You want me to plead guilty?" He stubbed Out his cigarette, eyeing Stern as he did it-there was a yellow cast to his eyes, a hulking fetal power. He, felt, evidently, he was under attack. "You think I'm guilty?"

This, of course, was one further element of their unspoken compact.

Dixon spared Stern the facts; Stern withheld his judgments. He was surprised to find himself even now so reluctant to express himself, but there was o avoiding it.

"Yes," said Stern.

Dixon ran his tongue around inside his mouth. "Dixon, this matter is taking on hopeless proportions. John has been granted immunity and will testify before the grand jury next week." '

Even Dixon was brought up short by that news.

"And he's saying what?"

"That he followed your instructions-each improper order in Kindle came from you. He was a witless sheep led astray. I am sure you can imagine his testimony."

"Did John tell you this?"

"Dixon, as you know, I may not communicate with John about this matter."

"Where do you get this from? His lawyer? What's his name, Toomey? I thought you said he was a snake. Maybe he's bullshitting you to help out his old cornpadres."

"About the testimony of my own son-in-law? I would think not. No, TooIcy has done what he must in this case. He has persuaded John to follow his own interests. He is a young man. He has a pregnant wife.

No one, Dixon, would tell him to turn his back on immunity. No one,"

Stern repeated.

"I won't believe it until I hear it from John." Dixon lifted his chin and dragged on his cigarette. "I could have had a million reasons for placing those orders."

Stern knew that if he asked for one or two Dixon would remain silent for some time.

"Besides," said Dixon, "you've been telling me they have to show I made money through this thing. You said that the profits got shifted into that accountwwhat's its name?"

"Wunderkind."

"They can't find the records," said Dixon.

"I believe they have located them," said Stern.

Dixon abruptly came to his feet. He hitched his trousers and walked behind Stern's desk to check on the safe, on which Stern out of habit had rested a foot,

"No, they didn't," said Dixon. He wagged his head and displayed a broad wiseass smile.

Stern groped on his desk until he found the subpoena. Dixon took some time reading it. When he was done, he was considerably sobered.

"How'd they find out where it was?"

"They have their own story, but I tend to suspect it was by the same means they have found out everything else: their informant. Perhaps you were careless in discussing this."

"The only person around who even knew it was moved was Margy, because she cut the check to the cartage guys. I told you that before."

Had he? If so, Stern had forgotten. The detail had not seemed significant then. Dixon was reeXamining the subpoena.

"This thing was due today," he said.

Stern described the hearing.

"You're not going to let theta get it, are you?"

"I shall follow any instruction you give me, Dixon, assuming Marta and I agree 'it is within the law."

"What are you telling me?"

"I can assert the attorney-client privilege."

"And?"."

"I doubt I shall have to testify about our conversations."

"What about the safe?"

"That is a complex legal question, Dixon."

"But?"

"When all is said and done, Dixon, I suspect we shall have to produce it."

Dixon whistled. He lit another cigarette.

"Look, Stern, you told me, when I sent it here, those bastards woulda't be able to get it" told you, Dixon, that your personal papers would be more secure."

"Fine," said Dixon. "It's pemonal. It's all personal shit in there."

Stern shook his head.

"If I say it's personal," said Dixon, "where the hell do you get off saying it's not?"

"No," said Stern. He would not pretend he had never practiced law that way, but he had allowed himself the luxury of a clear conscience for many years and he was not about to become Dixon's winking collaborator.

"There is no stretch of the imagination, Dixon, under which internal company documents pertaining to the Wunderkind account do not belong to the corporation. They should have been produced by Margy last week."

"Oh, for cry sake," said Dixon. He stood up and threw off his gold-buttoned blazer. He was wearing a shirt of dark vertical stripes, wide open at the throat, with the white hairs of his chest well displayed; his arms were thick, and dark from the sun. "Get the fuck out of my way." Dixon strode around Stern's desk, bent at the knees, and lifted the safe several inches into the air. Then he began to walk with it.

"Dixon, this subpoena is directed to me, not to you, and I must comply with it. You may not remove the safe from these premises."

With the safe slung between his knees, Dixon started toward the door, lumbering like an ape.

"Dixon, you are placing me in an impossible position."

"Ditto," he said.

"Marta is extremely clever, Dixon. Much more so than I.

There are motions to file. With an appeal, we may keep the government at bay for months. I promise you we shall resist by every lawful means."

"You'll lose." He had little breath, but be continued' swinging along.

"You've already told me you don't have a leg to stand on,"

"Dixon, for God's sake. This is madness. You are assuming," said Stern, "that the government has no other way to prove you controlled that account."

Dixon, past the desk, eased the safe to the floor and turned back.

"What other way would they have to prove that?"

"'There must be other means," Stern offered lamely. For an instant he'd had a thought of mentioning the check Dixon had written to cover the deficit balance in the Wunderkind account. But that impulse was past.

On a giddy night in the woods, he had made an irrevocable promise.

Whatever may have occurred since he surely would not go back on his word. At best. he could be indirect. Dixon, the account application cannot be the only means to determine who was responsible for the account. Perhaps John knows."

Dixon peered at Stern in determined silence. At length, he shook his head with painstaking slowness, a gesture of absolute refusal.

"No dice," said Dixon. He bent at the knees again and took hold of both sides of the safe.

"Dixon, if I appear without the safe or an explanation for its disappearance, Judge Winchell, I promise you, will remand me to the custody of the marshal."

"Oh, they won't put you in jail. They all think you walk on water.".

Dixon, I insist."

"Me, too."

"I must withdraw, then, as your lawyer."

Dixon took a moment with that.

"So withdraw," he said at last. He adjusted his shoulders with a practiced groan, hoisted the safe again. txon, you are committing a federal offense right before my eyes. And one in which I am implicated. You are forcing me to notify the government."

Dixon, near the door, glanced back over his shoulder with a sullen, challenging darkness.

"Dixon, I mean it." Stern reached for the phone and dia/ed the U.S.

Attorney's Office. At this hour, they were unlikely to answer. "Sonia Klonsky," said Stern into the instrument, while in the earpiece he continued to. hear the ring.

By the door, Dixon dropped the safe; he was red-faced, heaving for breath. As Stern replaced the phone, Dixon waved a hand disgustedly. He took a step out, then came back to the sofa and stuffed his cigarettes and his keys into a pocket of his sport coat. He shook a finger at Stern, but he did not yet have enough breath to speak, and left without another word.

STERN had agreed to meet his children at the Bygone, one of those clever chain restaurants plunked down by their corporate parents at commercially S availing spots in every major city in America. The one in Dallas looked just like the one in the tri-cities-the same old cast-iron lampposts, bell jars for bar glasses, and little girls' trading cards with pictures of kittens cutely cemented under the urethane tabletops. The restaurant stood on a bluff overlooking the network of highways near the Greater Kindle County Airfield. Stuck in traffic, Stern could see it miles away.

The airport now was what the river had been to Kindle County a century ago, a point of confluence for the vast urges of commerce. Great office buildings-rhomboid shapes of shining glass-had risen in what were hayfields only fifteen years before; enormous warehouses with corrugated doors and various chain hotels constructed of pre-formed concrete stood at the roadside, and the highway was heavily posted with signs for other projects that would be under development to the end of the century. The traffic at all hours was thick. Stern, stalled intermittently, snapped off the radio in the Cadillac so he could give vent to various thoughts about Dixon.

Perhaps, Stern thought, tracing the trouble back to its roots, if Silvia had felt more secure in the aftermath of their mother's death, she would have found Dixon less compelling. Stern had done his best, planned carefully for both of them. He sold some of his mother's furniture and two rings to raise capital, and by the following fall, Easton University, the pastoral haven of privileged education in the Middle West, became the refuge of the, orphaned Sterns. Silvia, a gifted student, ahead of herself in school like her brother, enrolled in the college on a full scholarship; he attended law school on the G.I. Bill.

Stern for the sake of economy, and continuity, lived in their mother's apartment in Du-Sable, riding the train downach morning, while Silvia was soon invited to join a sorority.

For financial support, Stern resumed the punchboard route he had driven throughout college. The punchboards were minor attractions utilized by small-town merchants; for a dime a chance, customers poked tiny paper rolls out of the board and read a joke or, far less often, word they had won a washer or a TV. On Friday mornings, Stern loaded new boards and the prizes won a week before into the aging track his boss Milkie provided him, and rambled in fourth gear along the prairie highways, visiting the small-town stores to make his deliveries and split the fees. By the time he returned to the tri-cities late Sunday, Silvia had taken the train up and was in their mother's apartment preparing dinner.

These were rewarding, expansive moments, coming off the road with the dust of several states on his suit, and he looked forward to his sister's company, their hours as a family of two.

One Sunday night he turned the key and found Silvia seated at the dining-room table with Dixon Hartnell, who was still in uniform. Passing through the city on leave, he had searched out Stern's address and Silvia had let him in.

She claimed to have remembered Dixon's name, but there was no way to be sure. Silvia was smitten with all of Stern's law school friends, and from the first moment you could see that these two young, goodlooking people were intent on each other.

Stern was horrified to find Dixon, long consigned to the past, beside his precious sister. Dixon still had the fiossy gleam of a cheap suit, and having been shot at in Korea, having served as the commander of other men, he was if anything more brash. Stern treated him correctly, and sent him on his way after dinner, fairly certain they would not see him again.

Dixon's correspondence with Silvia began properly enough with a note thanking his hostess for dinner. It never occurred to Stern to suggest she not answer. Eight months later, when Dixon appeared again, mustered out and enrolled at the U., it had become a romance. Stern had never been Silvia's disciplinarian and he was at a loss as to how to put an end to this disastrous relationship,,though he bristled with disapproval whenever the two were together in his presence and barely spoke to Dixon. Finally in Silvia's junior year, a crisis erupted.

Stern forbade her to transfer to the U. to be with Dixon. She accepted this edict with typical silent distress, but three months later they announced marriage plans. Silvia and Dixon countered every irate objection Stern raised: Dixon would convert to Judaism; Silvia would not have to leave college; Dixon, indifferent to school anyway, would drop out and take a job with a brokerage house. Stern, longsuffering, denounced Dixon at length: a huckster; a fake; an illusion. They remained resolute. One Sunday night, Dixon appeared at dinner and begged Stern to attend the wedding: he would both give away the bride and be the best man. 'We can't do this without you,' Dixon said. 'We're the only family each of us has got."

When Dixon completed his conversion course, Silvia and he were married beneath a canopy. Stern stood immediately behind the bride and groom.

He began weeping halfway through the ceremony and could not stop. He.had not carried on like that in front bf others before or since, but his circumstances had overpowered him: he was twenty,four old now and utterly alone. His search for a wife, never a matter of conscious priority, started at that moment.

As for Dixon and Silvia, there was no saying years later who was right and. who was wrong. Silvia relished the comforts time provided and Dixon's almost celestial admiration of her; but her pain, particularly with her husband's wandering, was sometimes intense. Given the histoi-y, she never dared speak against him to Stern, except during that short period several years ago vhen Dixon was banished from the household. One evening then, Stern had come home and found Silvia and Clara at the dining table. There was a sherry shifter between them and he could tell from Clara's warning look that SOmething was amiss.

Red-eyed and tipsy, Silvia spoke at once to her brother.

"I always thought it was all because he wanted children so badly," she said, offering her own explanation for Dixon's wanderlust. That barrenness, which the doctors could not explain, was Silvia's heartbreak in those years; she talked of it often to Clara, but only in private, for Dixon was far too humiliated by their failure to bear the thought that anyone else knew. "But he's taking advantage," said Silvia. "He always has..I did not even realize he had been lying to the rabbi until he took off his pants on our wedding night."

Tlis remark seemed entirely mysterious at first, 'and then deeply shocking. The revelations seemed to ripple off, not around Silvia, but about Stern himself. He was being informed of something deeply telling, yet he could not read the message. By then he had engaged in dozens of athletic competitions with Dixon, stood with him time and again in various club locker rooms. Dixon did no fan dance; the fact, as it was, was plainly displayed. He must have assumed that among men, creatures of the here and now, this cen-turies-old ritual could be disregarded as brutal or pass6.

Who ever knew exactly what Dixon thought? But certainly he would not believe that Stern had simply not noticed that Dixon had never been circumcised.

On a knotty-pine bench by the door-the entire restaurant motif was of a basement tee room-Stern's daughters waited for him, drinking club soda, engrossed in one another.

Stern took Kate in his arms.

As they were seated, Marta offered Peter's apologies. He had been unable to reschedule his late rounds.

"And where is John?"

Kate's dark eyes skated quickly toward her sister. They had struck some agreement.

"He's with his lawyer," said Kate. "You know where. They have him looking at papers all night." Marta, obviously, had encouraged Kate to be plain, but the subject made her quiet and glum.

"This is a hell of a situation," said Marta in a tone that was largely devoid of blame. She had had many of the details from Stern, but clearly had learned more from Kate during the day.

"If there is not a complete resolution shortly, then I shall be stepping out of the case," said Stern. Marta knew this, but he repeated it for Kate's benefit. Seeing her made him more resolute. He took the hand that Kate had laid on the table beside him. Her eyes smarting, she suddenly hugged her father and brought her face to his shoulder in the small booth.

After debating whether Stern or Kate should be the one to take Marta to the airport, they agreed to go down together in Stern's Cadillac. They left Marta at the metal detectors, then Stern swung back to drop Kate at her car.

The parking lot for the Bygone was on the restaurant's roof, and the location offered impressive vistas of the airport, the highways, the hills, and the violet sky being pinched of the last light. Kate kissed her father quickly and was gone, but Stern, sensing he had not said all he meant to, threw open his door and called after her. He trotted a few steps to catch up and took her hand.

"This business with your uncle, Kate-the blame for it does not fall on John. If it is any consolation, you must tell him I said so."

Kate did not answer. She looked all around, in every direction, and for no apparent reason began tapping her foot. Stern's impression was that she was about to cry. She rooted in her purse. It Was not until the flame rose in the dark that he realized what she was doing.

"Katy! You smoke?"

"Oh, Daddy." She looked bout again, all ways, as she had just done.

"How long is this?"

"Always, Daddy. Just a few puffs. Since college. Exams. You know: heavy stressrt;s terrible for the baby. I have to cut it out," she said, but then inhaled deeply and turned her face up into the aura of smoke she released.

"Kate, I realize this has been difficult."

She made a Sound, almost laughter, a bit derisive. "Daddy, I wish it weren't so easy for me to shock you." She spoke almost harshly and stopped herself. They were silent. Then she took a last drag; in the dark he saw the cigarette fall,peated it for Kate's benefit. Seeing her made him more resolute. He took the hand that Kate had laid on the table beside him. Her eyes smarting, she suddenly hugged her father and brought her face to his shoulder in the small booth.

After debating whether Stern or Kate should be the one to take Marta to the airport, they agreed to go down together in Stern's Cadillac. They left Marta at the metal detectors, then Stern swung back to drop Kate at her car.

The parking lot for the Bygone was on the restaurant's roof, and the location offered impressive vistas of the airport, the highways, the hills, and the violet sky being pinched of the last light. Kate kissed her father quickly and was gone, but Stern, sensing he had not said all he meant to, threw open his door and called after her. He trotted a few steps to catch up and took her hand.

"This business with your uncle, Kate-the blame for it does not fall on John. If it is any consolation, you must tell him I said so."

Kate did not answer. She looked all around, in every direction, and for no apparent reason began tapping her foot. Stern's impression was that she was about to cry. She rooted in her purse. It Was not until the flame rose in the dark that he realized what she was doing.

"Katy! You smoke?"

"Oh, Daddy." She looked bout again, all ways, as she had just done.

"How long is this?"

"Always, Daddy. Just a few puffs. Since college. Exams. You know: heavy stressrt;s terrible for the baby. I have to cut it out," she said, but then inhaled deeply and turned her face up into the aura of smoke she released.

"Kate, I realize this has been difficult."

She made a Sound, almost laughter, a bit derisive. "Daddy, I wish it weren't so easy for me to shock you." She spoke almost harshly and stopped herself. They were silent. Then she took a last drag; in the dark he saw the cigarette fall, the lighted bit tumbling end over end and splitting in three on the pavement. She made a long business of crushing out the embers, twisting them repeatedly under her foot.

"Look, Daddy, we'll get through this. We have Inches taller than he, she brought her soft cheek against his, then hiked off toward her car her high heels clacking, her keys jingling in her hand. He stood in the parking lot, poorly lit, watching as she backed her car out quickly, then gunned the Chevy into a turn, leaving behind a ghost of dark smoke.

Who was that, he wondered, that woman? Of all things, the image that remained with him was of the way she had crushed out that cigarette, with her toe pivoting so' harshly on the asphalt. There was a certain fierce purpose in that which he had never been certain existed in her.

He thought of her tonight and as he had seen her at the ballpark and suddenly had the clearest intimation of how it was with Kate. Her whispering. Her murmurs with John. She was a person with secrets, with a secret life. And the greatest secret of all, perhaps, was that she was someone else-someone different from the beautiful innocent thing her parents wished her or allowed her to be. Stern's deepest impression, that she was a person very much like her aunt, like Silvia -lovely, capable, kind, but limited by choice-was merely the impression she had found it easiest to leave, so that she could otherwise elude them, with no trace. Who was she? he thought again. Really? He stood in the mild summer night and turned back to where she had been, but even the smoky cloud of exhaust had cleared away.

Stern slowly drove home. Approaching the dark house, he was tense. If he had anywhere else to go, he might not have gone in. The weeks, months really, he had spent overcome by various women and the ether of sexuality were, if not at an end, at least in abeyance for the night.

Without that, he felt in some ways more familiarly himself-round, solitary, solid like a stone. As he knew it would be, the large house was as wholly empty as it had been full the night before with that spirit of visitation. Now he was alone. The silence loomed about him with the power of some wayward force; he felt his own figure somehow dwindling in the unoccupied space. He stood in the slate foyer, where he inevitably seemed to tune in on his own soul, and thought quite distinctly that his life had gone on without Clara.

It was an absurd notion; what he meant was well beyond expression. The fact, such as it was, had been clear at one level from the instant he stood here months ago, white with panic, yet still able to draw breath.

But it seemed that it was not until this very moment that he actually had believed it. Yet he felt it now, his own life, that particular strand drawn out of the intricate tangle of mutual things he and his wife had created and shared. It was like electrical work, finding the line that drew power-he could feel the hum of his peculiar, isolated existence, which had continued with the persistent unmusical rhythm of a beating heart-his own heart, lugging on. He was by himself, neither pleased nor embittered, but aware o1 the fact. His mind lit somehow on Helen.then, and he closed his eyes and worried his head a bit, full of regrets.

He slept again that night in the bed he had shared with Clara-solid dreamless sleep, if brief. He was up by six and, reverting to old habits, was at his desk by seven. He went through piles of mail that had gone unread foi weeks.

He felt calm at the core, purposeful. But in the office something was amiss. It took him at least an hour to notice.

The safe was gone.

"'lnHIS isn't funny," Marta said whe, n he reached her I 'in New York on Friday. "You ve got to get it /back. I don't know how much of this is privileged, .1. but even if you told the whole story, no one will ever believe he just took the thing without your help. You're going to end up in jail."

Stern, at the end of the line, made a grave sound. Marta's analysis was much the same as his.

"This scares me," she said. "I think you should get a real lawyer."

"You are a real lawyer," said Stern.

"I mean someone who knows what they're doing. With experience."

What kind of experience might that be? asked Stern. There were no defense attorneys expert, so far as he knew, in explaining the disappearance of critical evidence.

"Tell him he's a big fucking asshole," offered Marta near the end of the call.

"If I can get him on the phone," answered Stern. Dixon avoided Stern until Monday, but when he came on the line, after Stern had made repeated demands of Elise, he was as innocent as a coquette. "I'd file an insurance claim," Dixon suggested. "Notify the cops. There's important stuff in there." With Stern broiling in silence, Stern's brotherin-law pressed on with this shameless routine. "You're not blaming me, are you?"

Stern spoke into the telephone in a mood of absolute violence.

"Dixon, if you insist on convicting yourself with ludiCrous antics, so be it. But it is my livelihood and my reputation at stake. The safe must be returned promptly." He pounded down the phone.

The next morning, he came to the office hopeful. But the safe was not there. The Berber carpet where it had rested for weeks was now permag. ently dimpled with the impress of the four heavy feet.

At moments during the week, he actually indulged the thought that Dixon might not be involved. He had been in New York late that night, Dixon insisted. He had gone to his meeting. How could he have swiped a safe?

What about the maintenance people, he asked, the late-night cleaneruppers? They all had keys. Maybe one of them had noticed the safe after it was moved and decided to carry the thing off, hoping it contained real valuables. The notion, although preposterous, was urged by Dixon relentlessly.

Trying to resolve every last doubt, Stern, despite his warnings to himself, offhandedly mentioned the safe to Silvia, in the midst of their daily conversation on Wednesday.

"Oh, that," she said with sudden exasperation. "You would never believe what went on here." She proceeded to describe a scene last week involving Dixon and Rory, theft driver.

Silvia, recovering from jet lag, had apparently been roused from a sound sleep by the two figures who stood at the closet arguing. The driver, with a heavy German accent, had spoken to Dixon severely, warning him that he was out of breath and should leave the lifting to him, while Silvia sat up in bed, clutching the sheet to her chest, addressing both men, who, she said, ignored her. Dixon was swearing, fuming, carrying on in a violent temper about Stern. He had gone off to the airport to rent a private jet. "Sender, whatever is going on between you two?" Stern, who always had an easy time putting Silvia off, did so again. A business disagreement, he told her. Upon reflection, he said it would be best if she made no mention to Dixon of his call. His sister hung on the line, troubled and confounded, caught between the North Pole and the South, the two men who dominated her life. Resting the phone, Stern again regretted havingacted impulsively. For one thing, he recognized only now that his conversation with his sister was probably not privileged. He sat scolding himself, while he contemplated the law's obliviousness to family affection. In the worst case, Stern would face ugly choices when he was called before the grand jury: implicating Dixon and abusing Silvia's confidence or, on the other hand, disregarding the oath.

What a trial Dixon could have, Stern thought suddenly.

First, his daughter's husband would incriminate Dixon; then the government would call Stern himself. Under the compulsion of a court order to respond, he would describe Dixon's ape-walk with the safe and its disappearance shortly after. Then, for the coup de grace, the prosecutors would try to find an exception to the marital privilege in order to force Silvia to testify about the safe, too. How Stan Sennett would enjoy it. The entire Stern family versus Dixon Hart-nell. Looking down at the phone, Stern shuddered. It would breach the faith of a lifetime to testify against a eliera, any client, let alone Dixon, whatever he was.

Stern had come of age in the state courts. There in the dim hallways lit with schoolhouse fixtures, with the old wainscoring beating the intaglio of hundreds of teenagers' inirials, with the crotchety political retainers, who displayed an almost pathetic craving for any form of gratuity, he felt at ease. That was a scene of royal characters: Zeb Mayal, the bail bondsman and ward committeeman who, late into the 1960s, still sat in open view at a desk in one branch courtroom issuing instructions to everyone present, including many of the judges called to preside; Wally McTavish, the deputy p.a. who would crossexamine the defendants in death-penalty cases by sneaking close to them and whispering, "Bzzz" and of course the rogues, the thieves-Louie De Vivo, for one, who planted a time bomb in his own car in an effort to distract the judge at his sentencing. Oh God, he loved them, loved them. A staid man, a man of little courage when it came to his own behavior, Stern felt an aesthete's appreciation for the knavishness, the guile, the selfish cleverness of so many of these people who made it possible to embrace human misbehavior for its own miserable creativity.

The federal courts, whi6h were now in a fashion his home, were a more solemn place. This was the foram preferred by the lawyers with fancy law school degrees and prominent clients, and admittedly, it was a more ideal place to practice law. The judges had the time and the inclination to consider the briefs filed before them. Here, unlike the state courts, it was a rarity for lawyers to engage in fistfights in the halls. The clerks and marshals were genial and, in proud contradistinction to their colleagues in the county courthouse, incorruptible. But Stern never left behind the feeling that he was an intruder. He had won his place of prominence across town, watching his backside, avoiding, whenever possible, the questionable dealings in the corridors, proving over time that skill and cleverness could prevail, even in that brass-knuckles arena, and he still felt that he belonged there, where the real lawyers of his definition were-in the Kindle County Courthouse, with its grimy corridors. and pathetic rococo columns.

These thoughts of one more fugitive border crossed came to Stern in the idle moments before the commencement of the afternoon session in Moira Winchell's courtroom. Remo Cavarelli, cowed and silent, sat beside Stern, biting anxiously at his sloppy mustache and upper lip, Notwithstanding Remo's agitation, the indulgent somnolescent air of the early afternoon had fallen over the courtroom. Judge Win-cheil, like her colleagues, allowed an hour and a half for lunch-time enough for wine with the meal, a screw on the sneak, a run for the athletic. Then, without warning, a door flew open and Judge Winchell stalked from her chambers and assumed the bench, as Stern and Appleton and Remo and the few elderly spectators came to their feet.

Wilbur, the sad-faced clerk, called Reino's case for trial.

In spite of Stern's frequent reassurances that nothing would actually transpire today, Stern could feel Remo quaking at his side. Wilbur already knew there would be a motion for a continuance, and no jury had been summoned.

"Defendant is ready for trial," said Stern, for the sake of the record, as soon as he reached the podium.

Appleton, Stern knew, was not. He was trying a two-pound buy-bust cocaine case before Judge Horka and would need another week or so before he was ready to go on to this case. With an Assistant less cordial than Moses, Stern might have fussed-there were, after all,.fifty other prosecutors down the street who could try this matter-but he listened in silence to Appleton's request, adding merely, "I object," at the conclusion of Moses's presentation, a remark which Judge Winchell ignored with the studied indifference she would have applied to a stray sound from the hall.

"How's next Thursday?" asked the judge. "I have a grand jury matter that may require some attention, but that's all." The judge, marking in her docket book, let her dark eyes find Stern. "Mr. Stern," she said with practiced discretion, "as I recall, you have some involvement with that matter. Have the parties resolved their impasse?"

"Not as yet, Your Honor."

"Oh," said the judge, "how disappointing." The arch mannerisms did not conceal the predictable: Moira was displeased.

Klonsky had called Stern first thing that morning. 'I don't have your daughter's number in New York. I thought we better talk. You're in the grand jury next Thursday." It was Friday today.

Her voice still stimulated wild feelings. How goes it with your husband? he wanted to ask. How do you feel? He read out Marta's number from his book.

'Has the government reconsidered, perhaps?" 'We'll compromise,' said Sonny. 'You deliver the safe and an affidavit that says that it's in the same condition as when you received it, and you won't have to appear before the grand jury.".

'I see." The government, as usual, would get everything it wanted, but their moderated stance would please the judge.

'I think this is fair, Sandy,' said Sonny. 'I really do.

The fact that you have the safe just isn't privileged. All we want is the safe and to know that we have everything that was in it. We'd be entitled to get the thing if he'd left it at MD, where it belonged. We can't allow someone to avoid a subpoena duces tecum by conveying what we want to his lawyer."

Even if he had the safe, Stern might not have agreed, but there was no point in quarreling now. Speaking with Sonny, in fact, made him unbearably sad. The whole situation-all aspects-was impossible.

Stern called Marta to pass on this news, and then at her suggestion drafted a motion to withdraw as Dixon's counsel.

It was a simple paper, stating that there were irreconcilable differences between lawyer and client. He sent it to Dixon by messenger just before he left-to meet Remo, along with a note saying that he would file the motion next Tuesday, Unless the point of difference between them was immediately resolved. The motion was not actually required in a grand jury proceeding, but Dixon would not realize that, and Marta believed it would be an appropriate prelude with Judge Winchell.

Considering the judge now, as Appleton went on begging for more time, it was clear that some groundwork was in order.

When Stern rejected the prosecutors' compromise, offered none of his own, and simply refused to produce the safe-his latest plan-Moira's reaction would be severe. Standing here, Stern saw admirable prescience in Marta's prediction of jail.

The judge made Moses plead miserably, but ultimately set Remo's case down for trial the first week in August.

"And work on that other matter, won't you, Mr. Stern?" she said as she rose from the bench. There, from that considerable height, she smiled in her icy, domineering way, a person accustomed to being obeyed.

In the corridor, Remo again began to quarrel with Stern as soon as they were alone. He was still dead-set against a "How much more is she gonna give me if I take a trial?"

Remo asked. "With this babe," he said, "I could catch a real whack."

Stern again played Remo the music: If he was convicted, he was going to the penitentiary for a lengthy period, in any event, guilty plea or not': The evidence, all factors considered, warranted proceeding to trial.

"Yeahi but what's it cost?" asked Remo. "You don't work for nothin, right?"

That, Stern allowed, was true.

"Sure," said Remo. "Right. No one works for notbin." So what I gotta give you? Five, maybe?" When Stern hesitated, Remo's dark eyes widened.

"More? See. Iain' been doin much as it is. You know, few months now, there ain' much." Stern had no idea whether Remo was referring to legitimate endeavors or not, and by long habit was disinclined to ask.

From other remarks, he took it that Remo's routine at present was confined to visiting the neighborhood social clubs, drinking aperitifs from eleven in the morning on, and playing backroom card games, throwing down money with great show and cursing in Italian. "What's the odds in that? I go way," said Remo, "there ain't notbin as there is for the old lady and the kid. And I give you five?" Remo had settled the matter of fee with himself. "I don't see it. Neh," he said, then furtively smiled. He stepped closer to Stern and whispered, the trace of Frangelico or something else still on his breath from his idle morning.

"Course," he said with a lively look of amusement, "if you had a job or somethin, we could maybe work it out. You know."

Stern peered at Remo.

"You know: Do me, I'll do you. You know. No offense or nothin. You probably ain't that kind of guy." Remo was not at all certain what he had otten himself into or how to read Stern's expression of almost brutal concentration. "No offense," said Remo again. "Right?"

ON Saturday night, Stern returned home prepared for another desolate evening. He was beginning to give in to old habits and was once more spending the weekends in the office, trying to swim through the ocean of items neglected for months. He had spoken with Silvia this morning and with spurious innocence asked what their weekend held in store.

As he had predicted to Remo, she and Dixon would spend both days at the country club. He refused the invitation to join them; legal work called. With whatever honor he retained, he declined to be more specific about his plans. Besides, he was still not certain he really had the nerve to carry through.

Alone now, facing his empty house, he thought with considerable regret of the invitations he had spurned in April and May. Many people now believed Helen had first call on his time. He would have to send up smoke signals or whatever signs were used by a widower willing to sit at dinner beside the aging malden cousin. Disheartening, he thought, but better than lonely solitude. He opened the car door and recalled in a dizzying rash that two weeks ago he had believed he was in love.

With a foot in the drive, he stopped. Nate Cawley was across the smooth of expanse of lawn between the two homes, tending to his garden.

Shirtless in the balmy evening. Nate drove a shovel energetically in the beds of his evergreens.

Stern, taken aback, wondered if he truly had the will to deal with this, too. But the moment for decision passed quickly. Nate became aware of his gaze and Stern rose from the auto and the two men faced each other across the short distance. They met a step or two onto the Cawley property.

"Thought maybe I could get you to make me a drink," said Nate.

Involuntarily perhaps, he glanced over his shoulder in the direction of his house and, presumably, Fona. He was glazed with sweat:Grass clippings and specks of dirt clung to the patchy gray hair on his upper body; both hands were caked with dried soil. He briefly developed the courage to look at Stern directly. "Fiona and I had quite a conversation a few nights ago. We probably oughta talk."

"Of course," said Stern and, in spite of himself, swallowed. His heart plunged somewhat and then stalled. It-and be-were not going do Remo, she and Dixon would spend both days at the country club. He refused the invitation to join them; legal work called. With whatever honor he retained, he declined to be more specific about his plans. Besides, he was still not certain he really had the nerve to carry through.

Alone now, facing his empty house, he thought with considerable regret of the invitations he had spurned in April and May. Many people now believed Helen had first call on his time. He would have to send up smoke signals or whatever signs were used by a widower willing to sit at dinner beside the aging malden cousin. Disheartening, he thought, but better than lonely solitude. He opened the car door and recalled in a dizzying rash that two weeks ago he had believed he was in love.

With a foot in the drive, he stopped. Nate Cawley was across the smooth of expanse of lawn between the two homes, tending to his garden.

Shirtless in the balmy evening. Nate drove a shovel energetically in the beds of his evergreens.

Stern, taken aback, wondered if he truly had the will to deal with this, too. But the moment for decision passed quickly. Nate became aware of his gaze and Stern rose from the auto and the two men faced each other across the short distance. They met a step or two onto the Cawley property.

"Thought maybe I could get you to make me a drink," said Nate.

Involuntarily perhaps, he glanced over his shoulder in the direction of his house and, presumably, Fona. He was glazed with sweat:Grass clippings and specks of dirt clung to the patchy gray hair on his upper body; both hands were caked with dried soil. He briefly developed the courage to look at Stern directly. "Fiona and I had quite a conversation a few nights ago. We probably oughta talk."

"Of course," said Stern and, in spite of himself, swallowed. His heart plunged somewhat and then stalled. It-and be-were not going down any further. Whatever was in store would apparently be absorbed under the existing quota.

Stern showed Nate through the front door and directed him back to the sun room. He asked for a diet soda.-Stern recalled Fiona's mention of AAmand was standing there, facing the garden, when Stern returned with the glass. Nate was a slight fellow, narrow across the shoulders and back.

His dirty khaki shorts hung down from his seat, and he was sockless in a pair of old loafers. Except for the bald spot, you might have been reminded of a young boy. Perhaps this was what women found so appealing.

Nate raised the glass in salute, and took a great breath.

He began.

"First off, I owe you a heckuvan apology."

In the courtroom, Stern had learned to say as little as possible in uncertain terrain. He dropped his chin now in a fashion that might have passed as a nod.

"After twenty-odd years, I should have known better than to believe Fiona. She was so full of vinegar. Probably couldn't enjoy the real thing half asmuch as she liked telling me." Nate smiled a bit. "And boy, was she ticked off that I talked to you. How dare I." Nate tossed his head about in frank wonderment. "There's only one Fiona," he said.

He had taken a seat on one of the white wicker chairs that surrounded the glass-topped table on which Stern and his children had played cards the morning of the funeral. The late light, almost umber, fell through the broad French windows of the solarium.

"I guess it just suited me to think that something was goin' on. Would have made things easier for me a lot of different ways." He laughed, a nervous sound which Stern realized he had heard from him on other occasions. "I know I should have thought better of you, Sandy. If I had, I'd realized why Fiona hauled you over there when I found that letter under the medicine cabinet. Instead of thinking one silly thing or another.

"But frankly, even after we talked, it didn't dawn on me that was how you'd put it together. I figured then-" Nate paused, and held his own thought with a quick smile which seemed to be at his own expense. "Well, I didn't figure that. I take it you found Clara's pills in her stuff and asked somebody what they were for. Then when Fiona showed you that bottle, it was just like two and two. She told me you counted the caps." Nate looked up, seeking confirmation apparently, and, receiving nothing, laughed in the same fashion. "She didn't have the damnedest idea what was going on, by the way. She thought you figured I had it."

Nate laid his thumb against his chest and smiled at the thought.

Of course, he enjoyed the notion of Fiona being misled.

To this soliloquy Stern listened with only passing comprehension. But somewhere, as Nate went along, Fiona began to enlarge in Stern's estimation. Recanting, she had apparently mentioned nothing of Stern's advances-or the full nature of their conversations. Perhaps that suited her purposes as well. But all in all, Stern believed she had better motives. Having taken his name falsely once, she had decided not to blacken it again, even with the truth. A gesture of decency-from Fiona, no less. People, thought Stern, could always surprise you.

"So the pills Clara had here came from the bottle in your medicine cabinet?"

"Sure," said Nate. He nodded emphatically, "She wouldn't have them in the house on a bet. She figured you'd know what the pills were for or.start asking about 'cm. I could never talk her out-of that." Nate, downcast, shook his head. "I had to do every damn thing but take the pills for her. Get the prescription, keep the bottle, bring her her caps for the day every morning. Hell, I had to promise I'd write the 'scrip in my name." Nate smiled gently, then looked intently at Stern.

"Nothing was more important to Clara than being sure you didn't find out." He took a second to allow that to settle in. "Afterwards," said Nate, "after what happened, I thought it was just as well to keep it to myself. But when you showed up asking question about that bill, I panicked,' "You were protecting her memory," said ste.rn, "That's a nice way to put it, Sandy. But you and I both know I was trying to save my own ass."

Bent over, he looked away. On the table beside him, framed photos of the family were arranged in a row. The faces of the children at younger ages, Clara, Stern gazed out in witness.

"Look," said Nate, glancing up at once, "I don't want to get sued. I've just fiat-ass decided to tell you that. I've been practicing medicine for twenty years, and I'm one of the few guys I know who doesn't spend half his week with lawyers and depositions. I guess my feeling was that this Would be the worst time. After hitting the rocks with Fiona. It's the last thing I need, to see my malpractice premium double. I can't afford it, with two kids in school, not to mention alimony. And more to the point, the thought bothers the hell out of merebeing an enemy with your patients. I realize that's the world we live in. The patient died, the doctor mistreated her. What's the term you guys have? The thing speaks for itself. I heard what you said the other day: it's a big check for Clara's estate. I followed you, believe me. That's who sues, right?

The estate? I'm sure there's lots of money to be made here.

But I wanted to try to explain this to you, since I did a piss-poor job of that the last time we talked. Maybe you'll reconsider."

Stern, who had lost Nate entirely for a moment, like a plane off the rndar, suddenly had it all, everything, clearly in focus. Nate was Clara's doctor. Her physician.

No more. Stern opened his mouth to speak, but Nate, 'hanging his head down, remained under way.

"I'm not gonna pretend that I'd handle the situation the same way today.

I've looked backwards and I see that there were a hundred different th'mgs I could have done. In retrospect, I should have brought a shrink in. That's obvious.

Maybe I should have involved you, too. But I was trying to keep her faith."

"Nate," said Stern softly, "I was overwrought during our last conversation. There will be no lawsuit concerning your care of Clara."

"No?" Nate took a moment to adjust to the thought. "That's a hell of a relief."

The two men looked at each other. Nate, chilled by the house's air conditioning, rubbed his arms.

"She spoke to you of this impulse, I take it?" asked Stern.

"Ending her life?"

"She did," said Nate. "She had a way of talking about it."

Nate posed, studying the air so he could recall. "She said she wanted to put out the noise. Something like that. You know, she didn't always go on that way, but over seven years, when things got bad, I'd hear it once in a while.

And I canit pretend I didn't take her seriously."

Nothing, For an instant: no sound; no time, "Seven years," the man had said. Looking down, Stern realized he'd taken a chair;

"Seven years, Nate?"

"God-I'd assumed-" Natestopped. "Well, how would you know?" he asked himself. "Sandy, this wasn't a new condition. It was a recurrence."

"A recurrence?."

"You understand: she wasn't newly infected. This disease in some people returns. A6out two-thirds of all cases.

Usually, it goes on for a couple of years. It gets better and better and finally peters out. But sometimes, pretty rarely, you can have bad episodes a number of years apart.

That's what happened to Clara. I treated her originally about seven years ago. I really thought that what happened now was going to happen then. The only thing that kept her from giving up was the fact that you weren't around.?"

"I was not?" asked Stern. "Where could I have been?"

"Kansas City,. as I recall," said Nate. "Some trial?"

"Ayayay." Oh, it was terrible. It was the most shameful moment of his life, but he sat there, in his wicker chair, with his eyes closed, thanking God. Seven years ago. That at least neared the periphery of comprehension. Then, eventually, he was taken by a new thought: "My Lord, Nate, after all that time, what was there to hide?"

"Sandy, I think in her eyes it was worse. Beeduse she had said nothing for so long. In some ways, she seemed to feel it was kind of an added deception. And being further from it, she was less accepting of her own behavior. Whatever she'd been thinking back then, she couldn't understand it now. It was this old, awful mistake that she couldn't get away from. And I didn't even know what to tell her anymore, ' ' "You mean medically, Nate? There were no answers?"

"You have to understand the whole history." Nate looked into his glass.

"She'd been treated for years with acyclovir. It saved her life originally. I mean it. I got things under control, just like that. She took it preventively for six months. But the drug's toxic enough that they warn against taking it longer. Eventually, she had recm'mnces. Two tiny ones, about two, three years apart. But with the drug-" Nate snapped his fingers. "We'd put her back on, and then five days from onset, good as new. I mean, it was always a trouble and a worry as far as she was concerned. The faintest sign, and she was in my office. I must have cultured her three times a year. But, you know, it was under control. All in all. I thought it was." Nate, who had raised both hands, made a face and let them fall.

"About six weeks before she died, it flared up again. She took her pills and they didn't help. She had a full, florid course. We see that all the time with other viruses or bacteria-some kind of auto-mutation, so you end up with a resistant strain. She had a bad couple of weeks.

And then it came back again. I consulted everybody I knew, but it was so damn unusual, and the virus is unpredictable to begin with. And by then she was talking pretty seriously about doing what she did. I could see her giving up. One time, just kind of like thinking out loud, I said something about talking to you, one of us, and I thought she'd jump right out the window. No way." He repeat:l that and, as many times before in this talk, shook his head.

"Anyway, I'd thought I'd talked herinto trying one more course of medication. Double dosage for five days. That was what was recommended to me. But I had that conference in Montreal. And, to make a long story short, I went. That's where I get really critical of myselL" Nate was bent again, almost doubled over, studying his soiled hands. Behind him, out the large windows, the sky was pinking over, and the sun, dying in ember radiance, was masked in thin clouds. "I knew she was in crisis. I talked to her about my going. I gave her the chance to tell. me not to, but Clara would never say something like that. You know, she promised me nothing would happen, I gave her all the pills she'd need while I was gone-she said she'd just hide them. And I," said Nate, "I had consulted with another doctor who was aware of the situation, and I hoped he could just kind of watch things for me. But it was my responsibility. If wanted to play confessor, then I had to know what I was doing/"

"Nate," said Stern, "I meant what I said to you in your office. There is blame enough to go around. You need not punish yourself. It was a professional judgment."

"No, it wasn't." Nate drained his glass and looked at Stern. "I took G/eta with me. On the sneak. We made our plans. I," said Nate with considerable weight, "was looking forward to that." Greta, Stern realized,. was Nate's nurse, the toothsome bland beauty from the videotape.

"Still sure you don't want to sue?

"Yes," said Stern. "Oh, hell," said Nate. "There I am in Montreal, lying with this girl, when the phone rings and it's Fiona, bawling her eyes out. I thought she was soused for a change, and then suddenly I realize she's talking about Clara. God, what went through my mind. I just figured, if it ever came out -how I left this patient in distress so I could go speak college French and screw my mistress…" Nate looked at Stern. "I didn't ever want to have to tell you'that."

"Now you have," said Stern. "I SUre have."

The two men hung in the silence.

"And what was the outcome with Fiona?" asked Stern. "Can't put that genie back in the bottle. We each went and got a lawyer. We're gonna sell the house. Both live there for the time being and not talk to one another. That whole mess.

"I am truly sorry, Nate."

"Ye, well, I'd say we died a natural death. I think I'm in love with this girl, Sandy. 'Course, I've wanted to be in love with all of them.

I'm like the leila in.the song.

Lookin' in all the wrong places. But I think it's true now.

So I'll try it again from the top. Can't do any worse."

"How did Fiona react?"

"Well, she's gonna beat me into the ground financially. She always told me she would, and Fiona'll keep her word, I'm sorry to say. She's got the evidence, all right. I appreciate the warning." He glanced up at Stern. "Pretty goddamn embarrassing," he said. "Lawyer said to me if I really wanted out so bad, I could have saved myself a lot of money by just writing a note."

Stern, in response, could manage only one of his Latin shrugs. He felt for Nate, though, at the thought of him watching that tape and witnessing all the harm he had done.

That truly was not in Nate's character, the inflicting of pain. Oddly, Stern felt a bond to him, joined by the embarrassments which they'd unwittingly shared. He knew Nate's shame, and Nate, of course, had known his for years.

"All in all, I'd say Fiona was actually kind of spunky. You want to know What she said? This'll tickle you. She said men still find her very attractive. She's certain that as soon as we're divorced there'll be all kinds of fellas in hot pursuit. She actually mentioned your name. After tellin' me how she'd been making up stories. Can you beat that?" Nate laughed, but something in Stern's look made him cut himself off. "You can do what you want, you know."

"Of course," said Stern. No more. It made for an uneasy moment, but he felt obliged not to join any conspffacies against Fiona. They had their own compact now, and Stern sensed from what Nate had said that Fiona and he might have matters to sort out. If so, he had only himself to blame.

Stern saw Nate to the door. When he began to castigate himself again, Stern held up a hand.

"I know what it means to maintain a confidence, Nate. Clara had her secret and you were obliged to keep it."

Nate waited. His mind seemed to be working ahead. Stern wondered if there was more that Nate had determined not to tell him out of some vestigial duty to Clara. Nate seemed to read that thought.

"I don't know who it was, Sandy, if that's what you're wondering."

The sound of it was so gross that Stern's impulse was to deny that he had any curiosity. But of course that was not "She told me years ago that the person, whoever, was aware of the problem. That was the only thing I had the right to be concerned about.

The relationship was already over when she came to me." Nate looked at him helplessly. "I assume it was a man. These'days-" He lifted a hand.

"Yes, ofcoume," said Stern. Of course. This possibility, briefly contemplated, Stern rejected.

They shook hands. When Nate was gone, Stern returned to the solarium and the rOW of family photos lined up in their frames on the game table.

A picture of Clara as a very young woman was at the end. She was dressed in a white blouse and pleated skirt, posing in her page boy with a hand on the newel of the central staircase of the Mittlet family home.

Hdr smile looked coaxed at best, a wrinkle of hope managed against deep currents of resistance. The world was at war then, and even at the age of thirteen or fourteen, Clara Mittler seemed to have her doubts about the future.

IF one thought about it carefully, as Stern had for three days now, this was not a theft. Not legally. The property in question, the safe, was lawfully in his custody, not Dixon s. And the risks of prosecution, in any event, were nil; neither Dixon nor Silvia would ever prefer charges.

This action was simply an expediency. He had taken advantage of Silvia by asking about the safe. Involving her in its return, in light of Dixon's iron,headed determination not to yield to the government, would compromise her unforgivably with her husband. This solution was dramatic, effective, and, given Dixon's conduct, richly deserved. But in the car with Remo, driving from the highway through the wooded h'dls with their subdevelopments and residuum of baronial estates, Stern was beset with considerable anxiety-he had not made a court appearance in twenty years that had frightened him the same way. His bowels and his bladder both seemed on the verge of becoming unpredictable, and throughout his entire upper body there was a palpable tremor. Suppose the brnwny German driver came in and resorted to violence? What if the police were somehow advised and entered with guns drawn? Stern, on a dozen occasions, had imagined Remo and him bloodied or massacred.

Remo, driving his old Mercury, was cheerful. He loved his work. He had urged Stern to allow him to do this alone, but that was unthinkable. If someone intruded, Stern, whatever the embarrassment, could explain, but Remo alone might come to real grief. As it was, the risks-at least as they could be calculated-were minimal. The Hartnells would be at the club, Dixon shooting a late round of golf, Silvia sunning herself by the P91, ind on a Sunday afternoon no one else would be home. The cook and the house-man were both dismissed at 2 p.m. The driver stayed with the car, cooling his heels behind the clubhouse. As long as the weather was good-and the sky was crystalline as they drove-the plan was fiawles.

Behind the wheel, Remo smoked his cigarette and chatted companionably.

"I din' done houses much," said Remo. "Not since I'm young.

There ain't no good guys to work with. Them burglars, they're all crazy. I'll never forget, I'm eighteen, nineteen, a guy got me on a job, one of them places down near the river. You know, real fancy apartment. Knocked the door right off the hinges. Jesus, the stuff these people had, real nice stuff, beautiful." Remo lifted two fingertips to his lips and made a kiss. "We got what we got, and I come in the living room and this son of a buck, Sangretti his. name is, he's got hispants down and he's taking a shit, right there on the rug. I says, What the fuck is this? You know, and.since, I heard all the time about burglars do stuff like that. In somebody's house, for Chrissake?"

Stern, too nervous to respond directly, nodded and for whatever reason felt obliged to explain again that this was not a burglary. The house was his sister's; it was a practical joke of sorts within the family. An ironic glimmer came into Remo's eyes. He needed no excuses; he knew how it was. Everybody wanted things and did what they had to.

Remo was one of those crooks who believe that they are. no worse than anyone else.

Sensing this judgment, Stern nearly spoke up in his own defense. He was not one of those lawyers, the state court shatpies with the razor cuts who worked only for the Boys, and who took payment in cocaine, or hot artwork, or, in one instance Stern had heard of years before, a hit on his wife. As a young lawyer, he had done things for money on occasion, some of them nasty enough that he no 1onge cared to rec and the house-man were both dismissed at 2 p.m. The driver stayed with the car, cooling his heels behind the clubhouse. As long as the weather was good-and the sky was crystalline as they drove-the plan was fiawles.

Behind the wheel, Remo smoked his cigarette and chatted companionably.

"I din' done houses much," said Remo. "Not since I'm young.

There ain't no good guys to work with. Them burglars, they're all crazy. I'll never forget, I'm eighteen, nineteen, a guy got me on a job, one of them places down near the river. You know, real fancy apartment. Knocked the door right off the hinges. Jesus, the stuff these people had, real nice stuff, beautiful." Remo lifted two fingertips to his lips and made a kiss. "We got what we got, and I come in the living room and this son of a buck, Sangretti his. name is, he's got hispants down and he's taking a shit, right there on the rug. I says, What the fuck is this? You know, and.since, I heard all the time about burglars do stuff like that. In somebody's house, for Chrissake?"

Stern, too nervous to respond directly, nodded and for whatever reason felt obliged to explain again that this was not a burglary. The house was his sister's; it was a practical joke of sorts within the family. An ironic glimmer came into Remo's eyes. He needed no excuses; he knew how it was. Everybody wanted things and did what they had to.

Remo was one of those crooks who believe that they are. no worse than anyone else.

Sensing this judgment, Stern nearly spoke up in his own defense. He was not one of those lawyers, the state court shatpies with the razor cuts who worked only for the Boys, and who took payment in cocaine, or hot artwork, or, in one instance Stern had heard of years before, a hit on his wife. As a young lawyer, he had done things for money on occasion, some of them nasty enough that he no 1onge cared to recall them. But one of the clearest grams in his character as a lawyer was the desire to let his clients know that he did not wade in the same polluted waters they did. The utter meanness of this convict'Ion-and its dubious basis-came home to him with sudden disturbing clarity'. a visit to yet one more unattractive aspect of his soul. These months of gazing inward had been a little like a trip to a freak show, with the sheer ugliness Of what he found never quite overcoming his compulsion to look.

Following Stern's d'ections, Remo proceeded down the narrow wooded road fronting Dixon and Silvia's home. The house itself, erected more than a century ago of stone and heavy joints of mortar, was below them, behind a quarter mile of lawn, which itself was interrupted by a lighted tennis court. Behind the house, Lake Fowler twinkled, dotted with speedboats and small craft under sail "Nice," Remo said. He turned the car around and parked so that it was partially obscured by the untamed shrubbery that grew up with summer lushness along the roadside. They would walk in, Remo said, down the long gravel drive. After they had the safe, one of them could bring the car down.

Never park, Remo told him, where it was easy to cut you off. Stern absorbed these lessons in silence, noting that Remo accepted none of his reassurances about the safety of the job.

They walked to the rear of the house, Remo appreciatively examining the grounds. A number of large blue spruce rose throughout the sloping lawn, and the air was freshened somehow by the clear water of the lake.

Behind the patio, the gardeners this year had laid out a bright patch of small summer flowers, most so exotic that Stern did not know their names. He looked down to the lake. The boathouse was below and, beside it, a waterfront cottage that Dixon had winterized and filled with athletic equipment. Last year, he had also added a lap pool, and the long finger of still, blue water glimmered. Beside a large screened porch, Remo now looked the great house up and down. Following Remo's eye, Stern saw that it was the power and phone lines, not the architecture, Remo was assessing. He questioned Stern again about the burglar alarm. Remo had a hand on the metal junction box, and he reached to his back pocket for a tool. He worked there awhile, then waved a number of wires that he had pulled free.

"Is that all?" asked Stern;across the yard.

"That's it."

Remo entered through the screen porch. He had a slap hammer with him, inserted like the other tools in various pockets and covered by the tails of a long velour shirt. For his day on Lake Fowler, Remo had worn blue jeans and cowboy boots. Stern thought he looked very much like a burglar, thickset, with bulky arms and bowed legs.

Remo had driven the lock through the barrel of the doorknob by the time Stern had followed him onto the porch. The back door was secured by a chain. Remo asked if he should pull it free or break the glass.

Whichever was more authentic, Stern answered. It was important that it look like a burglary, not for Dixon's sake-he would know what had happened-but for everyone else's. After the break-in was discovered, the police would comb the house but find nothing missing. Only Dixon, eventually, would recognize what was gone and he was in no position to file a police report admitting that the safe had ever been here. Stern regretted upsetting his sister-he might let her know somehow that he was involved-but Dixon's consternation he would savor. Done in on his own turf. Dixon would be livid, unhinged with rage. Standing in the shade of the porch, Stern actually chuckled.

Remo, preoccupied, raised one heavy boot, bracing himself against the wall of the porch, and gave the door a tremendous kick. It flew open with an explosion of plaster dust and the breaking of glass. "Shit," said Remo. The back window had shattered from the impact as the door sprang. back. The first plan, thought Stern in spite of himself gone awry.

Like much of the house, the hallways were stone; the taps on Remo's heels resounded. He looked about freely as Stern showed him to the staircase. The home had been built in the 1870s, with period elegance-twelve-foot ceilings and tiered moldings. In the dining room a circular mosaic of Venetian tiles was laid in the stone floor. The stillness of the unoccupied house set a shiver in the bottom of Stern's, spine. He thought about using the toilet, but he wanted to get in and out quickly. This was a bad idea, he thought suddenly. Terrible.

Something was sure to go wrong.

Remo leaned into a front parlor to admire the French antiques andl the pictures on the walls, English watercolors mounted in heavy frames.

"Beautiful, beautiful," said Remo. The wealth of the house, perfectly composed here in its unoccupied state, impressed even Stern.

Upstairs, they moved into the enormous master suite. Dixon years ago had combined three or four rooms to get what he wanted, a bedroom area on the palatiaI scale of Beverly Hills. There were two baths, his and hers. Dixon's, through which they walked, a cavern of travertine, held a Jacuzzi the size of a small swimming pool, and a one-bay wooden sauna attached to the shower. The bedroom itself was not particularly Iarge, but it was lesttoned with various gizmos-intercoms, a telescope, an old market ticker, a large projection TV which pivoted on a remote control over the bed. A deck out the French doors provided a commanding view of the lake. On the side of the bed where Dixon slept, the antique night table was stacked with busineSS magazines and a number of thrillers. An ashtray held the butts Of three cigarettes. Stern felt oddly thrilled by the chance to spy.

"Here," Remo called. He had entered the walk-in closet on Dixon's side of the room and cleared away his suits.

"That it?"

The safe was right there, dull gray, the color of seawater under clouds, turned on its back, so that the silver numerical dial was face up. A set of free weights was beside it, the plates haphazardly stacked; a bar, with three dishes on each side; had been rolled to the wall..

"Just so," said Stern.

"Getback," said Remo. Stern moved into the room. "Oh, my fucking God." Remo swung the safe out the door and set it down promptly. 'That's a fuckin ton." to mb his back. "We He stood up straight shotdrift brOught help."

Both men stared at the safe.

"Thing's open," said Remo. With the safe set on its bottom again, its small door indeed hung open a dark fin gerbreadth.

Dixon, evidently, had checked the contents, perhaps to be certain that Stern had left them undisturbed.

Or could it be that whatever the government was seeking had been removed? With this thought, that the safe had been emptied, Stern knelt immediately and pulled the door wider.

The light was poor, but he could see that there was a wad of papers inside, folded, doubled and tripled over.

There, on his hands and knees, even before he made out the sound, Stern could feel the vibration of the garage door opening.

"Oh, my LOrd." He rose awkwardly and ran a few steps to the doorway to listen. He faced Remo. "Someone is here." Outside, he had heard the gravel crunching, but by the time he reached the bedroom window he could see only the rear fender of a Mercedes as it pulled into the farthest bay of the four-car garage.

"Oh, for Godsake," said Stern. He had not fully imagined how humiliating this was going to be. It.was a shocking breach of decorum-inexcusable, inexplicable-breaking into someone's home.

"Hide," said Stern.

"Hide?" asked Remo. "What for?" An eyebrow low- ered. "You mean this ain' really your sister's?"

"Of course it is. But I prefer not to be apprehended in this silly exercise."

"I been caught," said Remo. "Lots. I don't never hide. Guys get shot like that. Just siddown. Be quiet. Maybe they ain't comin upstairs."

Following his own advice, Remo found one of the eighteenth-century French chairs beside Silvia's writing desk. He crossed his legs and smiled patiently at Stern. He reached to his pocket for a cigarette, then thought better of that.

Remo was right, Stern thought. His own reactions were juvenile.

Particularly if it was the houseman or the driver, there would be real danger in some effort to avoid him. But Stern's skin still' crawled.

Dixon would never let him live this down. He would ridicule, threaten-whatever advantage he could wring from having caught Stern in fiagrante burglary would be utilized repeatedly. Stern crept into the carpeted corridor, stepping forward with breathtaking precision, like a pantomime character. In some unconscious japcry of this task, he had dressed all in black, in slacks and a cotton golf shirt, and he hung back now in the shadows.

He could hear the steps rapping out in the stone hallways downstairs, an even slapping rather than the sharp clack of a woman's high heels. Would Dixon be violent? His temper with Stern was ordinarily restrained, but this was a much different setting. If someone popped out of the shadows in Stern's home, what would his reaction be? Probably to run.

But that was Stern.

The footfalls drew near the stairs. Stern pushed back into one of the doorways. Whoever was down there lingered, then walked away. With a desperate plunge of his heart, Stern recalled the kitcben. The narrow hall from the garage emerged right beside it; if the person who'd entered noticed the broken glass, he would surely hale the police.

Stern listened intently; if there was a voice on the phone, he was determined to ran. He looked about to see where he was-Dixon's den.

Fax, computers, three telephones. The old rolltop desk was heaped with papers, and the shades, for whatever reason, were drawn. A pillow and a blanket were on the sofa. Dixon, he took it, was not sleeping well.

This room, more than the rest of the house, was rank with the rancid smell of cigarettes.

The footsteps came back. Then nothing. After a short time, he realized the visitor had started up the carpeted stairs.

Stern pushed back farther, so that he could see only the landing. The person was upstairs now, but Stern had not yet caught sight of the figure. Then Silvia, in a graffitipatterned beach cover-up ahd fiat shoes, passed by, looking about, wholly abstracted, mumbling to herself.

She pushed her sunglasses up so they sat atop her upswept hairdo. Like Dixon, she was richly tanned. She was headed for the bedroom where Remo waited.

Stern held his head and, after one more second's faltering, called his sister's name.

She shrieked-not for long, but at a high, hysterical pitch. "Oh, my God," said Silvia. She had laid one hand, with its polished nails, over her heart and the other touched the Wall. She was breathing deeply.

"Sender," she said. "You nearly killed me."

"Forgive me."

"What in the world?" she asked.

Stern actually deliberated saying that he had come to go swimming. But enough was enough.

"I am stealing something," he answered.

She took only a second with that. "The safe?"

He nodded. Silvia's expression became cross-power-fully irritated. She spoke to him in Spanish for the first time in probably forty years: What is in the safe?

"dQud es 1o que contiene la caja de seguridad?"

"No s." I do not know.

"dEsto es para ayudarlo?" This is to help him?

Stern shrugged. "I believe so," he answered in English "I must do this, in any event."

"Give me a moment. I want to speak with you about all of this. I came back for a book." She turned again toward her room, but Stern took her hand. There was a man he had brought with him in there, he told her.

"Oh, Alejandro!" She shook her head in severest reproof. "You are like two boys, you and Dixon."

"This is a serious matter."

She made a disgusted sound. She refused to believe it.

Stern led her downstairs to the living room. Silvia, unfailingly polite, offered him a drink, and he asked for soda. She tapped her shoe for a moment on the servant's button, in the carpet beside the sofa, then, recalling it was Sunday, went off by herself. Stern looked about the vast living room. Silvia and her decorator had strived for a crowded, almost Egyptian effect; the colors were dark, with many eruptions of gold in the fabrics, and there was furniture in all corners-chaises, heavy drapes, twin antimacassars with a whiskery fringe, adorned, for no apparent reason, with voile shawls. On a table was a huge vase of woolly protea, dark desert plants with a primeval look. The far wall of the room was all stone, like the facing walls of the house, with an. enormous hearth of double-width beams. An original oil by a well-known Spanish artist-one of his savage women, purchased years ago by Dixon, with his inevitably astute eye-hung fearsomely over the fireplace. In the winter, logs the size of tree trunks burned here all day. They left, even now, a smoky residue, as if the air had been cure amp; "What did you do to my kitchen?" demanded Silvia as she returned. She handed her brother the glass but looked at him scoldingly. Stern made one of his expressions and Silvia smiled, though she went on shaking her head.

"Stern," she said, "you must tell me what is occurring."

In her absence, he had pondered how to put this, and he adopted a moderate approach. The government was investigating. They had done so before, but this was a criminal matter and the prosecutors seemed to have hold of evidence of some questionable practices on Dixon's part.

The investigation had grown increasingly complex, but Dixon was attempting to put his head in the sand. The government had' demanded the safe, and Dixon, against Stern's advice, was endeavoring to hide it, a maneuver which would prejudice not only Dixon but Stern. He spoke allusively, hoping his sister would not gather the full impact, but she understood enough "Is he in danger of prison'?,"

"He is," answered Stern. Silvia sat still, a small woman sparely knitted together. She looked tiny, with her bare legs and flat shoes.

She clutdhed her elbows close to her body and drew her face long to maintain her composure.

Stern himself, to his enormous surprise, found himself on the verge of tears in sympathy.

"I have been very concerned for him," Silvia said.

"I as well."

"You have no idea, Stern." She knotted her hands. "He coughs for thirty minutes When he wakes up in the morning.

His secretary tells me he is terribly forgetful. He does not sleep. He wanders about at all hours. Or leaves in the middle of the night, headed God knows where. For the last week he has not even slept here once." She glanced up at Stern; this was intended to be a significant remark, referring apparently to something other than Dixon's travel schedule..

"I am attempting to help him, but he is resisting,"

"Of course," she said, "but I am afraid he will never survive?"

"He will survive," said Stern. "He is one of those types who always survive and triumph." Spoken, the words struck him as merely cordial. He had not realized until now how deep-seated his own fears for Dixon were, even as he felt some swell of resentment rise when he predicted his glory,

"I had hoped to come and go today without involving you."

"I shall not tell him," said Silvia.

Stern weighed this, but remained convinced thatjt would be wrong to force Silvia to take sides. Dixon was entitled to the comforts of home.

"That is not necessary."

"Unless he asks," she offered.

"He is certain to ask once he sees the disorder in the kitchen."

"I shall have it repaired. Tomorrow. Today, if possible. I would be very surprised, at any rate, if he spends the night here." She looked down again at the rag. Years ago, before Silvia had evicted him, Dixon would do this, fail to return. He had an apartment in town where he usually claimed to be, and no doubt often was, enjoying one young woman or another. Once he and Silvia were reunited, however, Dixon seemed to maintain a minimal pretense and confined his roaming to business hours or his many trips out of town. "It is very disturbing," she said.

He nearly uttered a word or two in Dixon's behalf, about the strain recently, but he realized it would be little comfort. "Do you ask where he goes?"

"Work." She smiled tersely. "Of course, there is no answer when I phone."

"I see." Stern at first said nothing. "I must say, I hope this can be endured. It would be a terrible moment for you both to repeat your separation."

Silvia made a face. "There will be no repetition. I am accustomed."

She smiled the same way, briefly, bitterly.

"As you know, our difficulty was not only that."

Stern looked at his sister without comprehension.

"Oh, you knew. Clara knew. She told you; I knew she would.

You are gallant, Stern, but there is no need to pretend."

"I am not pretending," said Stern.

"Truly?"

"Truly."

"It is long past," she said, and flipped a dark slender hand. She was ready to give up the subject, but she saw that Stern was still puzzled and she came forth with the truth abruptly to satisfy him. "He had come home with an illness. Which I was afraid he had inflicted on me. It was repulsive.:' "An illness?"

"A disease. You understand."

His head was tinging now, and his throat and chest felt terribly constricted. He asked, nonetheless, as he knew he was required to.

"Herpes?"

Her mouth opened somewhat and then, to his amazement, Silvia smiled-in a reltictant fashion, part grimace. She would never see through him, she would never understand him. Only from Stern in the entire world might this be tolerable, but if he insisted, she would find humor in the pain of the past. Older brothers, after all, forever reserved the tight to tease,.

"Oh, Stern," she said to him with a girlish wag, "you knew all along."

EVENTUALLY, Remo descended the staircase. H had brought the safe with him, and he took eac step sideways, in a straddle, lowering one booted foot, then the other. It was slow work and he stopped at one point and rested the safe.

He lit a cigarette and eased down the remaining stairs, with the Marlboro tucked in the comer of his mouth and one eye closed to the smoke. From his seat on a living-more settee, Stern could see Remo coming, but he made no move to assist him, nor did he open his mouth to speak. He was capable of movement, no doubt of that; but he was uninterested. Perhaps he would remain here, with his hands folded, for what was left of his life. He did not feel any emotion with particular strength, except that he was no longer himself. His head was still ringing, and his arms were light; but, predomi-nanfly, he was beset with the sensation of difference, departure. A new man-not better or worse-but someone else would leave here.

"I heard you talking in the hallway," said Remo when he finally arrived.

He knew his presence was no secret.

"Of course," said Stern. "Remo Cavarelli, Silvia Hartnell."

Silvia nodded properly to the man who had broken into her house.

"We goin or what.9" asked Remo.

"Stern, are you all right?" asked Silvia. This was not the first fime ,'Quite all right." Stern managed a smile. His voice, sounded peculiar to him, weak. It was as if his spirit had fled his body and was outside, examining him,

"We still takin this thing?" Remo nodded to the safe at his feet. art grimace. She would never see through him, she would never understand him. Only from Stern in the entire world might this be tolerable, but if he insisted, she would find humor in the pain of the past. Older brothers, after all, forever reserved the tight to tease,.

"Oh, Stern," she said to him with a girlish wag, "you knew all along."

EVENTUALLY, Remo descended the staircase. H had brought the safe with him, and he took eac step sideways, in a straddle, lowering one booted foot, then the other. It was slow work and he stopped at one point and rested the safe.

He lit a cigarette and eased down the remaining stairs, with the Marlboro tucked in the comer of his mouth and one eye closed to the smoke. From his seat on a living-more settee, Stern could see Remo coming, but he made no move to assist him, nor did he open his mouth to speak. He was capable of movement, no doubt of that; but he was uninterested. Perhaps he would remain here, with his hands folded, for what was left of his life. He did not feel any emotion with particular strength, except that he was no longer himself. His head was still ringing, and his arms were light; but, predomi-nanfly, he was beset with the sensation of difference, departure. A new man-not better or worse-but someone else would leave here.

"I heard you talking in the hallway," said Remo when he finally arrived.

He knew his presence was no secret.

"Of course," said Stern. "Remo Cavarelli, Silvia Hartnell."

Silvia nodded properly to the man who had broken into her house.

"We goin or what.9" asked Remo.

"Stern, are you all right?" asked Silvia. This was not the first fime ,'Quite all right." Stern managed a smile. His voice, sounded peculiar to him, weak. It was as if his spirit had fled his body and was outside, examining him,

"We still takin this thing?" Remo nodded to the safe at his feet. Stern, after recalling ehat he was speaking aborn, smiled fieetingly again,

"Oh, yes"

Remo departed for the car. Silvia, too, left the room m make a phone call, Thereforas a local fireman who did work around the house and might even be available on Sunday to repair thekitchen.

Stern was left alone with the safe. Remarkable, really, Stern thought, that he had spoken Spanish to Silvia-he would have wagered a Iarge sum that he could not finish a sentence. Occasionally over the years, certain latino gentlemen appeared in Stern's office, Cubans usually, who needed the assistance of bilingual counsel. And of course, during the 1970s there were the pathetic impoverished Mexicans who were arrested here by the gross for distributing browr heroin, sad, unlettered men, spewing their chingas and begging Stern to take their case at any price.

Stern h/td always declined 'such representations. It was not the drags that bothered him; it was the old fear of being recognized for what he feared he was, someone else who did not belong here. But he saw very clearly, as he held off more pressing thoughts, that that period and those attitudes were behind. him. Those clients would henceforth be welcome. The words, he was sure, would come back to him over time.

He reached for his soft drink and tasted it. Silvia had' said he knew all along. She had meant something else, naturally, but alone here he wondered if the unintended meanings were also correct. A part of him remained solidly composed with the truth; his first faith would always be in the facts. But in another region-someplace silent but still known to him-the toll was mounting, the damages were still being assessed. If he had foreseen this, it was only with that inner eye that always envisions the bad dreams-the worst dreams-coming true. It was clear now that it was who much more than what that Clara dared not live to tell.

Her choice of a lover was no accident; he would never be persuaded otherWise- Clara knew her husband too well. AfterWards, even she must have been frightened by the sheer ferocious spite that had moved her. It Was that which she trembled to reveal. Well, at least the evidence of his senses had not failed him. Clara indeed had no use for Dixon after he returned to Silvia. She must have been disgusted with him. And herself. What transpired between them? What conversations? He was back here again, a familiar point of arrival, feeling he would probably rather not know.

Stern hunched forWard on the settee and brought a toe to the door of the safe. It was still open and Stern with the sole of his shoe wedged the little door wider. The lump of papers was in there. Oh, why not? he thought. He could put up with anything.

There were two full sheets from a microfilm printer, heavy with toner, each folded in four. As he removed them from the safe, various items, about which the records were wrapped, fell out: two checks and a number of the.gray celluloid squares which Stern recognized as microfiche cards.

"The phones are not working," said Silvia, coming back to the living room; she was deeply perturbed. "How can I reach him?"

Remo returned at that moment.

"Who's that?" he asked. "Who's comin?" Remo'd had enough time in the closet to noflce the weights and, all things considered, wished to be gone when the man of the house arrived. Silvia explained her difficulty, and they disappeared together so Remo could reconnect the phone lines. In the interval, Stern went through the papers from the safe, studying them for some time. Remo returned first, then Silvia breezed back in.

"He's on his way now," Silvia said. She seemed consoled by the thought that the disorder in her kitchen would be quickly repaired.

"Well, let's get goin," said Remo, a hasty departure still on his mind.

He bent over the safe. "Alley-oop," he said.

Stern and his sister followed? he lumbered through the stone hailway.

Stern had all the papers from the safe cradled in his hands. Silvia held the screen for Remo, and at his request opened the rear door to the Mercury.

Squinting in the brilliant sunshine, Stern and his sister watched as Remo sank to his knees to lower the safe onto the dirty floor of his spring-shot Cougar. He stood up straight and dusted off his hands while he waited to catch his breath. A fill of sweat had run down his temple.

"On second thought," said Stern suddenly, "we shall leave it."

Remo's jaw fell open, revealing a mouth full of bad teeth.

"If you would, Remo, I shall ask you to replace the safe where we found it."

"No," he said, in disbelief.

"Please," said Stern. He had assumed, without thought, his most commanding manner, and Remo looked. at him uncertainly, reluctant to obey but unwilling to object further. Stern turned to Silvia. "It shall all be as it was. You need say nothing."

She, too, appeared confused, but, like Remo, did not-know how to respond to the change in his manner.

"Very good," said Stern to both of them. He walked back into the house, mining to ask Remo to bring the safe into the living room for a moment.

Stern had continued to hold all the items from the safe, and he sat again on the settee and laid them out on the raw-silk fabric so that he could arrange the papers as he had found them. The two copied pages were first, then the microfiche squares, then, at last, the two checks, one nested inside the other. He studied them again. The first was Dixon's canceled personal check for $252,646 made payable to MD Clearing Corp. The note in the memo section said "Debit A/c 06894412," which was surely the number of the Wunderkind account. This was the check which the government, according to what Sonny had told him in Dulin, had already obtained a microfilm copy of through the subpoena to Dixon's bank.

The other check, the one Stern examined at greater length, was printed on the long green bank stock of River National and was a certified draft drawn on Clara's investment account and made payable to Dixon Hartnell personally. The amount, inscribed correctly in numbers and figures, was $851,198. Stern held the check, full of the strong emotion that contact with Clara's possessions continued often to bring over him. Then he refolded both checks and wrapped them and the microfiche cards in the two printed pages, along the same creases on which they had been folded before. These sheets reproduced the first and last pages from the account agreement for Wunderkind Associates where identifying information for the account holder would appear-name, address, social-security number. On the last page, after dozens of paragraphs of warnings and dischireefs, the customer executed the agreement. Before replacing the papers in the safe, which Remo obediently had set at his feet, Stern peeked again at the final line where in her steady fluid hand Katherine Stern had signed her name.

CERTAINLY, he was no happier. Much of what had transpired in the 'last few days had left him more confused than ever.

But somehow an old ability to distract himself with work had revived.

Recently, Stern had resumed his habit of being the first person in the office, and in the last week, he had agreed to take on three major new matters-an insider trading ease already under indictment; a defense fraud investigation conducted out of Washington; and a county case in which the owner of a waste dump faced possible manslaughter charges.

Beleaguered, Sondra and Raphael pleaded that they were too shorthanded for more work. But Stern himself was ready. In the office, he felt an energy and relish that had been previously lacking. The toil of man in society! The rushing about, the telephone calls the small breaks of light in the tangle of egos and rules. Mr. Alejandro Stern adored the practice of law. His clients, his clients! No siren song was ever more compelling than a call to Stern from someone in dire straitsla tough in the precinct lockup in his early days, or a businessperson with an IRS agent at the door, as happened more commonly now.

Either way, it excited him to a kind of heat: 'Speak to no one. I shall be there momeaWhat was it? What was this mad devotion to peopIe whobalked at paying fees, who scorned him the moment a case was lost, lied to him routinely, withheld critical information, and ignored his instructions? They needed him.

Needed him! These weak, injured, even buffoonish characters required the assistance of Alejandro Stern to make their way. Disaster loomed.

Life destruction. They wept in his office and swore to murder their turncoat comrades. When sanity returned, they dried their eyes and waited, pathetically, for Stern to tell them what to do. He drew on his cigar. 'Now,' he would say quietly.

In the afternoon on Monday, he found a moment to call Cal.

"Just to let you know," said Stern, "that the matter of the elusive check has been resolved."

"Oh, really?" asked Cal. He waited.

"So, if you would be so kind, Cal, let our friends at River National know that all is well and thank them for their cooperation."

"I will," said Cal, "I will." He cleared his throat. "May I ask?"

"Quite a complicated matter," Stern said..

"The beneficiary, I meant. The payee,"

"It is difficult to say," said Stern, striving for a frank tone, "just at the moment. But the matter is well.in hand,.

Cal. Have no doubt. My deepest thanks to you,"

"I see," said Cal. He was hurt, of course. He expected greater veneration and confidence from Stern, as a matter of professional courtesy, if nothing else Returning home that evening, he found an enormous hanging case in the foyer. He bent to examine the luggage tag.

Marta was back. She usually traveled with a backpack and a briefcase, the baggage of her diversified life.

She was not in the house. Instead, after circling the first floor and calling, he spied her out the solarium windows, leaning across the hedge in animated conversation with Fiona. Marta was listening, with far more interest than she generally showed their neighbor. Stern ventured out. When Marta saw him, she broke off to embrace him, and Stern, by some peculiar logic, then reached over the hedge, took Fiona's tanned hand, and kissed her as well. She was in her gardening attire, a few leaves in her hair with stray vegetation, and she seemed to blush at Stern's enthusiasm.

"Doesn't she look wonderful!" Fiona declared, motion-ing to Marta, who was in e usual formless floor-length frock.

Fiona undoubtedly held the private belief that Marta was dressed like one of the women who had walked behind the wagon trains across the prairie. "I was just giving Marta the news," said Fiona.

"Oh, yes?" asked Stern, with some foreboding. "About Nate and me," said Fiona more definitely.

"Ah, yes. Nate mentioned that. I am sad to hear it, Fiona." 'We're probably both better off." Like many people on the other side of a dread event, Fiona appeared, as she said, better off-more resilient than one might have expected.

Marta was beginning to slip away toward the house. Stern made a remark about stumbling over her suitcase.

"I'm planning to stay for a while," she told him. "I quit my job."

"You did?" asked her father. "Just' like that'"

"A month's notice, but I have some vacation coming. I'll go back for a few days next month to clean up. But last time I was here, I was looking at Katy, how tired she was, and it just sort of dawned on me, she's having a baby and I'm going to be eight hundred miles away for no good eason. Why did I bother taking the bar exam in four states if I don't go where I want to? I'll find a job here. Do you mind?"

"I should say not."

Fiona chimed in: Wonderful, wondeffulJhow nice for all of them. Stern found his head bobbing in agreement.

"I have to call Kate," Marta said. "I'm supposed to go see John and her later. Do you want to come?"

"Not tonight," said Stern promptly. "P/ease tell Kate, however, that I wish to have dinner with John and her later this week.?"

"God," said Marta, "you sound so serious.?

He supposed he did. Stern did not answer,. and Marta galloped into the house. BothFiona and he watched her go "Did you take it she is planning to live here?" asked Stern "It sounds like it.?

"Dear me." The thought of Marta and her vitamins and minerals in permanent residence provoked a moment of consternation. Fiona, in the meantime, had crept a bit closer to the hedge.

"I suppose that you're madder than hell at me," she said quietly.

"Hardly, Fiona. In truth, I received what I deserve amp;."

"I was trying to warn you that night. When Nate came home.

Honestly." She tested Stern with a glance. "Afte all, Sandy, I had to say something when he found that letter.

You put me in a helluva position. And I couldn't stand to tell the little bastard that I'd had some respect for our marriage, when he didn't have a bit. But do you lmow the wors part? When I told him that ridiculous story I could see he was actually happy. Do you believe that?" Fiona Shook hez head gravely. "Why am I always so dumb?" she askext Stern, and looked at him momentarily as if she expected ar answer. She stood in her garden, just over the property line, hopelessly lost to the misery of being herself, of making so. often, like everyone else, the same mistakes "He swears up and down, by the way, that those pills weren't his," Fiona said. "He kept saying they were for a patient. Finally, he told me if I didn't believe him I could call the other doctor who worked on the case. Guess who that was."

Stern lifted his hands: no idea. "Peter."

"Peter?" ,Your son. Isn't that a coincidence?"

The night was thick. The bugs were out now in mid-July, buzzing and biting, and Stern swung at something close to his ear while he thought of the look Nate had given him the other evening when they were parting.

It was obvious what Nate had held back. Stern realized he had been right all along. At the thought of yet ahother showdown, he nearly groaned. Perhaps with Peter it was unnecessary. "Anyway, I'm sorry," said Fiona.

"Fiona, the apologies are all mine. As you say, I put you in a difficult position:And you more than made up for it. I appreciate your discretion with Nate when you spoke again."

"Oh hell, I figm'ed what's the point. I couldn't give him any more satisfaction." She remained glum, an,d continued shaking her head, overwhelmed by divorce, herself, the varied but momentous concessions of defeat that life just now was requiring.

"Nonetheless," said Stern, "I am sorry to have made you the victim of my state of disruption."

"Oh, it wasn't so bad." She looked up then, shyly, teasingly, beneath her penciled brows, a pretty fi. ftyyear-old woman in her avocado gardening outfit, practicing the elusive, winsome look she used to give the boys. "Kind of gave me a boost." Disconcerted by her prior remarks about Peter, Stern nevertheless could not keep himself from laughing aloud.

"You have been very generous, Fiona."

"Oh, sure," she said once more. She considered him pensively, some deliberation evident in the striking yellowish eyes. But he could see they had made their ways.

His ship and Fiona's were each headed off for their own channels. His tact, for once of late, had not failed him-truly, he was more and more himself. Moved by all this, he reached out and took Fiona's dirty hand, which rested on the bushes, and kissed her palm.

"Here we go again," said Fiona. She rolled her eyes and walked away.

Stern called after her: let him know any way he might help. She waved bravely, then paused by the gray steps to her back porch. "Do you know that little son of a bitch has actually stopped drinking?" she asked Stern across the short distance and then, with the strength of challenge, resentment, her entire complicated persona, shook her head fiercely once more and pulled open the door.

In his kitchen, Marta was replacing the phone,

"How is your sister?" asked Stern.

"Uneasy. There seems to be a lot of strain. She said John testified in the grand jury last week."

"So I understand. I spoke to Tooley today"

Marta asked for a description of John's testimony. She had been reluctant to ask Kate.

"My conversaflon was as one would expect with Mel. Very evasive. He made it a point to tell me that he had not been in the grand jury room-as if I thought he might have been.

It seems, though, that it went very much as we would have thought. John blamed your uncle: Dixon gave all the orders; John carried them out, with no appreciation of their significance."

"Ugh," said Marta.

"Yes, indeed."

"And what about the safe?"

"I do not have it," said Stern simply. "Have you heard from Uncle DixonT' "Not a word."

"Can you figure out what he's up toT' "At moments I have an idea. Then, again, I am mysti, fled."

"You let him know you'd file that motion tomorrow, didn't you? To withdraw?"

Stern said he had.

"You better go through with it. You have to put some distance between yourself and him, That woman, Sonia, whatever her name is, she's going to be screaming for your scalp. And Judge Winchell may give it to her."

"Yes," said Stern. He had considered that too. "So?" asked Marta.

"So we shall see." Stern walked across the kitchen and took his daughter in his arms. "Go meet Kate. Tell her about your change of residence. I am sure she will be delighted."

"What about you? You real]y don't mind having your nutty daughter come back?"

Stern kissed her. He thought of Peter, of John and Kate. Of Dixon.

Clara.

"You will be at home,'; he said to her.

IT was not quite seven when Stern arrived at the office on Tuesday morning. He had left Marta a note suggesting she come downtown this afternoon to plan as, best they could for his grand jury appearance two days from now. He had heard her return late last night, but he had not risen to greet her. Another day could pass without heating the latest of Kate and John.

Inside the outer door, Stern waited. A sound? Some sense of disturbance. He paused at the door to his office, which was ordinarily locked but now stood barely ajar. From the threshold, he pushed it wider. Across the rooms on Stern's cream-colored sofa, Dixon was asleep. He had stunk up the space with his cigarettes and the effluvium of his slumbers.

Beside him, on the carpeting, stood the safe. 'Quietly, Stern slipped behind his desk. He worked there for about fifteen minutes, until a client called, the defendant in the waste-dump investigation, a heavy-bellied fellow named Alvin Blumberg. Alvin was one of those types guilty as sin and paralyzed with fear; he wanted what he would never hear-a promise he would go free. Stern listened as Alvin ventilated, complaining about the prosecutors, his business partners, the intolerance of his wife. AfterSsome time, he broke off the call. He would have to introduce Alvin to Sondra. When he replaced the phone, Dixon was just sitting up, stretching out, yawning, rubbing his eyes. He was wearing a simple cotton camp shirt and a pair of pleated trousers; a heavy gold chain was around his neck, and he immediately pounded at his shirt pockets looking for his cigarettes.

"What time is it?"

Stern told him..

"I have to call Silvia. You rind?"

Stern pushed the phone to the corner of the desk and watched as Dixon spoke with his wife: He had come down to Sandy's., there were papers.to look at, he had been hou will be at home,'; he said to her.

IT was not quite seven when Stern arrived at the office on Tuesday morning. He had left Marta a note suggesting she come downtown this afternoon to plan as, best they could for his grand jury appearance two days from now. He had heard her return late last night, but he had not risen to greet her. Another day could pass without heating the latest of Kate and John.

Inside the outer door, Stern waited. A sound? Some sense of disturbance. He paused at the door to his office, which was ordinarily locked but now stood barely ajar. From the threshold, he pushed it wider. Across the rooms on Stern's cream-colored sofa, Dixon was asleep. He had stunk up the space with his cigarettes and the effluvium of his slumbers.

Beside him, on the carpeting, stood the safe. 'Quietly, Stern slipped behind his desk. He worked there for about fifteen minutes, until a client called, the defendant in the waste-dump investigation, a heavy-bellied fellow named Alvin Blumberg. Alvin was one of those types guilty as sin and paralyzed with fear; he wanted what he would never hear-a promise he would go free. Stern listened as Alvin ventilated, complaining about the prosecutors, his business partners, the intolerance of his wife. AfterSsome time, he broke off the call. He would have to introduce Alvin to Sondra. When he replaced the phone, Dixon was just sitting up, stretching out, yawning, rubbing his eyes. He was wearing a simple cotton camp shirt and a pair of pleated trousers; a heavy gold chain was around his neck, and he immediately pounded at his shirt pockets looking for his cigarettes.

"What time is it?"

Stern told him..

"I have to call Silvia. You rind?"

Stern pushed the phone to the corner of the desk and watched as Dixon spoke with his wife: He had come down to Sandy's., there were papers.to look at, he had been here all night. "He"s sitting righthere. He found me asleep. Ask him. You found me asleep, right?" Dixon turned the phone around. Stern, reluctant to be Dixon's prop and his excuse for a night spent God knows where, murmured in the direction of the mouthpiece that Dixon had been asleep. "You see?" Dixon then ran through his schedule for the day with her, every meeting, each person he expected to see. "I love you," said Dixon near the end of the call. Stern watched him, tanned, whiskcry, the flesh beneath his jaw slackening, His wavy hair was beginning to thin. Age was overcoming him, but Dixon still brought to his conversation with Silvia all earthly interest. In their waning years, as they.slipped into dotage, Dixon and Silvia would maintain their happy fixation on one another, aided, no doubt, by some inevitabIe dwindling of Dixon's interest in other pursuits. The recognition, as usual, affected Stern: however thwarted or immature Dixon's emotional life, it was no lie when Dixon told Silvia he loved her. After his discoveries on Sunday Stern would have expected that witnessing this exchange,. as he had so often over the years, would have driven him to rage, but his immediate sensation was of absence, pining the sting of real envy-his own wife was gone,,.

"You want to go get some breakfast?" Dixon asked him. He had cradled the phone.

"What is it you have brought me, Dixon?"

"You wanted the fucking safe? There's the fucking safe. Am you happy now? Problems all solved?"

"The government also wishes an affidavit from me stating that the contents have not been disturbed." ',So give them the affidavit."

"How am I able to do that?"

"You want to see what's in there?"

"On the contrary. I am simply making a point."

"I want you to look." The safe was facing him and Dixon spun the dial.

After reaching in, he threw a single piece of paper down on the glass of the desk. It was Dixon's check, folded in four, the one he had written to cover the debit balance on the Wunderkind account. Stern found his glasses and made a considerable show of studying the document. ' 'No more?"

"You know what the fuck you're looking at?" Dixon had given up all sign of his civilized manners. He was his true self now, agitated and profane.

"I believe I understand the significance of the check to the government." If they turned over only this, Sonny Klonsky would accuse Stern of more bad faith, of conforming the contents of the safe to the contours of the govemment's knowledge. Of course, that would remain one more private grief between them-she would never be able to tell Sennett what she had revealed. "The prosecutors seem to believe that there are account documents somewhere."

"Are?" asked Dixon, with one of his roguish smiles, He was stressing the present tense.

"That would be most foolish, Dixon."

"Well, I kind of agree," he said. "I was having a little bonfire, and then I had second thoughts, but that's MI I could save." He pointed to the check. "They won't complain, They'll have my head on a platter, anyway, if they ever get hold of that."

"Assuming they' have not obtained this check already," said Stern.

"Where would they get it?" "It is possible, of course, that this was what they were llooking for with their subpoenas to your bank."

Absorbing that thought, Dixon proceeded to the obvious: Why bother with the safe if they could already establish Dixon's control of the Wunderkind account? Tactics, Stern explained. Proof that Dixon was withholding documents would provide compelling evidence of his guilty frame of mind.

"You mean I've fallen into their trap?" Dixon asked. "In all likelihood,, said Stern. He had his hands folded: He was relentlessly composed. He had never given a better performance. Dixon, in the meantime, stroked his chin thoughtfully. He sighed, pulled his nose; he shook his head."

"You think I should plead guilty, don't you? That's what you said last time."

"If one is guilty, that is always an alternative that merits serious consideration,.."

"So what'll happen to me? What kind of deal can you cut?"

"The usual wisdom is to attempt to buy freedom. Negotiate for a heavy financial penalty and a lesser prison "How much time?"

"These days? With the federal sentencing guidelines, probably three years."

"And when do I get paroled?"

"There is no longer parole in the federal systems' ' ' 'Jesus.,' ' "Very harsh,"

"And I voted Republican," said Dixon. He smiled stiffly.

"How much do I have to give them to get this three-year bargain?"

"One can only estimate, Dixon. Certainly millions. God only knows how much Stan Sennett will want you to forfeit.

Probably some large portion of the value of your interest in MD. It will be very costly."

"Hmm." Again he gripped his chin and, unpredictably, smiled. "They can't forfeit whatthey can't find, can they?"

This thought, of what was hidden in the Caribbean, seemed to fortify Dixon for a moment. Silvia would be well provided for. Stern saw his logic.

Dixon lit a cigarette.

"If you do not mind, Dixon, it would give me a better sense of our negotiating position if I had an idea of what actually transpired."

"You already know," he said, but ran through it quickly: how he was informed of large orders to be executed in Chicago and immediately called the central order desk to place front-running trades in Kindle.

He described his use of the house error and Wunderkind accounts to gather and shelter the profits. "Pretty fucking clever," concluded Dixon, "if I do say so myself."

"What about that account, Dixon-Wunderkind? What was that?"

"Just a corporate account. I'd had it set up for this."

"And what was John's role in all of this?"

"John? John is a lunkhead. He did what I told him. John would think it was raining if you pissed in his eyes."

Dixon looked at his cigarette and tapped his foot; he was wearing smooth Italian shoes of taupe-colored leather. He seemed at ease.

"A man of your wealth, Dixon. It is-"

"Oh, don't start moralizing, Stern. That's the markets, okay? Down there, we eat our young. Everybody does it.

Shit, the customers do it-the ones who know what's up.

It's humanity in the jungle. I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar, that's all. I want to move on. I want to get this fucking thing over with." He slapped his knees and looked at his brother-in-law directly-ruddy, vital, still handsome, Dixon Harmell, colossus of the marketplace. "I want to plead guilty," he said.

Stern did not answer,

"Okay?" asked Dixon. "What time is it? Give those assholes a call, will you? While I still have my nerve. I want to hear the sound of Sennett, that pompous son of a bitch, falling over from shock."

"I believe, Dixon," said Stern, "that you seek to deceive Dixon jolted visibIy. 'Me?"* "Just so,,' "You're crazy. ' "I believe no}''

Dixon's mouth hung open a bi?

"You've been talking to that girl, haven't you? What's her name?

Krumke."

"Alas, Dixon, your anlics have cost me the confidence of the government.

I have not been speaking with Ms. Klonsky."

Dixon stood up. He walked around the office, waving his cigarette.

"YOu want me to bleed, don't you?"

"I would welcome the truth, Dixon. If you care to tell Wandering, Dixon paused at Stern's spot by the window and looked down to the river, spangled and living in the moru[ng sum '"There are some things about that account." "Which account is that?"

Stern asked. "Wunderkind, Inc. Whatever we called it.?": "Yes?"

"That was John's account. Or it was supposed to be. I didn't want to move money into an account that would trace to me. So I asked him to open one. You know, a corporate account, because of exchange compliance. It can't be in his name. The KCFE has a rule that member employees can't have their own accounts."

"So whose name did you use, Dixon?"

Dixon turned around. He was in extreme discomfort. "Kate.

She signed the account papers. In her maiden name. I'm sure she didn't know a damn thing about what was going on.

Goofball just told her to sign by the x."

"And what did John obtain by accommodating you in this fashion?"

"Oh, he's the village idiot. I ask him to jump, he says, How high. He wants to be a floor trader. He was waiting for me to promote him. Look, he's a kid. He's a noodle. You bend him in whatever shape you want. I told him to do things, he did them."

"You did not promise him even a penny in profit?"

"I never talked to him about it. Frankly, I think he's too dimwitted to ask. And there never was any profit, anyway.

Not for long."

"Yes, Dixon, explain that to me. You stole money and then lost it?"

"It was Las Vegas. Who cared? I lost, I got more. It was a fucking amusement, Stern."

"In which you embroiled my daughter and my son-in-lawmyour niece and nephew. A crime of curiosity in which you proposed to hide behind children-my children?"

Dixon did not answer. He returned to the sofa and fired his lighter for another cigarette.

"Did you not estimate, Dixon, that John would tell the government about that account and how it was established?"

"Yeah, I estimated," he said. "I just wasn't real eager to tell you."

Dixon lay back and extended his feet. "I have the records at home. I'll bring them in."

"Did you fear, Dixon, that I would lose respect for you?"

He delivered the remark perfectly-a rapier thrust; cold steel.

"Oh, go fuck yourself, Stern. I'm sorry-I did it, I'm guilty, and I'm pleading guilty. I'll have a long time to repent. So call the goddamned prosecutors and let's get this over with."

With one arm over the sofa back, Dixon blew smoke rings in the air.

"You are guilty of a great deal, Dixon. But, regrettably, not this crime."

Dixon sat up straight.

"Are you frigging out of your mind?"

"I believe not. You are innocent, Dixon."

"Oh, please."

"Dixon, you are telling me precisely what you believe the government thinks."

"You're right about that."

"Which you know to be a lie.."

Dixon, brought up abruptly, did not answer at first. "A lie?"

"Let us leave aside, Dixon, the question of motive. You insist that a rich man might' steal as willingly as a poor one, and that is often the case. But explain this, please.

You tell me that you inveigled John into establishing this account so that, if the day ever came, blame might fall on someone other than yourself. And yet, when the government became aware of the account, you hid the records from them."

"So? I'm not quite as big an asshole as I thought I was.

Besides, I told you: I wasn't real interested in explaining that one to you."

"I feel, Dixon, that you had other motives."

"You're smoking dope, Stern."

"Tell me, Dixon, according to your explanation, how is it that the government learned of any of this in' the first place? Who is the informant, Dixon?"

Dixon shook his head no. As if he had never even pondered the question.

"who do you think it is?" he asked.

"After a great deal of reflection, I have concluded that it is Margy, and that you have known that all along, perhaps even directed her activity."

Dixon was absolutely still. His eyes, a lighter shade tending toward gray or green, moved first.

"You've lost your fucking mind. Completely."

"I believe not."

"You really are a piece of work," Dixon said. "Do you know that? You badger me for months to tell you about this. You cross-examine me. You send me frigging mofion. You threaten my secretary. And now, when I finally suck it up and let you know what's going on, you call me a liar and make some wild-ass accusation that came to you in a hailucination.

Go fuck yourself, Stern."

"A wonderful speech." Stern raised both hands and , clapped once.

"I'm pleading guilty."

"To an offense you did not commit?"

"Look, I'm not taking any more of this crap. You're my lawyer, right?"

"At the moment."

"Well, I want to plead guilty. Make a deal. Those are your orders. InstrUctionsWhatever you call it."

"I am sorry, Dixon. I cannot do that."

"Then I'll fire you."

"Very well."

"You think I won't do this? I'll do it without you. The city is full of lawyers. They all work for pay. It's like blood on the water. I'll have six by the end of the day."

"You are not guilty, Dixon."

Dixon wrenched his face and his voice tore from him at top volume.

"Goddamn you, Stern!"

It was like a cannon blast. Somewhere in the still building Stern could hear movements. Down the hall, a door opened.

"You smug, insuffernable little son of a bitch. Has there ever been a minute in your life when you didn't think you were smarter or better than I am?" Dixon had a wild look.

He had come with'm a few feet of Stern, and Stern was afraid for an instant that Dixon might strike him. But at last Dixon turned away and bent toward the safe.

"Leave it be, Dixon. I remain under subpoena. The safe is my responsibility."

Hot rage, nuclear in its intensity, radiated from Dixon's look, but he stepped away.

"Can you fucking imagine?" he asked before he left.

"Stern here."

"It's Sonny."

He greeted her warmly, asked how she felt. With her voice there was still, if more distantly, the same storm of feeling. Far-off thunder.

He looked at the clock built into the telephone. Another of t/is gadgets. It was well past five.

"Listen," she said. "I just got the most bizarre call. Your client.

Mr. Hartnell. He told me he wants to come in to have a meeting with me."

"Ignore him," saidStern at once.

"I tried. I told him I couldn't talk to him, because he had a lawyer.

He said he fired you. Is that right?"

After a pause, he told her he was not certain precisely where they stood, that Dixon was extremely emotional at the moment, feeling the stress. "If I withdraw, however, I shall not do so before he has substitute counsel. I must insist, Sonny, that the government not deal with him directly."

"Well, Sandy, I don't know. I mean-"

"I am not criticizing you."

"I understand."

Most judges would react adversely if the 'government proceeded. With Stern professing that the client was in turmoil, the court would feel that the prosecution had taken unfair advantage. Even Sennett would not take the chance. His case was strong. Why put it in jeopardy? Sonny, no doubt, was making the same calculations.

"I'll talk to Stan," she said at last. The usual exit from a difficult pass. "Do I take it Mr. Hartnell might be interested in a plea?"

"I would advise him against that," said Stern. "Most emphatically."

"You're bluffing," she said. He could hear the tricks in her voice, the humor. She could not keep herself from a certain bonhomie. She relished being on the same footing with him, proving herself. She was kind enough, however, not to press further. "What about the safe?" she asked.

"Have you and Marta talked about our proposal?"

"What is it you want?" Stern asked. He remembered, of course. It was merely a lawyer's device, one of a thousand, hoping the terms might somehow improve when they were repeated. They did not. She offered the same deal: produce the safe and an affidavit that its contents were undisturbed. So here was that moment again, the everyday of the lawyer's life. It was, after all, only a signature. Who besides Stern would know?

"I believe, Sonny, that I shall not be able to comply."

"Look," she said. "I understand."

"I don't think you do. Stan has very strong feelings."

"Of course."

"Oh, man," she said. She pondered. "I don't Yke where this is going, Sandy. I really don't. Is your client aware that we can prove he controlled that account? You know, Wunderkind?"

"I cannot tell you what I discussed with my client, Sonny, but I have not breached your trust. I hope you would not assume otherwise."

"I know that. I meant-" she said. "Listen, I have to think this through- If I can see my way clear to let you tell him, do you think that would make a difference?"

"You are very kind, Sonny. But it would make no dif ference at all."

She hesitated, deliberating. From her silence, he was sure she was lost.

"Sandy, this is nuts. If you think that someone in this building is going to be afraid to put Sandy Stern in jail."

"I harbor no such illusions. I assure you."

"And there's nothing else anybody can do?"

He waited with the thought, unwilling to prevail upon her again. He had done that in Dulin, and in the end there had been considerable emotional cost to them both.. "What?" she asked. "No matter."

"What?"

He sighed. "The informant."…

She made so'me sound with her tongue. "What about it?"

"I take it you still do not know the identity."

"I couldn't tell you if I did."

"Of course not."

"So?"

"I believe the United States Attorney has taken particular delight in duping me. I su'pect you will find that your source is someone with whom the government knows I have a relationship, one that naturally tends to place that person above my suspicion." He weighed saying "a client," or even giving her Margy's name, but the more specific he was, the more difficult this would become. As she said, she could never confirm an identity. "If my suspicions are misplaced, I would very much like to know that."

"And that's important to you? In connection with this? The subpoena?"

"Critical," he said.

"I'm not making any promises," she said. "If I' find out, I find out. I don't know what I'd do."

They waited on the line. It amazed him again-she was such a strong, fine person.

"How is your life?" he asked. He dared not be more precise. Your marriage. your husband. "Better," she said.

"Good," he told her.

"Yeah," said Sonny, and waited. "But the law sucks," she told him before she put down the phone.

"S TATE your name, please, and spell your last name for the record,"

"My name is Alejandro M. Stern. The first name is A, 1, e, j, a, n, d, r, o. The last name is S, t, e, r, n."

"M?" asked Klonsky. She would perhaps never wholly resolve her curiosity about him.

"Mordecai."

"Ah." She absorbed that stoically and'went back to her notes.

Sonny ran through the usual preamble, one Stern had read in dozens of transcripts. She told him that he was before the Special March 1989 Grand Jury-March being-when they had been impaneled-and provided a one-line description of investigation 89-86, which, she said? concerned "alleged violations of Title 18, United States Code, Section, 1962." She also mentioned that Stern was not a target and that his lawyer was outside, available to consult with him.

"And her name is Marta Stern, same spelling2' "Yes," said Stern. He spoke to the court reporter seated before him, Shirley Floss, who formerly had worked in Judge Horka's courtroom: "M, a, r, t, a." Shirley smiled as she typed.

Proper spellings were the moon and stars of a court reporter's life.

Stern sat in the witness chair, inside the grand jury at last-thirty years of curiosity finally satisfied. Beside him, behind the facade of the raised walnut bench, were the grand jury foreperson and the secretary, two middle-aged.women selected from among the grand jurors f6r this largely ministerial function. A small desk, shared by the court reporter and Klonsky, was immediately before him, and arrayed beyond in the small, tiered room sat the remaining grand jurors: the Leagu him again-she was such a strong, fine person.

"How is your life?" he asked. He dared not be more precise. Your marriage. your husband. "Better," she said.

"Good," he told her.

"Yeah," said Sonny, and waited. "But the law sucks," she told him before she put down the phone.

"S TATE your name, please, and spell your last name for the record,"

"My name is Alejandro M. Stern. The first name is A, 1, e, j, a, n, d, r, o. The last name is S, t, e, r, n."

"M?" asked Klonsky. She would perhaps never wholly resolve her curiosity about him.

"Mordecai."

"Ah." She absorbed that stoically and'went back to her notes.

Sonny ran through the usual preamble, one Stern had read in dozens of transcripts. She told him that he was before the Special March 1989 Grand Jury-March being-when they had been impaneled-and provided a one-line description of investigation 89-86, which, she said? concerned "alleged violations of Title 18, United States Code, Section, 1962." She also mentioned that Stern was not a target and that his lawyer was outside, available to consult with him.

"And her name is Marta Stern, same spelling2' "Yes," said Stern. He spoke to the court reporter seated before him, Shirley Floss, who formerly had worked in Judge Horka's courtroom: "M, a, r, t, a." Shirley smiled as she typed.

Proper spellings were the moon and stars of a court reporter's life.

Stern sat in the witness chair, inside the grand jury at last-thirty years of curiosity finally satisfied. Beside him, behind the facade of the raised walnut bench, were the grand jury foreperson and the secretary, two middle-aged.women selected from among the grand jurors f6r this largely ministerial function. A small desk, shared by the court reporter and Klonsky, was immediately before him, and arrayed beyond in the small, tiered room sat the remaining grand jurors: the League of Nations, all races, all ages.

Two older men slept; a young thuggish man, with heavy sideburns and long, greasy hair, read the. paper. Some listened abjectly. A slender, attractive, middle-aged woman sat with a pad, taking notes for her own benefit. There was no window, no natural light.

"Where do you reside, Mr. Stern?"

He gave his home address, and in response to the next question answered that he was an attorney. Sonny moved to the table.

"Mr. Stern, I show you what the court reporter has marked as G.J. 89-86 Exhibit 192. Do you recognize it?"

It was the subpoena she'd served on him. One hundred ninety-two exhibits, Stern thought. John had been a busy fellow. No question, the investigation was nearly complete, indictment was near. Klonsky established Stern's receipt of the subpoena and had him read the text aloud.

"Now, Mr. Stern, do you have in your possession, custody, or control the safe referred to?"

"I decline to answer."

"On what grounds?"

"The attorney-client privilege."

Klonsky, who expected this, turned to the grand jury foreperson, a gray-haired woman with glasses.

"Ms. Foreperson, please direct the witness to answer."

Abashed by the thought of a speaking Part in the drama that occurred routinely before her, the foreperson barely glanced at Stern and said simply, "Answer."

"I decline," said Stern.

"On what grounds?" asked Klonsky.

"As stated."

Sonny, who up until now had been proficient and formidable, appeared to have second thoughts. Her pregnancy had progressed to the point that it had wholly erased her usual solid grace. She waited before him, with her own thoughts and a rankled look. "Mr. Stern, I advise you that I shall have to ask the chief judge to hold you in contempt."

"I intend contempt for no one," said Stern, Klonsky asked the grand jurors to recess so that Stern and she could proceed to Chief Judge Winchell's chambers. The grand jurors were more or less familiar with this trip, since they strolled down the block en masse and appeared before Judge Winchell each week to return indictments.

Stern, now and then, had seen them coming, a covey of happy executioners. It was a function to them, $30 a day, part of the customs of the law as arcane as the habits of the Chinese. For the defendant, it was often the end of a respectable life.

Sonny threw open the jury room door, and Marta, dressed in a dark suit and nylons-nylons!-peered inside.. "What's up?" she asked her father.

"We are on our way to see the chief judge."

On her face, Stern saw his own reflective Latin expression, accepting the inevitable.

The group-Sonny, Sandy, Marta, and Shirley, the court reporter, who was also required-waited silently in the corridor for the tardy elevators of the new federal building, "I called Stan," said Sonny. "He'll meet us there." The U.S. Attorney was going to smite his staff and call for justicel It was evident that to a degree Stern had never fully appreciated Sennett hated his guts. Shame, spite, humiliation; the bitter yearning for self-respect. Human beings, thought Stern, were such pitifully predictable creatures.

The small Party walked down the teeming avenue in the summery heat.

Shirley had packed her machine and notes in a small case, and toted it along on one of the little wheeled carrying racks that airline stewardesses use for their luggage. She talked to Stern about her children. The youngest, in college at the U., hoped for a career in radio and TV. Sonny and Marta, in spite of themselves, got along admirably. They had finished law school at virtually the same time and had mutual acquaintances. A.fellow named Jake, a law school friend of Marta's, had clerked with Sonny in the Court of appeals.

Sennett, in his flawless blue suit and perfect shirt, waited for them in the judge's anteroom. As they walked through the door, the U.S.

Attorney was, literally, studying his nails. He shook Marta's hand, and Stern's.

Feeling somewhat surly, Stern did not return his greeting.

. After a minute, Moira Winchell's door opened and the chief 3udge swept a hand to usher them in. She was in a straight skirt, and her hair, more and more visibly shot through with gray, was held back by a headband today, so that she looked a bit schoolgirlish.

"Well, I can't say I'm happy to see any of you." She called out the side door for her own court reporter.

The group was seated again at the judge's conference table, solid as a fortress. The light of the day fell through the heavy windows, long parallelograms of brilliance that gave the rest of the room a kind of prison gloom by contrast.

Pure metaphor, thought Stern of the association.

"On the record," Judge Winchell said to her court reporter.

"Mr. Sennett, I take it you have a motionT"

Stan raised a hand to Sonny, who drew out of a manila folder a short written motion which had been prepared in advance. It asked that Stern be ordered to reappear before the grand jury and to respond to the questions he had refused to answer. Reappearance was required because the grand jury had no power of its own to compel him to respond. It was only for violating the judge's order to answer that Stern could be found in contempt-and jailed.

Moira put the motion aside.

"All right, let's hear what happened. This is the court reporter?"

Shirley was sworn, and read from the narrow stenotype pad in a singsong voice, stumbling at moments as she interpreted the symbols. The judge's court rep6rter, Bob, sat beside Shirley, taking it all down on a machine of his owm "Answer by Mr. Stern," she read at the conclusion," '! intend contempt for no one,'"

Stern saw Sennett, at the foot of the table, frown. Stan was not buying anY.

"All right, Ms. Stern," said the judge, careful with her record, "What do you say to the motion?"

"We object, Your Honor." Marta said that whether Stern had received or retained the safe were both questions that implicated communications with his client. She asked for a week to present a brief in support of that position, and Sennett, speaking for the government today, objected in his usual tone of suppressed vehemence. Briefs were unnecessary on this issue, he said, and would unfairly delay the grand jury's final action. Marta fought back bravely, but the judge eventually sided with the government. She would never tolerate briefing each question Stern was asked.

"If you have cases, I'll read them right now," the judge said.

Marta did. From her briefcase, she removed photocopies of various judicial opinions speaking. to the breadth of the attorney-client priviIege, and passed copies to the judge and the prosecutors. The company, including the two court reporters, sat silently while the judge and the lawyers read.

Stan clearly remained intent on indicting quickly.

Yesterday morning, Stern had received a letter from the Department of Justice granting him an appointment with the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section at 9 A.M. next Tuesday in Washington, D.C. If it went as usual, the meeting would be brief, polite, and entirely perfunctory. By two weeks from today at most, prosecution would be approved and Dixon Hartnell would be a former powerhouse, become instead the carcass for a three- or four-day media feeding.

That Thursday morning the business pages would banner the rumor of his imminent indictment, as the result of a leak from the man at the end of the table. Then, following return of the charges that day, Stan would hold a news conference and read his press release with a still-eyed intensity that would make him appear properly tough whet/his sound bite flickered up on the evening news. On Friday morning the indictment would command the front page here, and probably an item in the Journal and The New York Times. Following that, the weekend papers would run a lengthy rehash, comparing Sennett's initi/(ive in combating corruption on the Kindle County Futures Exchange with others around the nation, or, even worse recounting the tragic rise and fall of Dixon Hartnell.

And while his reputation was devastated, the actual bricks and mortar of Dixon's business life would begin to collapse. Competitors would vigorously woo Dixon's stunned clients, and key employees would start freshening their r6sum6s. In light of the RICO charges, a restraining order would be entered at once, tying up all of Dixon's visible assets, so that S:tern would have to call Klonsky for permission before Dixon could cash a check for spending money. The reporters would lurk outside Dixon's home and call him on his private line at work. And Dixon, everywhere, would see some refle of aversion or harsh judgment pass behind the eyes of each person he met. To Stern, this remained unfathomable-it was impossible to think of Dixon brought so low or, more pertinently, being able to soldier on in the face of such disgrace.

"Here's what I think," said the judge. She had finished reading Marta's cases and apparently was not even going to allow argument. "I think these opinions are not on point.

In this circuit, under decisions like Feldman and Walsh, an attorney must make a specific showing in support as to each question asked or item sought for which the privilege is claimed. The privilege must actually, not potentially,.apply. From this I conclude that the privilege does not protect Mr. Stern or any other witness from answering whether he has a subpoenaed item in his possession. Otherwise, the court and counsel might become embroiled in lengthy proceedings that are, in reality, pointless. Accordingly, Ms. Stern, I am going to overrule your objection and order your client to answer. Now." The judge laid her long hands on the ta-bletop. She wore no jewelry other than a slim wedding band, and her nails were unpolished. "I would like to know whether or not your client. intends to respond, since I'd rather have some time to reflect before dealing with any contempt. Why don't you use my study to confer?"

"I think she's right," said Maa as soon as she had closed the door to the study.

"Of course, she is," said Stern. The room was com-pactprobably the quarters for a scrivener when the building was first erected. There was a wall of books, and various photos of Jason Winchell, and also a dog, an Irish setter, in the phases of its life from puppyhood to mothering a litter. The dog's eyes were green and eerie in the light of the flash as her pups suckled beneath her. "Your desire is that I answer this question?"

"That's my advice," said his daughter.

They returned to the table. Marta said that Stern would answer. The prosecutors showed nothing, but the judge nodded. She was pleased.

"All right, now," said the judge. "What's the next question going to be? I'd like to avoid wasting the grand jurors' time-I don't want all of you trooping back and forth repeatedly."

"Well, what's the answer to the question?" asked Sennett.

The judge looked at Stern, and Marta raised a hand to prevent her father from speaking.

"I believe my client will indicate that he has the safe in his possession." Marta knew this much, having seen the safe in the office again. But Stern had kept to himself what had further transpired between Dixon and him, and Marta,. to her credit, had not inquired. She took seriously her ftther's obligation to maintain Dixon's confidences.

With the news that Stern had the safe, Sennett wheeled about and gave Klonsky a look. Perhaps he had been betting against that. Sonny did not respond. In the grand jury, she was businesslike, but now, confronting the consequences she was considerably less animated and seemed increasingly withdrawn from the proceedings, which Sennett was conducting more or less on his own. She was paler, showing less of her usual rosy glow. Stern could not help thinking of Kate or taking small comfort from what he viewed as signs of Sonny's sympathy.

"Next question," said the judge again.

"The next question," said Sennett, "is whether the safe, including its contents, is in the same condition as when Mr. Stern received it or whether, to his knowledge, anything has been removed."

Marta started to object; but the judge was already shaking her head. One question at a time, she told Sennett. He whispered to Klonsky, who somewhat listlessly shrugged.

"The question," he said, "is whether, to the best o.f Mr. Stern's knowledge, anything has been removed from the safe since the time the subpoena was served."

This, regrettably, was a clever improvement. As re framed, the question followed the lines of the judge's prior ruling and went no further than asking whether Stern had maintained possession of what had been subpoenaed from him.

Sennett was working in increments. If Stern answered that nothing had been removed since Sonny served him, Sennett would attempt to move back to the time Stern had received the safe. That might be more objectionable. Of course, Stern realized, he was never going to answer the first question.

"All right now, Ms. Stern, any objection to that question?"

"Asking him if he knows," said Marta, "doesn't distinguish between what his client might have told him and what he has learned on his own."

"We'll limit the question to exclude any communications with his client," interjected Sennett.

"So the question, then," said the judge, "is, leaving aside client communications, does Mr. Stern know of anything removed from the safe since the time the subpoena was first served upon him?"

Sennett nodded. That was the question.

"Any further objections?" asked the judge.

Stern whispered to Marta: Assert privilege. She did, stating that the question still called upon knowledge gained in the attorney-client relationship and might reveal the attorney's own mental impressions.

"Very well," said the judge, "I'll overrule those objections. This question, no less than the one before it, simply deals with what is and is not in respondent's possession, without regard to client communications.

Therefore, I'll order Mr. Stern to answer. Again, I'd prefer to know now whether he intends to respond." The judge once more gestured grandly to her study.

"No," said Stern when they were alone.

"Daddy!"

"I shall not answer."

"Why not?"

"I cannot respond." There was a small sofa, a love seat of heavy brown tweed, and Stern fell down upon it. He suddenly felt quite tired. Marta remained on her feet. "You told me before he took the safe that he'd never let you open it."

"True," said Stern.

"So you don't know if anything has been removed,"

Marta stared at her father. "How could you know?" He shook his head-he would not answer, "Come on," she said.

Stern glanced up at the walls-the judge had various citations there, a medal from a woman's group. As Stern would have guessed, she kept acluttered desk here in her private space..

"If I were to answer," said Stern, "that to my knowledge the contents of the safe are not the same, what would transpire?"* "They'd ask you what's missing, how you know it's gone, who had access to the safe, where it was Iocated, whether you know who's got what was taken." Marta was counting off the questions on her fingers.

"And would our privilege' objections to such questions be sustained?"

"Maybe. To some of them. It depends how you know."

"Perhaps to some. But certainly Judge Winchell would require that I state who had access to the safe or where it may have been located."

"Thaffs a reasonable guess," Marta said. "Are you really' telling me that he took something out of there and you know itT Once more, he refused to answer her,.

"Dad-' "Marta, if I testify that Dixon took the safe, that Dixon returned the safe, and that some item is missing, vhat inference will the prosecutors and the grand jury draw?"

"That's obvious. ' "Just so," said Stern. "And thus I cannot indulge this line of inquiry.

I shall not give answers that imply wrongdoing by my client. Nor, frankly, have I any intention of responding to questions from anyone about the safe's contents." ' "On what grounds?"

Stern, baffled, thought an instant. "The right to privacy.."

There was no such thing in criminal proceedings. They both understood that. Marta studied her father. Stern knew the internal race taking place, the mind dashing ahead of the emotions. Somewhere, ff she was nimble enough, there was an argument to be made that would persuade him, save him from himself. Her small dark eyes were intent..

"You're not being asked any of those questions now," she said. "All they want to know is whether the contents of the safe are the same. Yes or no. If you have a problem later, we'll deal with it then."

"I refuse. Once we start down that road, there is no logical stopping point."

Marta groaned. "What was in the safe?" Stern shook his head. "How do you know?" He shook his head again.

Marta watched him with the same driven concentration.

"Aunt Silvia," she said at last. "She told you. You're protecting her."

"You are brilliant, Marta, but not 'correct."

"I don't undtrstand this," Marta said. "I don't understand what you think you know..And I don't understand your loyalty to him. Don't you hate him? After all the stuff he's pulled?"

Stern hesitated.

"Come on," said his daughter.

"I have a duty to Dixon. The government can seek evidence against him in every other comer of the world, and seems to have done so. He is entitled to know that his lawyer will not join the melee."

"You don't have a duty to violate court orders. This is a matter of personal philosophy, not law."

"So far as I am concerned, Marta, this is not discretionary. And if it were, I would not use the legal system to settle my differences with Dixon."

Frustrated, Marta threw down her hand.

"What about the Fifth?" she asked suddenly.

"No," said Stern. "In my judgment, Dixon has no Fifth Amendment rights in these circumstances."

"No, no. What about you? You can be innocent and assert the Fifth. If you disclose that something was taken while you were under subpoena, you might be incriminating yourself.

You've got a Fifth." Marta was excited. She had convinced herself this was the solution.

Resolutely, Stern differed. If he did as Marta wanted, the prosecutors would promptly obtain a use immunity order dissolving his Fifth Amendment rights. Nothing would have been gained and the judge would feel taunted by the desperate tactics.

Defeated, Marta sat down beside him.

"I don't understand this. How can you do this to yourself, just to suit him?"

"If I were to suit your uncle, I would commit perjury and solve all my problems. Perhaps I am simply too much of a coward to adopt that approach"

"Daddy, please. If you confront her in an area like this, where we have no legitimate grounds to resist, she'll put you in jail,"

"Then that is what will occur."

His daughter looked at him for some time.

"Jesus Christ," said Marta. "And you complain about him as a client. What was in the goddamn safe?"

He shook his head again.

They returned to the table. The judge and the Court reporters were chatting about movies.

"All right, on the record," said the judge.

Marta folded her hands, placed them squarely on the table before her, and announced that Stern would refuse to answer the question posed, on the grounds of the attorney-client privilege and the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of the right to counsel. The ter of personal philosophy, not law."

"So far as I am concerned, Marta, this is not discretionary. And if it were, I would not use the legal system to settle my differences with Dixon."

Frustrated, Marta threw down her hand.

"What about the Fifth?" she asked suddenly.

"No," said Stern. "In my judgment, Dixon has no Fifth Amendment rights in these circumstances."

"No, no. What about you? You can be innocent and assert the Fifth. If you disclose that something was taken while you were under subpoena, you might be incriminating yourself.

You've got a Fifth." Marta was excited. She had convinced herself this was the solution.

Resolutely, Stern differed. If he did as Marta wanted, the prosecutors would promptly obtain a use immunity order dissolving his Fifth Amendment rights. Nothing would have been gained and the judge would feel taunted by the desperate tactics.

Defeated, Marta sat down beside him.

"I don't understand this. How can you do this to yourself, just to suit him?"

"If I were to suit your uncle, I would commit perjury and solve all my problems. Perhaps I am simply too much of a coward to adopt that approach"

"Daddy, please. If you confront her in an area like this, where we have no legitimate grounds to resist, she'll put you in jail,"

"Then that is what will occur."

His daughter looked at him for some time.

"Jesus Christ," said Marta. "And you complain about him as a client. What was in the goddamn safe?"

He shook his head again.

They returned to the table. The judge and the Court reporters were chatting about movies.

"All right, on the record," said the judge.

Marta folded her hands, placed them squarely on the table before her, and announced that Stern would refuse to answer the question posed, on the grounds of the attorney-client privilege and the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of the right to counsel. The judge, the prosecutors, even the court reporters took a second to absorb this.

"Move contempt," said Sennett at last.

"My client believes that the government is attempting to use him as a witness against his client," added Marta.

"Whether that is true or not," said Judge Winchell, whose eyes were cast to the floor, "he must answer. Neither the attorney-client privilege nor the Constitution allows him a basis to refuse."

"He will not respond," said Marta. She leaned toward the judge with erect posture and an implacable look. She betrayed not an iota of doubt. Marvelous, Stern thought, in spite of everything else.

The judge covered her eyes with one hand.

"Well," she said at last. "I will reflect on how this contempt should be addressed, assuming it takes place. And I'll listen carefully to arguments.": She straightened up.

"But I want you to know, Mr. Stern, if you Persist, my present intention is to remand you to the c.ustody of the marshal, and I will leave it to the court of apPeals to determine whether my order should be stayed while they consider the matter. And I also caution you that I will not terminate your grand jury apPearance. You will have to go on answering the prosecutors' questions, or refusing, as the case may be."

Judge Winchell had fixed him with her icy tOugh-guy look.

No friendship. No bullshit. No symphony intermissions. They were now in the heartland of Moira Winchell's judicial existence-her rightful authority. Sharing this look with considerable apprehension, Stern' managed to nod.

In silence, the party proceeded back down the street to the new federal building. A block away, Stan broke off. He had a luncheon speech tO deliver. No doubt it disappointed him not to be there to see the marshals clap on the cuffs, but there were at least forty-five minutes more and Stan, always precise, did not have the time. He said a word or two to Klonsky and left them tO proceed ensemble in the noontime heat, the sounds of downtown construction and traffic banging about them.

Outside the grand jury room, the jUrors were lounging, drinking coffee, gabbing, smoking their cigarettes. Sonny raised a hand to round them up.

She stood with Stern and Marta before the door.

"I know this is a matter of principle for you," she said to Stern. She put her hand on his, a mildly shocking gesture in the surroundings. "But I think this is a mistake. Please reconsider." 'In the grand jury room, Stern resumed his seat. Klonsky read the first question from her notes: Was he in possession of the safe?

She studied her pad again.

"Leaving aside client communications, does Mr. Stern -strike that-do you know of anything.removed from the safe since the time the sub pom, G.J. 89-86 Exhibit 192, was first served upon you?"

"I decline to answer."

Sonny peered at him, pale, grim.

"State the grounds."

They were quickly finished. The grand jUrors groaned when Klonsky called another recess.

Marta was standing immediately outside the door. "Shit," she said as it opened.

Klonsky asked Barney Hill the grand jury clerk, to Call Judge Winebell's secretary to tell her they were on the way back. The four of them headed out onto the street. Marta lagged behind with Stern, and spoke to him heatedly.

"Now I'm going to beg and plead. I'll use everyihing-thirty years of service in this court, Mornroy's death, everything. And I don't want any back talk. Do you hear me?"

He nodded to her, smiling a bit, and marched down the street, shockingly free of apprehension or doubt.

The judge's staff knew what was transpiring and went quiet as soon as they entered. The secretary called in to the judge to announce their return, but the door to the chambers remained closed, and the foUr of them Stern and his daughter, Klonsky and the court repOrter-waited in the judge's anteroom. Sonny, if anything, appeared paler. She took the lone seat across from Stern, her lips drawn into her mouth, her jaw gripped firmly, while she stared into space. She was, Stern thought to himself, in a kind of remote observation, so terribly pretty. Then Bud Bailey, one of the deputy marshals, blundered through the door, a sweet bald headed oaf, with his gun and uniform and jangling keys. His arrival jarred Stern, like a note of music misplayed.

Bailey greeted both Stern and Klonsky by name, then looked at the judge's secretar7. "She rang?" Sonny had sat up tensely with Bailey's appearance.

The secretary sent Bailey in first. He would be getting instructions about taking Stern into custody. Stern had imagined all this and felt well girded. He would be escorted to the marshal's lockup, a mesh-fenced holding pen on the third floor which looked much like a birdcage for human beings. He would sit there for an hour or two. If the motion judge in the court of appeals did not role promptly, he would be transported by jail van to the federal correctional center. There he would be asked to disrobe completely, then searched from head to toe and made to bend over while the guard examined his anus with the beam of a flashlight, Afterwards, he would be given a blue jumpsuit.

He would not be inside long. They had drafted the petition for a stay last night; Marta had it with her and would go at once to the twelfth floor to file it. Marta and he had contacted George Mason, president of the county bar association, a figure of prominence, who promised to attempt to get his Board of Governors to file an amicus brief. In any event, Mason would organize dozens of lawyers who would join in a petition to the court of appeals. The court, most surely, would order Stern's release and set an expedited schedule for briefing and arguments. To proceed with the appeal, Marta had already insisted on deferring to Mason, a decision with which Stern agreed. The question, of course-the real question-was what he would do once the court of appeals ruled against him and he was required to respond in the grand jury or return to jail.

Klonsky suddenly spoke up in the silent office.

"You still want to write a brief for Judge Winchell?" she asked Marta.

"Sure." 'q think you should write a brief," said Sonny. "I think our discussions have persuaded me that there are serious issues."

Marta blinked once. "Sure," she said again.

Stern began to speak. What discussions, he was going to say, but his daughter dug her hand into his sleeve and spun about with a harsh look that bordered on violence. She mouthed the words distinctly: Shut Up.

Stern turned from her. "Sennett will fire you," he told Sonny….

"God damn it!" said Marta.

"This whole thing is sick," Sonny said. The remark was directed to no one in particular: a final conclusion. Stern had no idea who it was that she meant to condemn, but her judgment was firm. She focused on Stern. "You were right, you know. Do you understand meT'

He did not at first. Then it came to him: the informant.

That was what had upset her-seeing SenneWs duplicity, his mean, clever game.

The door to the judge's chambers opened then. Bud Bailey was standing behind Moira Winchell.

"Sandy," she said, even before the company was over the threshold, "Bud will go with you to the grand jury. When you're done, he'll keep you in custody in his office until the court of appeals rules on your petition for a stay.

That's the best I can do." Even Moira Winchell, firm and unfiappable, was somewhat undone. Her head moved about in the loose wobble of an old lady as she told him she could do no more.

Marta spoke up then. She and Klonsky, after discussion, had agreed there were serious issues. The government now would agree to a week's adjournment in order to allow Stern to file a brief.

"Oh, really?" said Judge Winchell. She turned to Klon-sky.

"Mr. Sennctt had seemed so intent.."

"lie may not agree with me," said Sonny. "If he doesn't, I won't be here next week." She smiled vague13 at her OWl irony,,

"Do you want to speak with him?" asked the judge. "He can't be reached," she saicL "I see," said the judge. Moira knew she was getting a message of some kind. "Off the record," she said. "What's the dealT'

Stern, his daughter, Sonny exchanged looks among them selves. No one answered the judge.

"Your brief Monday, response Wednesday, a reply if you wish when you appear Thursday morning, 10 A.M.," said the judge, pointing at Marta, Sonny, then Marta again. She looked once more at the three silent lawyers, ther shrugged at Bailey, (he marshal, "It's a secret," she sai amp;.

AS a child, Peter was a sleepwalker. These were horrifying occasions.

Because Clara tended to turn in arly, it was usually Stern who had to deal with the situatin. Once, Stern found him about to head out wearing his hat and mittens, although they were in the steamy depths of summer.

Another night, Peter came down and practiced the clarinet.

One other time, Stern heard the bathwater running. Assuming it was Clara, he only happened to peek in to find Peter lying in the tub in his pajamas. He remained fully asleep, the water a shining frame about his dark, serene face. The advice in those yearsmprobably still todaymwas not to rouse him. Stern pulled him from the water gently, stripped off his clothes, and dried the lean young body, then dressed his son again.

In these states, Peter responded to instruction like a magician's assistant in a trance. Walk.

Turn left. Turn right. He vas, however, incapable of speech. It was a disturbing sight. Like waking the dead.

The private theater of dream and sleep were not stage enough to relieve Peter's inner forces. They needed, literally, to be acted out. After the bathtub episode, Peter reported he had dreamed he was dirty.

It was the thought that Peter ought to be allowed to share. his burdens which had brought Stern, late Thursday afternoon, to the rehab'ed apartment building where his son lived. After his adventures in the grand jury, he found himself too distracted for work. He was concerned about Klon-sky, who, in her dismay over Sennett's high-handed tactics, might have placed a black mark on a promising career, while emotionally Stern felt some need to take advantage of his reprieve.

Eventually, his mind turned to Peter. Near three, he had called his son's office, where the staff reminded Stern that Peter had no hours on Thursdays. Next he tried him at home. He was there apparently-the line was busy-and after failing to get through on a number of tries, Stern decided to go ahead while his courage remained high. He wanted no confrontation. No fussing. His manifest assumption was to be that Peter was well-meaning and bound by professional obligations. But Stern had decided it was best to get this out in the open. He preferred to have no other distractions when he proceeded to the calamitous show. down that he was headed for sooner or later with John and Kate. That one, he feared, might blow the Stern family to smithereens; they would float through space like an asteroid belt, pieces of the same matter, within the same orbit, but no longer attached. Only Marta might see things her father's way in the end, and even she would be somewhat divided.

Stern stood in the lobby's dim light, attempting to correlate the name with a button. "4B P. Stern." There. In Stern's opinion, this was a desolate part of town, south along the river. It had been formerly the habitat of skidrow bums and mission houses, until the developers had arrived here in force about five years ago. The old churches, the printing plants, even the unused former train station were turned into loft apartments, but the area did not quite catch on. The streets were empty; there was little planting, no children. A few of the reprobate bums would get soused and return here out of habit or confusion and lie in the sandblasted doorways, their grimy heads against the shining brass kickplates of the refinished doors. Apparently, the denizens here were all like Peter, young and childless, happy to trade the convenience of a location adjoining the Center City for other amenities.

A pretty young woman came into the lobby. She carried her cleaning and was dressed in full urban regalia-a blue suit, aerobic shoes for the walk from the office, and yellow headphones. The inner lobby door was activated by some electronic-card pass which she drew out of her handbag. Stern pressed the button for Peter's apartment and, as the young woman held the door, entered. Climbing the stairs -none of these buildings had elevators-he once more prepared himself. No sCenes, he promised himself. He knocked on his son's door; After a moment, Peter's face appeared in the seam allowed by the chain lock between the frame and the paneled door.

"Dad." All the usual emotions swam across Peter's face: discomfiture, surprise. Oh God, this-this eternal nuisance. "May I come in?"

Peter did not answer. Instead, he closed the door to sweep aside the chain. Was there the sound of movement inside?

There was no one else when Peter threw the door wide. The young man himself was dressed in a spandex cycling outfit-a garish top and black knickers, with li. me blocks of reflective material running down his flanks, and little low shoes. Peter's-blondish hair was rumpled after his ride.

His bike, with the black headgear strung along the handlebars, was propped near the doorway, as much a part of the furnishings as anything else.

"Jesus, Dad, why didn't you call?"

He explained that he could not get through. "There are matters," said- Stern, "that I wish to discuss."

"Matters?" asked Peter. They were still standing near the doorway and Stern looked into the apartment hopefully and actually took a step farther inside. It was only a little better than a studio. The kitchen and dining room and living area were merged, with a single bedroom and bath behind the corpanon wall. The decoration was modest-opera posters and bright furniture filled with polyfoam, inexpensive modem stuff.

Peter still did not invite him to sit.

"What kind of matters?"

"Concerning your mother," said Stern. "I am hoping to have a candid discussion with you."

Peter virtually winced. Perhaps it was the subject-or more likely the notion of an open exchange with his father.

Ignoring his son's lack of hospitality, Stern wandered farther into the living room, looking about. "Very nice," he said. He had been here only once, after the closing, When the place was empty and entirely white.

"Look, Dad," said Peter, "I'm kind of into something right now."

"I do not anticipate a lengthy discussion, Peter. I suspect I shall have rather more'to say than you, and that is not very much '"

"What aboutT'

Stern, at last, helped himself to a seat on the foam sofa.

"Peter, I have long suspected that you were concerned for more than your own emotional well-being when you urged me not to allow an autopsy of your mother."

Peter stared straight at him, his blue eyes and gaunt face still.

"Frankly, I was thrown off when I visited you at your office," said Stern. "You seemed so easily convinced that I had come there because a new partner of mine had this problem. I realize now that your theory was that I had been infected before, subclinically, and was the one who had actually passed this on to my new acquaintance. That was why you insisted on such a rigorous course of testing. '

Watching with a frantic, disbelieving look, Peter suddenly held up both hands.

"Dad, not now."

"I am not here to criticize you. On the contrary, I believe-"

Peter leaned down to his father and spoke with a determined clarity.

"Dad, there's somebody here. I have a guest."

With that, on cue, a distinct cough was emitted from the bedroom. There was no mistaking the sound, either.

It was a man.

"I see," said Stern: He stood up at once. As resolved as he was to resist this, a response of dizziness, sickness gripped him. This lifestyle, choice-whatever it was called-remained beyond him. Not the acts, but the very philosophy. Stern, in truth, did not care much for men.

They were rough, sometimes vicious, and generally unreliable. Women were far better, except, of course, they frightened him. "Well, we must speak soon," said Stern. He attempted to look at his son, but failed by a fair margin and instead let his eyes fall to the toe of his shoe.

There he saw a briefcase, the visitor's no doubt, resting against the block of laminate that passed for the coffee table. The case was zippered, blue vinyl, with a large brass tag hanging from it. Stern had seen the case before. With that realization, he felt an outbreak of something else-panic, riot, emotion out of control: the man was someone he knew. "Look, we'll have dinner," said Peter. "This evening?"

"Not tonight. But I'll call." Peter rested a hand.on his elbow.

It was, of course, weak and sick. There were secrets he could live without.knowing, were there not? Life's compulsions were hopeless.

Obliquely, Stern glanced back at the briefcase. The tag was an enlargement of the man's business card-Stern had seen these items beforesbut it was not visible from here. He let Peter lead him two steps to the door.

"Sometime this week," said Stern. "Soon after, I may be in jail."

"Jail?"

"An interesfmg story."

Peter at once waved a hand. He did not want to know-or to have his visitor hear it. With that, that clue, there was a sudden pulse of alarm. Stern let his eyes shift to the case again. With the gif of farsightedness, the tag might be legible.

And it was. Not the name, actually. He recognized the crest. When he did, Stern pulled his ann free from Peter's grasp and bent to be sure he had made no mistake. "Oh, shit," said Peter behind him.

Stern stood up and covertly pulled on the hem to straighten his jacket? a courtroom gesture that he used before confronting a difficult witness.

"Agent Horn," said Stern loudly. "Show yourself."

"Oh, shit," Peter said again, more despairingly:

Stern did not bother to look back at his son. He was watching the bedroom door.

"How do you say it, Agent? 'Don't make me come in there to get you'?"

Kyle Horn, in his sport coat and white shoes, stepped into the living room. He was chewing gum, trying to smile.

"Hey, Sandy," he said.

When Stern finally glanced about, Peter had taken a seat on his sofa and was looking out the window toward the far distance, where he no doubt he wished to be. Horn, shameless, had continued smiling. Stern was erect as a soldier.

"Please tell the distinguished United States Attorney for me that it will be a most interesting set of motions." Horn at once shook his heM.

"We didn't do anything wrong. Nobody's rights got violated.

You can just cool it." "I shall not 'cool it." Any person of decent sensibility will be deeply offended. To use counsel's son-the target's nephew-as an informant?"

"It was all done right," said Horn. He approached Stern briefly and snatched his case from near Stern's shoes.

"You'll see."

"I shall never see," said Stern.

Horn was near the door. He pointed to Peter, a fomi o/ goodbye.

"Stay in touch," he told Peter.

"What can I say, Kyle? 'Shit happens'?"

"Hey," said Horn as he opened the door. He actually winked.

"Life," he told Peter, "is full of surprises."

"I'M not sorry," Peter said to his father. "It was the g right thing to do. So don't give me d it was. Not the name, actually.

He recognized the crest. When he did, Stern pulled his ann free from Peter's grasp and bent to be sure he had made no mistake. "Oh, shit," said Peter behind him.

Stern stood up and covertly pulled on the hem to straighten his jacket? a courtroom gesture that he used before confronting a difficult witness.

"Agent Horn," said Stern loudly. "Show yourself."

"Oh, shit," Peter said again, more despairingly:

Stern did not bother to look back at his son. He was watching the bedroom door.

"How do you say it, Agent? 'Don't make me come in there to get you'?"

Kyle Horn, in his sport coat and white shoes, stepped into the living room. He was chewing gum, trying to smile.

"Hey, Sandy," he said.

When Stern finally glanced about, Peter had taken a seat on his sofa and was looking out the window toward the far distance, where he no doubt he wished to be. Horn, shameless, had continued smiling. Stern was erect as a soldier.

"Please tell the distinguished United States Attorney for me that it will be a most interesting set of motions." Horn at once shook his heM.

"We didn't do anything wrong. Nobody's rights got violated.

You can just cool it." "I shall not 'cool it." Any person of decent sensibility will be deeply offended. To use counsel's son-the target's nephew-as an informant?"

"It was all done right," said Horn. He approached Stern briefly and snatched his case from near Stern's shoes.

"You'll see."

"I shall never see," said Stern.

Horn was near the door. He pointed to Peter, a fomi o/ goodbye.

"Stay in touch," he told Peter.

"What can I say, Kyle? 'Shit happens'?"

"Hey," said Horn as he opened the door. He actually winked.

"Life," he told Peter, "is full of surprises."

"I'M not sorry," Peter said to his father. "It was the g right thing to do. So don't give me your disdainful look."

Peter held his father's eye a second, then moved away. From his refrigerator, he removed a bottle of soda, pulled off the cap, and sat alone at the small butcher-block table, where he drank down the contents. When he belched he covered his mouth, then appeared to concentrate on the wall.

Stern eventually followed him into the kitchen, a narrow white-washed space built with typical late-century efficiency, the toaster and microwave slotted beneath the cabinets. Stern swung his dark suit jacket over the back of the wire-mesh chair opposite Peter's and sat.

His son glanced at him once or twice.

"Peter, I believe I am representing an innocent man."

Peter removed something from his tongue and stared, at his fingers.

"He hasn't told you,anything, has he?"

Stern reflected. "Very little."

"That figures. I couldn't imagine you were hold'rag back for tactical reasons." He was still not looking at his father. "I was pretty sure you didn't know."

"I know enough, Peter, to believe you have been spread-irlg lies."

Peter turned to him then.

"Don't make judgments," he said. "You don't understand how it happened."

Neither spoke. The compressor clicked on in the refrigerator and a bus wheezed by down in the street. Peter flexed his jaw about ruminatively.

"About five or six weeks before More died," said Peter, "Kate come to see me. One morning, before school. She's forty-five minutes in traffic and as soon as she gets here she does a beeline for the.john and I hear her retching. So the great diagnostician says-'You know, maybe you're pregnant." And she answers, 'I am. That's why I came. I need the name of a decent place to get an abortion."

"I'm like, what? And so she tells me this long, involved story. About John. How he thinks he'll never be anything that matters. How inferior he feels in this family. You know, everything we've all thought to ourselves a million times. And how, because of that, and because of her, too, he's done something really stupid at work. Really, really stupid.

"He had his heart set on becoming a floor trader. I guess his idea was that if he could show some ability, he was going to ask you and More to put up the money so he could rent a seat. But Uncle.Dixon wouldn't really 16t him near the pits. John kept asking. But Dixon thought the same thing about him as everybody else: dumb as a post. And he's not.

He really is not."

"Apparently not," said Stern. Peter, absorbing his father's dry tone, actually smiled.

Kate, Peter said, believed no one would take John seriously until he could demonstrate that he had made money trading.

So she suggested they open an account at MD. He was right there on the central desk. He could put in his own orders.

It would be almost as ff he were in the pits. Kate signed the forms.

They both knew that employees of member firms weren't supposed to trade, but it was a minor infraction, Peter said. Everyone did it.

"And they call it Wunderkind because that's what he is, you know, in their heads, that's who they figure he'll be."

Peter dwelled on the thought. "I guess he'd promised her he could scrape together $5,000 to get started, but neither one of them is making much money, and so, eventually, he got another idea."

The idea was trading ahead. He'd put in small orders here when he knew that big orders were going to be executed in Chicago or New York. And he'd learned enough when he'd working in MD's operational areas to know how to use the house error and Wunderkind accounts to/hide the profits.

"He promised himself that he was only going to do it once or twice, just to get himself starteA. Famous last words from the' penal colony, right."?" Peter asked.

"Those," said Stern, "and 'Just one more time."

"Right."

Peter actually laughed for a second. Then he sobered himself and went on. "Obviously, the front-running worked.

But when he traded, the morgy was gon like that." Peter snapped his fingers. "He decided he didn't have enough capital to handle the ups and downs in the market. What he needed was real money. So he traded ahead again, say thirty times, and picked up $300,000 in a month."

"And why did he simply not buy his sat on the Exchange at this point?" asked Stern.

"Why didn't he do a lot of things?" Peter smiled, in a way.

"I think basically he was afraid to. He couldn't explain to anybody where the money came from. And, frankly, he still didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground as a trader.

He'd have lost the seat in a week. He wanted to try to stay even for a couple of months."

"And how much, may I ask, did YOur sister know about this?"

"Kate?" Peter leveled a hand. "Obviously, she knew about the Wunderkind account. But she didn't know where the initial money came from. Not yet."

"Not yet," said Stern, mostly to himself.

Peter removed two more bottles of soda from the refrigerator, and plunked one, uncapped, in front of his father.

It was French mineral water, a brand Stern had never heard of, savored with a rose-petal aroma. Stern asked for a glass. "I take it John lost the $$00,0007"

"Right. He did a little better, but eventually it was gone."

"And so he stole again."

"If that's what you call it."

"That is what I call it," said Stern. "That is what a prosecutor would call it.And that' is what a judge would call it when he or she committed John to the penitenfary."

Peter, in front of the white cabinets, turocd about. "Look, Dad, I spent summers down there. I'm not making excuses for him, but it's like nothing really exists. It's all numbers on a scoreboard. That's all.

You trade ahead of customers, in ten or twenty lots, you don't hurt a soul. Not really.

It's against the rules because if everybody did it the customers would get maimed. But one guy? No harm. It was found money. And it's money that a lot of people down there have found. You think Dixon never traded ahead of a customer?"

"No one has ever cited Dixon as a moral exemplar."

"That's for sure," said Peter with a flash of the same hard light he had shown when he said he wasn't sorry. Stern told his son to go on.

It was at this point, Peter said, that Kate found out.

There was a confession, said Peter, lots of tears.

"She makes him promise that he won't do it again. He's ripped off another 275 K by now, and he reassures her. No way. No chance. He'll never have to do it again. And promptly goes right into the dumper in the market. So he's down to his last twenty, thirty thousand, and he makes The Big Mistake. He hears all these ramors about left-handed sugar. You know about that?"

"Enough," said Stern.

"John thinks he's got inside dope-he bets the ranch that the world sugar market is going to collapse. And he gets creamed. Destroyed. The market goes up so fast he can't even get out. When the smoke clears, not only has he lost every penny in the Wunderkind account he now owes MD $250,000 to pay for the losses in the value of the positions over and above his equity."

"Enter Dixon?" asked Stern.

"Almost," said Peter. "First, John panics. You can say anything you want to about what he did, but it was low risk. Different Exchanges?

And the best bean counter in America couldn't follow the paper trail between the error account and the Wunderkind account without someone to help him. But now, with a quarter-million-dOllar deficit, he's in deep.

Obviously, they have no money. And he can't like come to the family for a loan. So he takes what seems to be the only alternative. He starts trashing all the records that show who owns the account-you know, the idea is that way they can't find him. He zaps the computer system, he cleans out the files here. He fries up the microfiche.

Unfortunately, the duplicate fiche is in Chicago. John had actually called a clerk there with some bullshit and had him ready to send the dupes, but the clerk asked what'shername first. Who's in charge there?"

"Margy Allison."

"That's it." Margy, Peter said, called Dixon, who by then had heard from MD's accounting department about the Wunderkind account and its sizable deficit balance. Dixon told Margy to send him the records John had requested. When he summoned John to his office two days later, Dixon had the pages he'd printed' out off the fiche and the account statements spread across his desk.

"He had John sit down in one of those Corbusier chairs he's got, the deep square ones with the stainless-steel frames?

Then he gets hold of John by the tie, puts his knee in his chest, and beats the living crap out of him. Quite a scene, apparently. Dixon's big,' but he's not John's size. But John lies there like a lump, bleed'me and crying, just sort of begging."

Peter grabbed a bit at his rumpled hair. Dixon by then had written his own check for the deficit in the Wunderkind account. He preferred that to admitting to his best customers, the ones who had placed the large orders John had traded ahead of, that no one noticed while an employee-worse yet, a relation-had stolen them blind. And he couldn't simply write off the debit without drawing a great deal of attention from his in-house accountants. It was all one pocket or the other, anywi, and to cover himself with the customers, Dixon preferred to keep this quiet.

"But, of course," said Peter, "Uncle Dixon was tear-ass.

John's fouled his nest, put the whole business in jeopardy, and Uncle Dixon announces that John's going to pay for it, Dixon-style. Big speech. 'You are now my fucking slave."

"Peter thrust his elbows out in imitation of Dixon and rumbled on; he was an able mimic.

"'You've seen your last raise or bonus in this century, and you'll do anything I decide you'll do, whenever I want. you'll be a floor runner or a window washer or the guy who cleans the latrines, if that's what I say. Aod if you ever think about leaving, or so much as crap crooked, I'll ruin you. I'll take the hit with the customers, and I'll call the CFTC, the FBI, George Bush, anybody I can think of, and I'll tell them this has been laying heavy on my soul, and I'll beg them to fry your ass." And to back it up, Dixon makes a big show of taking all the account records and throwing them in his personal safe and telling John that they're always going to be there."

"John believed Dixon would carry through?"

"You bet your life."

Stern thought about Margy's story and the legend of Dixon's wrath murmured among his employees. Dixon, no doubt, was convincing when he bragged about his own cruelty.

"In fact, Uncle Dixon says, on second thought, he will turn John in.

He's going to turn him in tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and he says it'll be the day after that. Then he's back on the fence. And so this is John's life. He works on the order desk. Then, when everybody's gone, Dixon finds something humiliating for him to do, like sort the, trash.

And then every other day Dixon says he's thought it'over, the best course for him is just to drop the dime on John.

One day he calls John to his office, while he phones the CFtC Enforcement Division and has this long chat about error accounts. He gets hold of a photo of John and draws bars across it. He even gives John the draft of a letter that Dixon says he's sent to the U.S.

Attorney. Every day, it's something else. My beloved uncle is practicing extreme mental cruelty. Hard to believe of him, of course." Stern, tempted to comment, said nothing at all.

"So that's where this thing is when Kate comes to see me.

John is in Uncle Dixon's prison, which by now, he figures, is ten times worse than the real thing. At this point, Kate and he have decided the only thing John can do is bite the bullet: John will call the FBI and confess and go to prison, and Kate will terminate her pregnancy. This is their life plan. And riobody's kidding. All right?"

Peter finished his soda and burped again. He nodded to his father.

"Did you think perhaps," said Stern after a moment, "that I might be helpful in an arena in which I have worked for most of my life?"

"First of all, Dixon was your client, which means he was an object of religious worship. And second, what the hell would you do?"

"Obviously, I would speak with Dixon."

"And how would you prevent him from going to the law?

That's what he said he'd 'do. That would leave John without even the benny of having turned himself. in."

"I ould ask Dixon not to do so.?"

"And he's always done just what you w ' anted; fight His son had lifted his face to a haughty angle. Peter was an angry young man, no doubt about that. Life deeply dissatisfied him-people failed him in all respects. He was not gay, Stern suddenly thought. He was, rather, oddly misanthropic. He rendered help out of some sense of superiority or noble duty, but he expected-perhaps even enjoyed-disappointment, time and again. He had full faith in no one.

In this, Stern realized, to a greater measure than he wished, Peter was his son.

"I thought about this for a long time. I went to dinner out there and I talked to Kate and John all night. I took Dixon's little letter to theUiS. Attorney home with me, where he'd laid out the whole seam. I kept going over the details. And then, of course, I figured out the answer. The obvious fucking answer: John should go to the FBI.

But…" Peter, maestro-like, had lifted both hands. "Yes?"

"But blame Dixon. Say it was,ll Dixon's show. John was minorly involved, just the flunky." They looked intently at one another, "Very clever," said his father at last.

"I thought so." Peter smiled stiffly, for effect. "Of course, there were a few problems. For one thing, John could never carry this off.

Not on his own. He didn't have the nerve left 'to walk down the street by himself, let alone bullshit the FBI."

"So you volunteered?"

"Yes."

"You became his representative."

"Right."

"His defense lawyer," said Stern.

Peter did not answer; it was clear, however, that he had never thought of it this way.

"Is that truly, Peter, how you imagine this business is conducted?"

"Oh, spare me," he said. "I sat at your dinner table too long. How many people have you gotten immunity for who were lying their asses off and blaming whoever the government wanted to hear about?"

"Far fewer than you apparently imagine, Peter. And in any event, whatever fictions were spoken I had not created,"

"No? Were they 'fictions' you really believed? I know.

You're just the lawyer. If the client has the baltsor the brains-not to tell you he's lying, you pass him along without comment. And how many of.those little fairy tales have you helped shapeT'

Peter was the son. He knew his father:s life well. "There are distinctions, Peter. I think as little of your presumption in this matter as you would, were I to perform open-heart surgery."

"Look," said Peter. "It was my sister." He resumed once more his aspect of inspired anger. The challenge was there: my sister. Your child. They stared again at each other. "So you called the FBI," said Stern.

Peter met Kyle Horn in the lobby of a downtown hotel. They adjourned to the men's room and searched one another for electronic devices. Then Peter made his proposal. He was uninvolved himself, but he knew a man.

The man had a boss who was one of the biggest names at the KCFE. There was a seam. The man was involved-at the bottom, not the top-and he was scared. He would tell allZ--but only for immunity and a promise that Peter's part in arranging this would never be revealed. Take it or leave it, Peter told him…

"And the government agreed?"

"Not at first. I had to meet Sennett. They made me go over the whole thing about four times. Finally, I let them interview John in person.

All hush-hush, since they wanted John to be able to stay undercover. But I could see they would go for it from the day I gave them Dixon's name.

They actually made jokes about RICO'ing the place and calling it Maison Stan."

Maison Stan, thought Stern.

"Did they know you were my son?"

"I told them."

"They must have been very amused."

"I suppose. Mostly, they were concerned. None of us knew for sure who Dixon would use as his lawyer, but once you Showed up I got all kinds of bulletins and memos and guidelines and crap about never discussing the case with you. Which I've followed. For the last three weeks they've been telling me I've got to stay away from Marta, too, and I have.

"We all sort of panicked when what's-her-name, Margy, sent out that memo saying you were going to talk to the people on the order desk." But Sennett had figured for a while that they were going to have to subpoena John to keep his cover, so they did it then and told you that you couldn't represent him. Pretty cute, huh?" Peter smiled faintly.

Stern did as well. All deserved. They had rnn rings around him.

"I take it that Mr. Tooley was another player in your farce?"

"More or less. I suggested him and Sennett thought that was great. I think at one point Stan told Mel not to ask too many questions, which was fine with him. He's not your biggest fan."

"Indeed not," said Stern. Peter had located all'his father's foremost antagonists and joined league with them.

In the midst of everything else, Stern was stung by the thought, and he stood, walking across the tiny kitchen to the counter. For some reason he found himself recalling the early years, when the children were piled with pillows and blankets into the back of the current sedan and the entire family went to the drive-in for a movie: Only Peter of the three children remained awake. Even at the age of six or seven, he would watch the entire show, entertaining his parents with his curiosity about the world of adults, while the girls pressed their tiny hands to their faces and slept.

"You know you have inflicted terrible misery on your uncle.

' '

Peter's eyes lighted on him briefly, holding the'same hard gleam.

"I told you I wasn't sorry."

"You believe Dixon deserved this? For what-his treatment of John?" ',,,

"For lots of things. He's lived a piggish life." ',

"I see," said Stern. "For what other grave sins of Dixon's were you attempting to deliver retribution?"

Peter was silent. Eventually, he looked away.

"Help me with the chronology, Peter. When, exactly, did Nate Cawley tell you about your mother's condition?

Clearly, it was near the time of these events."

Peter, using his thumb, peeled the paper wrapper off his soda bottle. He was worrying his head somewhat, disappointed about something.

"Nate told me last week he talked to you about Mom. He swore he kept me out of it."

"He did not mention your name," said Stern. "As I said when I arrived, I have been mulling over the circumstances."

Peter shrugged ind'ffferenfiy. He was not certain he believed his father, but that was beside the point.

"He felt someone in the family had to know, because of the state she was in. He figured I was another doctor, you know. He wanted me to keep an eye out and my mouth shut.

Needless to mention," said Peter, glancing fieetingly at his father, "he thudcs he made a rather serious error."

"Nate has been hardest on himself, Peter. He even believed that I might sue him. Did you know that?"

"I knew." Peter nodded. "I thought it was possible, frankly. If you got the whole story. I figured you'd regard it as the height of irresponsihirlty thato the drive-in for a movie: Only Peter of the three children remained awake. Even at the age of six or seven, he would watch the entire show, entertaining his parents with his curiosity about the world of adults, while the girls pressed their tiny hands to their faces and slept.

"You know you have inflicted terrible misery on your uncle.

' '

Peter's eyes lighted on him briefly, holding the'same hard gleam.

"I told you I wasn't sorry."

"You believe Dixon deserved this? For what-his treatment of John?" ',,,

"For lots of things. He's lived a piggish life." ',

"I see," said Stern. "For what other grave sins of Dixon's were you attempting to deliver retribution?"

Peter was silent. Eventually, he looked away.

"Help me with the chronology, Peter. When, exactly, did Nate Cawley tell you about your mother's condition?

Clearly, it was near the time of these events."

Peter, using his thumb, peeled the paper wrapper off his soda bottle. He was worrying his head somewhat, disappointed about something.

"Nate told me last week he talked to you about Mom. He swore he kept me out of it."

"He did not mention your name," said Stern. "As I said when I arrived, I have been mulling over the circumstances."

Peter shrugged ind'ffferenfiy. He was not certain he believed his father, but that was beside the point.

"He felt someone in the family had to know, because of the state she was in. He figured I was another doctor, you know. He wanted me to keep an eye out and my mouth shut.

Needless to mention," said Peter, glancing fieetingly at his father, "he thudcs he made a rather serious error."

"Nate has been hardest on himself, Peter. He even believed that I might sue him. Did you know that?"

"I knew." Peter nodded. "I thought it was possible, frankly. If you got the whole story. I figured you'd regard it as the height of irresponsihirlty that he involved me rather than you."

Stern meditated an instant on Peter's dim hopes for him.

They expected, inalterably, the worst of each other.

"On the contrary, I believe it was prudent. I am certain you did your utmost. You were a devoted son, Peter, to your mother."

Peter puckered his lips a bit at the final words, but said no more.

"And how had you divined what Dixon's,role was in your mother's illness?"

Peter looked up. "I'd taken a medical history from him.

Remember? I was his doctor. After I talked to Nate, I checked my notes. The dates matched. He had gonorrhea, too, in Korea, did you know that?"

It had not come up in discussion, said Stern.

"He thinks it made him sterile," Peter said. It was a thought, a professional 6bscrvation. With it, he walked into the other room and sat'down on the blue foam sofa. His bravery, his moral certitude seemed to be flagging. His look was turning abject.

"So, when you heard about John's dilemma, it was not entirely accidental that you began to consider how this might be turned back against Dixon."

Peter did not answer.

Stern approached from the kitchen. "It was gallant of you, Peter, to fight your mother's battles. Not to mention mine." Stern, standing, took a moment to turn a dark countenance on his son, then moved to the window. Evening was coming . through a great rosy sky. The last of the near-town commuters were in the street now, a stream of isolated persons carrying home, from various fancy shops, dihners which they would eat in silence, alone.

"And may I now demand the last piece, Peter?"

"Which is?"

"How was it that your mother came to learn of this scheme to accuse Dixon?"

In his surprise, Peter let forth a brief sound-part laughter, part groan.

"You're smart," Peter said to him. "I'll always give you that."

Stern dipped his head in appreciation." And the answer?"

"She could see how distraught Kate was. She knew something was wrong.

Finally, she pried some of it out of her. Kate told her what John had done at MD. And that I was trying to work it out. No details."

"And of her pregnancy Kate said what?"

"Nothing. Not a word. She still wasn't,positive she wouldn't have to terminate."

Slowly, Stern nodded. That would fit.

"Anyway, so Morn came to see me, to find out what was going on. I told her she shouldn't worry about it. But naturally that didn't satisfy her."

"And so you informed her what you had done?"

"Yeah.

Eventually."

"Thinking what? That she would be delighted? That she, of all people, Would share your desire for vengeance on Dixon?"

"You don't have to try tO make it sound so ludicrous."

"Oh, I see your logic, Peter. You carried in Dixon I'Ve a cat out mousing and laid him at your mother's feet. And her reaction-shall I guess?-was horror."

"Horror," said Peter. "I tried to explain it to her. You know. That it was the best thing for everybody in the end, but she wouldn't hear it."

"And how far along had your plan proceeded by then?"

"Pretty far. Sennett'd met John. It was just abouta done deal. I'd refused to let him take a lie detector, but we'd agreed that he'd stay undercover at MD and wear a hidden tape recorder-what do they call it?

Wear a wire. ' ' "On Dixon?" By the window, Stern was still. "And what was to happen when your uncle was tape-recorded denying any role in the scheme?"

Peter looked at him at length. "You still don't get it, do you?"

Weary of being derided, Stern closed his eyes for an instant and searched in himself for restraint.

"I had to explain it to Mom, too. The idea wasn't to get Uncle Dixon for what John did. I mean, he didn't do it, after all. I knew he would deny it. He'd say it was all John's doing. And John would say Dixon was scared and was trying to save his skin by blaming the whole thing on him.

It would be a pissing contest in the end, a flatfooted fucking tie.

There'd be nobody to prosecute because the government would never know which version was true.

Everybody'd just go on. With no jail. And no torture. It was a decent solution for both of them."

"But?"

"But he kept his mouth shut. Uncle Dixon did."

"Why?"

Peter threw both hands in the air.

"You ask me? You're his lawyer. I don't know what's going on. I sit awake at night. I just can't believe it's gone as far as it has. Have you got any idea?"

Stern pondered, reluctant to speak.

"I have suspected for a few days now that he is assuming blame that properly lies with John and Kate. I cannot imagine what would move him to do that, particularly given what you tell me." He turned back to. the old double-hung window, the frame lumpy with generations of paint. "And what happened to this plan to tape-record Dixon?"

"That's why they were trying to subpoena him.. In March?

They were sure he'd go running for John as soon as he was served. It was a setup. John was wearing the equipment for two weeks. But the agents could never find Dixon. And once they did, he wouldn't talk to John. I mean, not even hello or goodbye. There hasn't been word one between them in months. Uncle Dixon just gives him his killer look-John is still terrified. Sennett figures you'd warned Dixon not to go near him."

"Need I ask, Peter, how Agent Horn was finally able to find your uncle to serve him that day?"

"No, you needn't ask. They were supposed to catch up with him outside, as he came in."

Stern shook his head. How pitiful it was. He returned to the kitchen for his suit coat.

"You've placed yourself in enormous jeopardy, Peter. If the government is ever able to piece this together, you will join your brother-in-law in prison."

"Oh, I was scared at first. But the three of us talked about what would happen if it all went to shit." Peter smiled warmly. "How do they prove I knew John was lying?"

Peter had learned a good deal in those years sitting at his father's dinner table with his bored, superior look. When his children were young, Stern would look at them, arrayed at that table, with such gratitude-they were all clever, all healthy, all pleasing to the eye.

They had every good fortune, he thought.

"They were never really skeptical," said Peter. "After they went out to the bank and confirmed that Dixon had written the check to cover the debit on the Wunderkind account.

They never seemed to figure there could be any other reason he might do it. And, of course, Dixon had the records that showed who owned the account, and was hiding them. And what's-her-name even lied for him in the grand jury. It looked pretty convincing," said Peter.

"You are referring to Margy?"

"Yeah. Kyle says that after the indictment they'll give her a chance to 'refresh her recollection." "He made the quotation marks in the air.

Stern straightened the sleeves on his coat. His son, re considering everything, sat with his head in his hands. Occasionally, Stern was called upon to represent young people-sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old, children really-who had taken part in events so heinous that they would be tried as adults. The most recent example was Robert Fouret, a sulky college freshman who, stoned on something, had put his father's Porsche in drive rather than reverse and crashed his waiting girlfriend against the garage wall, killing her. In these circumstances Stern always felt for the parents, wealthy people who had retained hun in the hope that he could repair all damage, and who discovered in time that not even a favorable sentence would still the reverberations of great wrongs. It was the parents who saw clearly, helplessly, the way the excesses and impulses of youth, stupid empty-headed acts, childish compulsions acted out in an instant, could burden and even extinguish the opportunities of a young life.

Stern saw this, too. But he spared himself, at least for the moment, that anguish, For the moment, all that made itself clear was that his son and he had reached a point of termination. Within, in his own emotional theater, some final curtain had come splashing down. No doubt he had responsibilities here; he would suffer intensely when it came time to assess blame.

But for now he knew that the years-the virtual half of an adult lifetime-of recriminations, of ambivalent efforts with Peter were past.

He would greet his son always with absolute cordiality-he owed his mother's memory that much and he knew that they would forever regard one another with pain. But something essential was over; he was done, he saw, awaiting improvement, acceptance, or change.

He was ready to leave now, but he had learned in the law that the pronouncement of judgments mattered, perhaps more than anything else.

"Peter, I shall say this once. What you have done is unforgivable. It is wholly immoral. And, as important; you have risked unlimited misery for everyone in this family."

Peter took this in quietly, but finally made a sound to himself and once or twice bobbed his head.

"That's what Mom thought. She was terrified. It was the dumbest move of my life, telling her." Peter looked up.

"I'm sure it was the last straw." His face was divided by a visible palsy, a tremor of contained emotion. It came to Stern then, a clear realization that, whatever the impact of the awful judgments which Peter applied to others, he afflicted them most severely on himself. He had bid his mother, the dearest soul in his life, farewell for eternity, with her parting expression One of withered hope and dashed beliefs.

There was no denying biology. Stern found himself terribly moved by his son and his now interminable anguish.

He stepped toward the door.

"What are you going to do, Dad? What's going to happen?"

Peter, like sons always, still wanted to believe that his father was a man of infinite resources, perfect solutions, Just now, however, Stern had no ideas at all.

MARTA returned home sometime after ten. From his recliner in the solarium, Stern heard her enter, humming faintly, off-key. Alone among the.,. ',I. Stern family, Marta had had a good day. She came back from the courthouse ebullient. 'Even she couldn't' stand it,' said Marta about Klonsky. She was thrilled to think she had converted a prosecutor. Back at the office, she had called George Mason with the news, then dictated their brief to Judge Winchell.

Finished with that, Marta asked, offhandedly, if there were cases around the office on which she could lend a hand while she was looking for a job. Pay by the hour. Stern, after a moment's reflection, decided his thought was too hopeful and referred her to Sondra.

By the afternoon Marta had set herself up in the one empty office and w.as examining the flood of files recently received in connection with the new government fraud case, writing longhand or chatting happily on the telephone whenever Stern wandered by. Marta seemed to live her life like, an appliance. Plug her in anywhere and she operated on full current. His daughter amazed him, but his soul still soared at the thought of having her company. They would continue this way for some weeks. He would be himself, and hold his breath. And would this prospect even have been possible had Clara lived? No, he decided after an instant, not really.

There were many reasons Marta suddenly found the tri-cities attractive, and not the least of them, in all likelihood, was the fact that her mother was gone. So, he thought, goes the heartsore arithmetic of human events. Loss and gain.

Now, in the solarium, he closed his eyes when he heard her approach.

"Are you asleep?" she whispered. He could feel her creep close, but did not stir. Tonight he was not prepared for any further commerce with his children, even Marta. He remained inert, listening as she trod the stairs.

He had no thought of sleep, no inclination. Around one, he moved to the kitchen and sat under the green glass shade over the breakfast table, sipping sherry, as he had the night Clara was discovered. He was past judgments for the time being. Nor was he absorbed yet with the trigonometries of possible solutions. Instead, he sat, deliberating, taking stock, mourning again, up to his chin in the heavy glop of something like heartbreak, which held him fast as quicksand.

Near 5:30 a.m., he crept upstairs, showered, and dressed.

He percolated coffee and warmed a roll from the freezer.

Then he headed downtown, to the refuge of work and the office. He entered through the back door and stood still.

There was, once more, some faint sign of disturbance. Dixon was back.

He was on the sofa in Stern's office, upright this time, but asleep. His fancy loafers were off, carefully paired, not far from where the safe still remained, and he had slept with his legs crossed at the ankle. He wore a rawsilk sport coat-the air conditioning had apparently been left on high overnight and the room was ch'dled-and his arms were thrown out wide along the top of the nubby offwhite fabric of the sofa cushions.

His chin rested on the bold paRera of his tropical shin.

Stern stood' before the dark glass of his desk, silently lifting the stacks of papers from his attache case.

"You must have thought that was pretty goddamn funny the other day."

Dixon spoke clearly, but he had not moved.

"That bullshit with the safe? 'You deceive me, Dixon." He opened his eyes. "Like you're some fucking oracle." Putting a hand to his neck, he craned his head about."You must have been laughing your ass off. Since you'd already ' pawed through the thing."

"Ah," said Stern. Silvia. A breach of security.

"I got a bill from the guy who fixed the back door. You should have heard your sister. 'Oh, that's from Alejandro." La di da." He had briefly adopted a falsetto. "Like, Oh, didn't I mention that my brother hired a goon to kick the door in. Four hundred bucks, by the way. I expect you to pay."

Dixon had his fearsome, lightless look and a haggard appearance. He was unshaven and visibly weary; his eyes seemed shrunken within the dark orbits. Reminded, he asked Stern to dial his home. Stern pressed a button on the speed dial and handed him the phone, while he left to put up coffee in the small kitchen down the hall. When he returned, Dixon was just bidding Silvia goodbye.

"Your sister say you and I have to stop meeting like this."

Dixon laughed, Silvia's humor was awkward, but Dixon adored it. "I see you're not in jail."

Stern lifted both hands to show off his entire large form.

"I called Marta," said Dixon. "She said your girlfriend there, what's-her-name, saved your ass."

"For the tune being," said Stern. "Festivities will resume next week.

Will you come to visit me?"

"Visit you," muttered Dixon. "What's your game, Stern?"

"My game?" He revolved fully to consider his brother-inlaw, a courtroom turn. "Have you found another lawyer, Dixon?"

"I don't want another lawyer. I changed my mind."

"You need another attorney, Dixon. A lawyer and client must have confidence' in one another."

"I have confidence in you."

"But I, Dixon, have no confidence in you or your character or your motives. You are a vain, disloyal, deceitful man.

You are a terrible client and, if you care, a wretched friend." ',, Dixon blinked a bit and rubbed his eyes' "I'm not.a friend," said Dixon finally. He still had no idea what was going on, and he smiled weakly. "I'm a relation. You can't get rid of me."

"On the contrary. I am exhausted by the mysteries of your affairs. And your disdain for me."

"Disdain?"

"Among the legion of resentments I bear you, Dixon, I believe that none is greater than this: there is no person in the world who has better insight into Clara's death than you. And you have kept those details to yourself.

Undoubtedly for your own good, to serve some misbegotten and bewildering personal agenda."

"You're jerked off because I didn't mention that check she gave me."

Stern did not answer.

"And there's really a simple explanation."

"Dixon, you are about to lie to me again." ' "No," he said, with his frozen innocent look. "Yes."

"Stern," he said.

"You owe me some regard, Dixon."

"I have a lot of regard for you."

"Dixon, I may be befuddled for the remainder of my lifetime about your motivations, but I have no doubts about Clara's.

I am one of those Jews who can do arithmetic. Almost $600,000 stolen by trading ahead and $250,000 plus lost in the deficit in the Wunderkind account equal somewhat more than $850,000, which is the amount of the check Clara wrote against her investment account at River National. My wife was paying the debts her son-in-law incurred in the brokerage account her daughter had opened. And I would be pleased if you would not affront me by denying what is obvious."

"All right." He nodded once and began to pace, his mind clearly racing.

"She knew John and I were both involved.

She thought maybe I'd be willing to take all the heat myself. And she offered to pay the costs."

"A lie?" Stern slammed shut his case. Long-suffering, pusilanimous, he was suddenly on the rim of a smoking volcanic rage with Dixon. "Dixon, you may have convinced Margy long ago with that folderol about how you and John were secret conspirators and that you deserved all the blame, but I am well aware that you were never involved in this "Margy?" Dixon stopped. "I thought she was high on your shit-list."

"I have reevaluated." Stern was tempted to add a further word in her defense, having spoken in error about her when he and Dixon last met, but he remained convinced that somewhere along she had agreed to follow Dixon's bidding in what she told Stern. 'Leave the kid out." He could hear Dixon saying it.,,you may as well know, Dixon, that I have heard the entire tale: how you decided to spare your business and impose punishment yourself, and how you were informed against as a result."

Dixon waited, stood still, then finally retreated to the sofa to assess this new development. He removed his sport coat and threw it down there and, after further reflection, sat down beside it himself.

"As you conceived of matters originally, Dixon, how long was John intended to remain in your purgatory?"

Dixon jiggled a hand, as if something were in it. He was still manifestly uncertain about telling the truth.

"No time limits," he said at last. "As a matter of fact, I told him straight out that two or three years from now I'd probably go to the government and burn him, anyway."

"Apparently, he believed you."

"He should have," said Dixon. He gave his brother-in-law another direct and lightless look, the smoke of the conflagration still darkening his expression until he broke it off in order to reach for a cigarette. He tamped the filter repeatedly on the glass of the desk. "Of course, the big jerk never told me his wife was pregnant."

"Would that have made a difference?"

Dixon shifted his shoulders, not certain. "Probably. I might have thought a little more about the corner I was painting him into."

"And Clara?" asked Stern. "I would like to hear about your last meeting with her. How long before she died did it occur?"

"Three days? Four?" Dixon looked at his cigarette. "There's nothing special to tell. She showed up with that check.

Like you say, she wanted to pay his debts. I told her not t'o bother. I wasn't having any. I wanted his ass, not a check. That's all. She insisted on leaving it. onvinced that somewhere along she had agreed to follow Dixon's bidding in what she told Stern. 'Leave the kid out." He could hear Dixon saying it.,,you may as well know, Dixon, that I have heard the entire tale: how you decided to spare your business and impose punishment yourself, and how you were informed against as a result."

Dixon waited, stood still, then finally retreated to the sofa to assess this new development. He removed his sport coat and threw it down there and, after further reflection, sat down beside it himself.

"As you conceived of matters originally, Dixon, how long was John intended to remain in your purgatory?"

Dixon jiggled a hand, as if something were in it. He was still manifestly uncertain about telling the truth.

"No time limits," he said at last. "As a matter of fact, I told him straight out that two or three years from now I'd probably go to the government and burn him, anyway."

"Apparently, he believed you."

"He should have," said Dixon. He gave his brother-in-law another direct and lightless look, the smoke of the conflagration still darkening his expression until he broke it off in order to reach for a cigarette. He tamped the filter repeatedly on the glass of the desk. "Of course, the big jerk never told me his wife was pregnant."

"Would that have made a difference?"

Dixon shifted his shoulders, not certain. "Probably. I might have thought a little more about the corner I was painting him into."

"And Clara?" asked Stern. "I would like to hear about your last meeting with her. How long before she died did it occur?"

"Three days? Four?" Dixon looked at his cigarette. "There's nothing special to tell. She showed up with that check.

Like you say, she wanted to pay his debts. I told her not t'o bother. I wasn't having any. I wanted his ass, not a check. That's all. She insisted on leaving it. So I threw it in thesafe. That's the whole story."

"That's hardly the whole story, Dixon."

"Yes, it is."

"No, Dixon. You were tempted to surrender John to the prosecutors. And not only lost your nerve but stood mute while his freedom was traded for yours. A remarkable transition."

Dixon Harmell had come of age in the regions where the pressure of the earth had transformed organic wastes into something black and shining and nearly hard as stone. He had taken that lesson to heart-he had his look in place now, as dark and adamantine as if he derived his power to persist from the center of the earth. Transported from the coal lands to the heart of the markets, he had learned that his will was vast, and it was all imposed now. He had no more to say.

"Tell me about your hearing this morning. You really going to the pokey for my sake?"

"ff need be. There are enough mmbers of my family beaing Witness against you." Dixon absorbed the remark with the same unyielding expression. "Do I take it correctly that Clara informed you of Peter's role in all this?" Dixon smoked his cigarette without comment. "Another lawyer, D'Lxon, might help you mount an excellent motion directed against the grand jury proceedings and the govemment's conduct sis ci sis Peter. You would not even have to comment on the veracity of the information he's given them."

A flare of some interest arose in Dixon's face. "Would I win?"

"In my judgment? No,You Would be granted a hearing to determine that there had been no infringement of your right to counsel. Certainly, you could delay Mr. Sennett's steamroller. But I doubt a court would find outrageous governmental conduct or a violation of your rights. The government is more or less constrained to take its witnesses and informants where it finds them. It simply found this one in a rather inconvenient locale."

Dixon shrugged. He was not surprised. Stern again urged him to seek another lawyer's opinion, but Dixon waved a hand.

"I'll take your word for it." He stood then and roamed to the English cabinets. On one shelf, there wer6 pictures photographs of the family.

Clara. The children. If the truth were told-and today once again the truth was required-Stern seldom examined these portraits. They were obligatory items, appropriate decoration. But Dixon paused to consider each photograph, holding them up, one by one, by their frames. Stern gave him the moment, until he was ready himself.

"And now, Dixon, if you please, I should like to know what happened when you met last with Clara. You may be brief. I shall settle for the high points. There is no need," said Stern, with sudden glottal thickness,"for you to dwell on that which you least wish to tell or which I frankly least wish to know."

Dixon wheeled about, maintaining considerable poise, to his credit, but Stern could see that he was wide-awake now. His eyes were larger, his posture almost militarily correct. If Dixon were to accept these rules, this terrain would always remain unexplored between them. After great reflection, Stern had decided he preferred that accord. But Dix0n, alas, was who he was, a guts player to the end. He blinked and looked at Stern straight on.

"Whatta you mean?" he asked.

"What do I mean?" Stern teetered an instant, and then toppled down into the smoking heart of his rage. He picked up his attach6 case and Slammed it back down on the desktop. "Shall I draw you pictures, Dixon!

Shall we engage in a dispassionate colloquy about the mortal hazards of sexually transmitted disease? I refer, Dixon, to your relations with my wife,"

Dixon's grayish eyes did not move. When Stern glanced to the desktop, he saw that it had cracked, a bullet-like impression at the point of impact and a single silver line that skaWxl from there all the way across the smoky surface to the green beveled edge. The desk, of course, had never been his taste.

"Do you expect me to explain?" Dixon asked. He had.moved behind his brother-in-law, and Stern chose not to face him.

"No."

"Because I can't. I really am a no-good son of a bitch."

"Are you trying to charm me, Dixon?"

"No," he said. "It was a long time ago, Stern."

"I am aware."

"It was an accident."

"Oh, please!"

"Wrong word." He heard Dixon's fingers snap. "Unintended."

When Stern pivoted, Dixon had come close and with an eager, servile look had the humidor extended. "Cigar?"

Stern grabbed the whole box from him at once.

"Keep your hands off, Dixon!" The humidor ended caught up in his arms.

Stern removed a cigar and!it it, then snapped down the lid with a round clap somewhat deadened by the felt liner. He glowered at his brother-in-law while Dixon retreated to the sofa, where he brought his lighter to another cigarette.

"It was all my fault, you know," he said. "You don't need me to tell you that. I pestered her for years," he said.

"Years." Some image offered itself, of Dixon at a family gathering emerging from shadows in the kitchen or the hall and placing his hands suggestively on Clara's hips. Repalled. Rebuked. Something clear and uncompromising, so that he would have feared disclosure. But with her silence, Dixon, being himself, would have been emboldened. He knew there was some small shining point of interest he had ignited. Step by step, gesture, nod, and touch, year by year, he had kindled the firepoint, knowing that this possibility of passion was one more treasure to Clara, one more secret. Stern, inclined to imagine more, ca!led a halt. Enough, he told himself. Enough. "I admired her," said Dixon. For the first time, he dared to look at Stern.

"She was a woman to admire."

"Dixon. You have no conscience."

"No." He shook his head. "I'm curious. I've always wanted to do what other people wouldn't."

"I believe that is called evil, Dixon."

Dixon put out his cigarette. His mouth seemed to quiver like the muzzle of a dog. Dixon Hartnell was going to cry.

His face was flushed near the eyes and he peered downward.

"I really never connected any of it with you."

"I find that hard to credit."

"I mean it."

"You are pathological, Dixon."

"Okay, then that's what I am." He was finally growing impatient with Stern. Self-criticism was not in Dixon's repertoire. He went forward in life, seldom looking back. "May I ask, Dixon, when this interlade occurred?"

Dixon's face reared up; he was baffled. "What time of day?"

"Please, Dixon. When in the history of humankind did these events take place?"

"I don't know. It was right after Kate Went to college.

Clara was at the end of things. Very depressed. Swimming through all kinds of dark shit. You were on your big case in Kansas City. Busy, busy, busy."

"Is that your excuse, Dixon?"

Dixon eyed him as he removed another cigarette.

"I told you, I took advantage. She couldn't have cared less about anything. It was an act of despair," Dixon said.

"Fucking despair."

"Thank you, Dixon, for your important psychological insight."

"She was destroying her life. She was getting even with you."

"Again," said Stern.

For the first time, he felt, absurdly, that it was likely he might cry.

This was not what he wanted to hear, Dixon revealing to him Clara's hidden sides. Did Dixon really have it right? Close enough, probably.

Clara had taken her reprisals, hoping that in what was most forbidden some dark magic might be found. She would soil and abase herself, pray for release, and if worst came to worst, she at least would have cause for her misery, her contempt for herself.

"It was A night and A day. And it was a complete bust," said Dixon. "A zero. I'm not just saying that now. If she hadn't come up with that problem, you could have said nothing happened."

"If," said Stern.

"Obviously, I hadn't noticed," said Dixon. "I'll never forget. She handed me a note atsome family sh'mdig. I still remember it..One line, She neve wasted words,. Not ewn Dear Asshole, Just 'I am being treated for,..":, Dixon circled a hand to fill in the blank. "I had no idea And then when I told your sister she had to be examined, she prOmptlY tossed me out on my duff. And went to cry on Clara's shoulder. Talk about fucked up."

This drama, all of the play, had transpired entirely. out of his presence. He roamed offstage in Kansas City. In the arms of his own jealous mistress. Absorbed in the role he liked best, he had managed to miss the signal events of his lifetime.

He smoked his cigar for some time then. The night with-ofit sleep had taken its toll. His eyes felt raw and his limbs, after the rush of anger,. were now burning and weak. As for the cigar, he was shocked to find that its taste was no longer pleasing. He would finish it, of course. He had begun to smoke cigars in Henry Mittler's office when he could not really afford them, usually limiting himself to the ones Henry reluctantly supplied, and with a cigar in his hand he still experienced mixed sensations of absolute triumph and parched frugality. But he would have no difficulty, Stern thought, not picking up another. His life, after all, had changed.

"She came to my office," Dixon said. "Just showed Up.

"Clara?"

"No, the man in the moon." He had lain down 'completely on Stern's sofa.

"I knew why she had to be there.

She hadn't said more to me than 'Pass the beans' for years."

"And?"

"And she came in, she sat down, and she cried. Jesus, did she cry."

Dixon lay there a moment with the thought. "Not a dry eye in the house.

Anyway, I heard the whole fucking story. Peter. John. Doctors.

Treatment. What got me was the money. When she handed over the check, like she thought money-" Dixon lifted a hand, suddenly rheumy-eyed again, hurt once more to think Clara believed ' dollars. might persuade him. In his own mind, of course, Dixon had no price. "And what was her thought, Dixon? What did she want?"

"Want? What you'd think a mother would want.

She wanted her children to be safe. She wanted me to figure a way out.

That was the/eason for the check. She thought maybe I could repay everybody, MD, all the customers, and wash it all out."

"And what did you tell her?"..

"It was too frigging late for that. Peter had already started playing junior G-man."

"Did you understand that Peter's theory was that no' one would be charged?"

"Yeah, I understood. That was strictly nuts. I figured if I opened my mouth, John and he would end up drawn and quartered. I thought even those jerks in the U.S.

Attorney's Office could see through this. What's my motive, for Chrissake. I'm going to fuck around stealing nickels and dames?"

"Did you tell Clara that?"

"She was a bright lady. She knew what the risks were.

She was scared to death for all of them."

"And so?"

"And so what?"

"How did your conversation end, Dixon?"

"Oh, I don't know. The other reason she'd come was because of her medical condition. She wanted me to know that she might have to let you know the score. I mean, she wasn't worried for my sake-she was concerned Silvia would find out. Prayway, after she got through that, she put on this very composed look and said, 'Dixon, I am really not certain that I am able to carry on." It was the scariest fucking moment of my life. I didn't have to ask what she was talking about."

"And how did you respond?"

"How the fuck do you think I responded? I begged her not to do it. For about half an hour. I gave her every reason I could think of. She kept talking about the children. Peter and Kate. And john. And you. A lot about you. She was completely unglued. You know, I tried to reassure her. I told her Peter and Kate and John would be okay," said Dixon ."But what could I really say to convince her of that?" He shrugged. "So I promised."

It was like everything else. Everything else. Like forms in the clouds. He had seen it but never made out the shape.

"You promised Clara," said Stern, "that you would stand mute when accused and accept the blame."

Dixon, on the sofa, let his arm dangle down. He flicked his ashes toward the ashtray and missed by a considerable margin. He sat up then and ground the heels of his palms against both eyes.

"May I ask why, Dixon?"

"I just told you why. Because I owed it to her. Look, I'm not you, Stern. I'm not wise or good. I can't help what I do. I can only be sorry afterwards. That's the story of my life. But I clean up my own messes." They sat together for some time.

"I release you, Dixon."

"What?" ,"I release you from this bargain. It was truly valorous.

You were dealing for Clara's life, but in spite of your brave efforts, you failed. You may be released." Dixon shook his head. "I promised her."

"Dixon."

"I promised."

"I cannot permit this, Dixon."

"I didn't ask for your permission."

"I have thought. about this at length, Dixon. I believe that John and Peter must be allowed to play their hands.

Speak up. Hire another lawyer and through him tell the truth. See if the prosecutors end up confounded, as Peter calculated they would."

"And what happens if Sennett gets hit by lightning and actually believes me? If he tums on those two, it'll make what he's planning for me look like a party game."

Stern allowed his shoulders to move-his weary, mystical, foreign look.

There were no words.

"Listen," said Dixon, "I've held my breath all the way along. I've hoped for months that those creeps would drop the ball over there. Fuck things up, or lose interest, or have doubts. But I won't play it that way. John will never make it. I've seen him when someone tums up the bright lights. In a courtroom, or with somebody really banging away at him, he'll fold. You mark my words. And he'll t,ace Peter down with him. Maybe even Kate."

Dixon was correct.-no question of that. He had thought this out carefully. John would be wearing wires on the entire family by the time Sennett was through with him. "That was the risk Peter chose, Dixon."

"Oh, screw that. They' re children."

Stern sat down on the sofa beside him. With a single finger, he actually touched Dixon's hand.

"Dixon, I understand your object. I recognize that you are attempting to settle accounts with me-that you wish to see the rest of my family remain intact. But I absolve you."

Dixon glared at him, rankled-no, more: outraged. "Can't you just show some fucking gratitude and shut up?" He got to his feet. "I'm pleading guilty, Stern. And I want you to arrange it."

"I shall not."

"Don't give me that 'shall not' crap. This is the right thing."

"It is a fraud, Dixon.".

"Oh, stow it, Stern. Don't start boasting with me about your honor.

I've known you too long. You've whored around plenty for reasons worse than this. I'm talking about your children."

"Yes. You think you're the only one in this family with the right to be noble?"

"Silvia-"

"Silvia will be fine. She'll have you to take care of her.

She'll see me on the weekends. You'll get me into some country club.

I'll do that time standing on my head.", Dixon's 'primary talents were still in the arena of sales.

Pacing here, he had taken on his urgent salesman's bearing.

It was all bluster-Stern knew that. Dixon's haggard look and fitful nights were not due to the welcome prospect of country-club living. But Dixon had once been a soldier. He knew that courage was not the absence of fear but the ability to carry on with dignity in spite of it. At this instant he was oddly reminiscent of the young man Stern had met, with. his strong chin and wavy brass-toned hair, wearing his uniform like a trophy andWilling himself to glory-a perfect specimen of what Stern then believed to be the most enviable species on the planet, a true American.

'Dixon, it is wrong."

"Oh, fuck principle, Stern. Fuck your honor! Don't you understand, you sanctimonious asshole, that this was exactly why she was afraid to come to you?" In great heat, Dixon smote the desk once with his fist. The glass broke through with an odd tone-a clear snap and a whiny ringing.

Both men moved at once. Stern rushed to his own side and, like Dixon, held the two pieces together. Along the Crack, one edge was now barely below the other. The heaps of papers had tumbled and Stern's cigar had jumped out 6f the ashtray and lay in the cleft, still bum'ing.

"Will it fall?" Dixon asked.

Stern was not certain He finally swiveled his desk chair about and propped it beneath the separated halves. Slowly, Dixon removed his hands. The desk sagged barely, perceptibly, but moved no farther.

It required a second for Stern to recollect where they had been. The hammer fall of Dixon'sobservation had been lost in the commotion; for the moment, he was saved. He knew that Dixon had pondered this matter at length and was onc more correct. Clara had doubted her husband's pragmatism, his willingness to yield his scruples, especially in a contest with his son. For the tune being, however, he could put that thought aside; the suffering would come later, when he was alone. Right now, he felt a different curiosity, one that had arisen yesterday, with a ramark of Peter's.

"Why am I your lawyer, Dixon? Now. In this matter?"

"Where else would I go? And besides, you might have thought something was up if I hired a different attorney."

"But you say you feared my principles."

"You weren't going to find out.".

"Is that why you left the safe with me for s6 long?"

"It was locked."

"Nevertheless."

"Listen, you scared the shit out of me with that song-anddance about search warrants. I believed you. I thought it was the best place for it."

"But you did not even take the precaution of destroying the check Clara had brought you."

"How could I? I figured the bankers would go look for it.

Or the lawyer for the estate. I had my whole routine planned when they got here: 'She wanted to open a new investment account for the kids, died before we finished the papers, boy, am I glad to see you, sign right here."

"Dixon smiled at himself.

"Yet you must have recognized some risk that I might piece it together?"

Dixon leaned over the broken desktop.

"They're your children, Stern. You may give me all your high-minded advice about turning them in, but I don't see you banging down the prosecutor's door. You'd never do it."

Dixon, with his canny, handsome face, his weary eyes, regarded his brother-in-law. "You'll do what I want. You've got to."

"You couldn't resist the game, Dixon, could you?" Dixon shrugged.

"Competitive instincts," he said.

"Why do you feel so 'improved by my weakness? You love to see me bend, Dixon."

They were still across from one another. But the traces of some forgotten laughter already sneaked through Dixon's expression in spite of his most disciplined efforts at suppressing it. He was wonderfully amused, tickled pink.

"t want to plead guilty," he said. He knew he had won, as he knew all along he would, if it came to this.

Stern went down the hall and returned with coffee for both of them. It was, he admitted, an opportune time to negotiate. Sennett would be reluctant to confront a motion concerning the govemment's relationship with Peter. While he would ultimately prevail, Sennett knew he'd be seriously criticized along the way. The judges would chastise him for his zeal and the defencked."

"Nevertheless."

"Listen, you scared the shit out of me with that song-anddance about search warrants. I believed you. I thought it was the best place for it."

"But you did not even take the precaution of destroying the check Clara had brought you."

"How could I? I figured the bankers would go look for it.

Or the lawyer for the estate. I had my whole routine planned when they got here: 'She wanted to open a new investment account for the kids, died before we finished the papers, boy, am I glad to see you, sign right here."

"Dixon smiled at himself.

"Yet you must have recognized some risk that I might piece it together?"

Dixon leaned over the broken desktop.

"They're your children, Stern. You may give me all your high-minded advice about turning them in, but I don't see you banging down the prosecutor's door. You'd never do it."

Dixon, with his canny, handsome face, his weary eyes, regarded his brother-in-law. "You'll do what I want. You've got to."

"You couldn't resist the game, Dixon, could you?" Dixon shrugged.

"Competitive instincts," he said.

"Why do you feel so 'improved by my weakness? You love to see me bend, Dixon."

They were still across from one another. But the traces of some forgotten laughter already sneaked through Dixon's expression in spite of his most disciplined efforts at suppressing it. He was wonderfully amused, tickled pink.

"t want to plead guilty," he said. He knew he had won, as he knew all along he would, if it came to this.

Stern went down the hall and returned with coffee for both of them. It was, he admitted, an opportune time to negotiate. Sennett would be reluctant to confront a motion concerning the govemment's relationship with Peter. While he would ultimately prevail, Sennett knew he'd be seriously criticized along the way. The judges would chastise him for his zeal and the defense bar would protest vehemently. The papers might say unpleasantlhings. Sennett would be eager to avoid the damage to his reputation.

"Sure," said Dixon, quick to agree.

"But I shall not let them stampede us in the interval.

Sennett may seek to use the proceedings concerning me as leverage against you. I shall not negotiate from weakness.

If they must hold me in contempt-"

"Fine, fine," said Dixon, "we can take adjoining cells." He handed Stern the phone.

It. was before eight; the secretaries were not in. But they were in luck. Sennett picked Up the line himself.

SENNETT agreed to see him at four. The U.S. Attorney was cagey on the phone and asked what their meeting might concern, but Stern said merely that it was imperative that they speak. Sennett was at an obvious disadvantage, too apprehensive to ask him to elaborate. The idea came to Stern while they were still speaking. That brittle unyielding edge in Sennett's voice suddenly riled him, but before placing the call, he waited to see Dixon off, and to attend to a few matters on Remo's case, scheduled to start trial a week from Tuesday. By then, it was close to noon.

"Would you have a few minutes for lunch?" He had reached her directly.

"I'm not eating," Sonny said. "The beat's Sort of got me."

She hung on the line, waiting for something, probably an explanation.

"If it's about your meeting with Stan, I won't be there."

More a personal matter, Stern responded. He would welcOme a moment of her 6me. "Could you meet me at the Morgan Towers Club in twenty minutes?"

"Oh, Sandy, I hate those private clubs. I'm dressed like a bag lady.

You know, with the heat." As always, the air conditioning in the new federal building had failed.

"I prefer a neutral locale." Away from her office, he meant. "For your sake. I promise there will be no fashion commentary."

"My sake?"

"When-we meet," he responded.

He feared at first that she would not come. He sat in one of the overstuffed c!ub chairs across from the elevators, watching the polished steel doors open and close and the business types disembarking. When Sonny arrived, she looked rosy and agitated and, as she herself was the first to acknowledge, out of place, dressed in a simple sleeveless maternity frock better for a country outing. Sonny seemed to have reached that point in her pregnancy where the premium was on merely surviving. There was a vague ungainly roll as she walked. Approaching, she removed a broad slouch hat, with a pink satin ribbon, which she had worn to protect herseft from the sun.

"Here." Stern had raised a hand in greeting. He complimented her appearance, and asked again about lunch or a drink.

"I couldn't." She put a hand on her stomach and made a face. "And I'm on the run. Come on, Sandy. What's this about?" '

On second thought, he led her down a hall to a rear cloakroom, a small space paneled in red oak, unused in the sununer. The banging of the kitchen went on behind the wall, and the vegetable and meat smells of luncheon cooking emerged through the air returns. The place had a vague secret feel.

"I apologize for this maneuvering. I suspect Sennett might eriticie you for meeting with me."

She made another face in response: Who cared? "Sonny, I am deeply grateful for your act yesterday, but it was illadvised. I am certain that the United States Attorney was displeased."

"I wouldn't call him cheerful."

"No doubt."

She was looking around for a chair. Her legs' hurt, she said-she had walked over too quickly. He found a round back card chair in a comer.

She put herself down in front of the empty coatrack and fanned herself with her hat.

Stern remained standing.

"Sandy, what's the point?"

"Go to Stan, today. Tell him you have thought the matter over and that you are prepared to proceed with full vigor."

"I'm not ready to proceed with full vigor. And today he doesn't care, anyway. He's flipped out over the fact that you found out about"-she dropped a beat-"about the informant. He had four assistants in the library' last night until two doing legal research. That's Stan. It's always this macho crap: it's okay because I say so. Then when it hits the fan he wants to call out the Marines to cover his der-riere." She stopped abruptly. He knew that as usual she felt she had spoken too freely. "I had no idea, by the way," Sonny said. "You know, who it was. I finally asked Start three days ago. Right after we got off the phone. I think it's sick."

"Sonny, I would not pretend I am not deeply chagrined, but I shall tell you in the privacy of this room that I do not believe the govemment's conduct in this matter was unlawful."

"Probably not," she said. "But it's shitty. If Start didn't have a smirk on his face, it wouldn't bother me as much.

It's not disembodied principles to him. It's a grudge."

"Sonny, there are no disembodied principles in the practice of law." He spoke with some weight. "There are human beings in every role, in every case. Personalities will always matter."

"It was over the line. The way he handled it." She fingered the ribbon on her hat. "Listen, Sandy, I wasn't doing you a special favor. At least, I don't think I was. I just got really uneasy with the idea of enforcing a subpoena based on that kind of information if we hadn't disclosed the source. I could just see it: the judge locks you up and then finds out there was a sensitive issue which the government never mentioned. She could land on us with both feet. I thought if you wrote a brief, maybe you'd raise it, maybe we would. It would give me a chance to talk to Stan again,"

Stern nodded. Her reasoning had been cautious, sound. More thoughtful-more lawyerlymthan her boss's.

"Don't think I'm not still pissed at you," Sonny said." "I am. That was an ugly little charade out in the cofntry -asking me questions about those account papers, like you'd never seen them in your life."

"I had not seen them," he said simply. "Ever in my life."

She studied him intently, trying to figure it out, whether he was telling the truth, and if he was, how it could be.

"I really don't understand," she said, then raised a hand.

"I know. You've got your confidences, right?"

"Correct."

"It must be a hell of a story." She shrugged. "I suppose that's why you don't want to tell it to the grand jury."

For an instant, he said nothing.

"Sonny, when we were in the country you shared as much as you could with me out of a sense of fairness. I would like to respond in kind.

Speaking with Stan this morning, I am sure I left him with the impression that I wished to meet in order to complain about the goverp. ment's use of my son as an informant. No question, I shall do a good deal of that. But assuming that Mr. Sennett is willing to make the concessions he ought to in the circumstances, I would expect our discussion to lead eventually to an agreement for Dixon to enter a guilty plea."

She took that in and then tipped her head admiringly. "Nice timing," she said.

"I believe so." They both lingered with the thought of how far Sennerr would go to prevent Stern from causing a stir about the government's tactics with Peter. "So, you see, there will be no further grand jury investigation or contempt proceedings."

She smiled when she made the connection.

"You want me to kiss and make up with Stan before he knows?

Right?".Sonny laughed out loud. "0o, that's sneaky," she said. "And, boy, does he deserve it."

Stern smiled with her, but did not speak. Sonny fanned herself again with her hat.

"Look, Sandy, I'm okay with him. He didn't fire me. He knew he should have clued me in a long time before on something this delicate. And besides, he's political enough to figure out the angles. An Assistant out there criticizing him on the issue? No way he can have that. He hasto keep me inside the tent. He just took me off the case. He said I'm not objective about you." With that, due to the heat perhaps, or what she had said, or one of the many bodily quirks of pregnancy, her color rose again-her cheeks grew bright, so that for all the world he had the impression of a flower unfolding. "Which I'm not," she added quickly, showing a swift, rueful smile and allowing her eyes to drift to him, where they remained.

It was, Stern thought, a sweet look they shared.

"I think I might have mn away with you that night," she said quietly,

"if you had asked."

"And I was so close to asking," he answered. Until he heard himself, it did not occur to him that they both had spoken of something in the past, but now, for the first time, that seemed to suit him just as well.

Speaking, he had found some touch of grace, a perfect note, so that neither she nor he nor anyone passing would ever know precisely where the meter fell, how much of even one syllable was uttered in the kindliest jest or the truest lost ardor.

"Regrettably," he continued, "you are married."

She placed both hands on her stomach. "Lucky for me."

"Just so," he answered.

"I told Charlie we got married so we could be crazy together, so we just have to go on that way." She laughed at herself, flipped her hat, took her feet. "Tell me you approve."

"I do," he said.

"That makes one of us."

He laughed out loud.

"Sonny, you have inspired me," he said. He took a step closer, and she averted her face slightly, giving him her cheek. But he did not kiss her. Instead, moved or, as he would have it, inspired, he placed one of his soft hands on each of her bare shoulders, and then in some peculiar ceremony, standing just a few inches from her, let them travel down her arms, a strange would-be embrace. He grasped her above the elbows, on the forearms, at last her hands. She had raised her face by then to greet him, eye to eye.

"When I grow up," she said, "I want to be like Sandy Stern.

SO that was life, thought Stern. He descended in the Morgan Towers elevators, blinking off the presence of this young woman as if he were emerging from strong light. For an instant he was full of doubt. On another day, when he was less weakened by lack of sleep, might there have been a different outcome? The doors fell open to the noon sun blazing through the 1obby's enormous plate-glass windows, and as he stepped forward, eyes stinging, light-headed, he was amazed to find again that he felt more positively himself than he had in months. The core thingsnot simply the safe items, but matters of faith and influence-remained in place, impervious to the stamp of failure. He touched the center button on his suit jacket'and lifted his chin properly, as he so often did. Mr. Alejandro Stern.

He did not return to the office. Instead, he drove home and went immediately to bed. He would rise and re-dress in time for his appointment with Sennett. But right now he 'needed solemn contemplation. One of the philosophers, Descartes, Stern believed, had chosen his bed as the site for intense reflection, and for unknown reasons Stern had long followed his example. Most of his closing arguments were composed here, with a bed tray beside him amply laid with food and a yellow pad. He wrote down very little. Instead, he weaved the arguments and phrases in his mind-the same sentences, the same notions, again and again, until his consciousness was little more than the passionate speech he was going to deliver. Today it was Clara. Her last hours now belonged to him.

Stern had known a number of suicides. It was one more sad facet of his practice-so many of his clients were intent on doing harm to themselves one way or the other. He had stopped asking himself why decades ago.

For too many of them, the answers were obvious: the self-negation, the willful personal abuse, the deficits, shames, the scars. In the late fifties, when he was starting out, Stern had defended the drag case brought against a local rock'n'roll star who went by the name of Harky Malarky. Harky was full of the untamed moonstruck bleakness of an Irish bard and always danced along the precipice. Morphine addiction.

Destructive women. Violent friends. He died, blind drank, on a motorcycle he purposely raced from the roadside into a magnificent Utah canyon.

And there were others, not as vivid as Harky, but they 'all had the same unshakable belief that they were doomed.

And Clara had it, too. He had always known that. A terrible hard-bitten pessimism, an absolute gloom, She never foresaw a future in which she was included. A psychiatrist he had met over the years, Guy Pieace, confessed to Stern one night at a private moment, during a party at the Cawleys', that he wrestled with the impulse to commit suicide each day. He got up every morning and it was a task as certain as shaving and going to the office: he must not kill himself. That night, Pieace said, he had seen a goblin of sorts beckoning to him from a lamppost. He had driven around the block three times to be certain it was not there.. His wife, who was accustomed to this, took it calmly, knowing that he would have to satisfy himself.

Eventually, three years ago, Guy had played a losing game of Russian roulette, one round in the chambers-he had, apparently, let the goblins take their shot.

In the midst of his unnerving, half-drank confession, Pieace had laughed, because some famous depth psychologist, probably Freud, had commented that human beings cannot grasp the reality of their own deaths2 That was not true of Guy; and probably not of Clara, or most others who make a deliberate departure. The cup is always half empty or half full. For most of us-certainly for Sternrathe concern was over how much remained. Since the time of his fortieth birthday, in his inevitable greedy way, he had remained irritated by the feeling that the serving had been slight to start with. Here, at home, under his covers, alone with the afternoon sounds of the neighborhood and the air conditioning recirculating the still air of the household, he recognized how frightened Clara's death had left him. We stand in line with certain recognizable figures. Her turn.

Now yours.

But for Clara, a bit lille Guy, the moment must never have been far away. Nate, in fact, said she had told him as much. To Clara it was always a brief ride to a known destination. She meant to be of service along the way. But a sense of futility that went beyond any psychological l name-depression or anomie-no doubt often overcame her.

What was the point in waiting, given the aeons, the eternity in which she would never take part? And in this frame of mind she had faced her final choices. Dixon's magnificent, grandiose act in the end must have only complicated her overwrought state. There was not a bearable alternative on the horizon. Could she actually stand by and watch as Dixon undertook this gruesome act of selfsacrifice? Could she reveal her problems, and the past, to her husband, devastating him and, in all likelihood-given the odd explosive chain effect of anger and grief--Silvia, too? That would be a poor reward for Dixon, who, in the circumstance, might even lose the will and strength to see his promise through. Could she instead bear the rest of it and also watch her children march off to the penitentiary?

It was not suicide, thought Stern. Not in her eyes. It was euthanasia in the face of mortal heartbreak.

Could he have saved her? Was it the cheapest lie, the glossiest balm for his soul to think that if the same two persons had married today, in a franker era, this would not have taken place? They had assigned one another roles at a time when their own ambitions for each other allowed for more unexplored geography. Now there were counselors and meddlers and self-help aids to force couples to walk within each other's fence.

He had respected boundaries that, with just a bit more strength or attention or nerve,. he might have been able to surmount. His every effort, though, would have been against her ill.

Thirty-odd years ago, Clara Mittler had drafted a composition, called it Clara Stern, and remained intent on playing it to the end. It was a woodwind part of austere and unwavering beauty, and he was the uncritical audience, one set of hands clapping when he took the time to occupy his seat. The quiet precision of this performance hid from all -but most significantly herself-a terrible banging turmoil. Somewhere, well beyond her power to bring it forth, there must have been a thunderous rage. She knew it only as disorganized sound. The noise, she had told Nate, the crashing dissonance of anxiety and unending disappointment, was always with her. Ultimately the noise had come from all directions, at unendurable volume, and Clara bowed to the aesthete's inevitable grief that Beauty would not be her.

He knew for some reason just now what he had not beforemhow it was done.

He had never understood why she had chosen the car. But today that was clear. She had triggered the ignition and then slipped a cassette into the player. The police, of course, had not even looked. It would have been Mozart, certainly, but Stern felt a stitch of a keen frustrated grief that he would never know which selection.

The Requiem? The Jupiter? But the remainder he could imagine. The volume had been turned up considerably-the woodwinds lowed with lost sounds of the soul and the plangent violins engulfed the small space, so that even a fine ear could not detect the engine's rumble, and she lay back, eyes already closed, no doubt, while the magnificent music rose in great waves toward that perfect momentat the end of every piece when there was silence.

WHEN Helen called, Stern was dreaming: Dixon had accosted him on a street comer. He was smoking one of Stern's cigars and in his usual joking manner was pointing out that he had gone bald. He circled his hand over his crown and with considerable satisfaction turned about so that Stern could see the large spot where the straight black hair had actually fallen away. As Helen spoke, the dream and its difficult feelings still swam within him and for just the barest instant he was convinced his dreaming had gone on.

"What?" He was lost. Was she crying?

"I need you." She seemed short of breath. When he had answered-as in the office, 'Stern here'-she had said repeatedly she was sorry to be calling. Sorry. Sorry. "I need you here. Please."

"Yes, yes. I shall be there momentarily."

In the bathroom, he felt unbalanced by the light. He splashed water on his face and gave up the thought of shaving. The line of a sheet was impressed on his cheek.

Had she even mentioned the problem? One of her children, he imagined.

The boy in college. He crept down to the garage.

When he started the Cadillac, the digital clock flashed on.

It was almost three; early Friday morning. He had been asleep since a little after nine, having gotten only an hour or two on Wednesday night.

Marta had kept him awake, demanding that he share in advance every thought and nuance that would go into the closing argument in U.S.v.

Cavarelli. Stern had delivered this argument at ten yesterday morning, then waited with poor Remo most of the day for the jury, which returned near five o'clock. Not guilty. With the verdict, Judge Winchell had fixed Remo with a sour look, but her sole comment had been to Moses Appleton: 'Better luck next time." Marta, who had assisted her father throughout, even cross-hat perfect momentat the end of every piece when there was silence.

WHEN Helen called, Stern was dreaming: Dixon had accosted him on a street comer. He was smoking one of Stern's cigars and in his usual joking manner was pointing out that he had gone bald. He circled his hand over his crown and with considerable satisfaction turned about so that Stern could see the large spot where the straight black hair had actually fallen away. As Helen spoke, the dream and its difficult feelings still swam within him and for just the barest instant he was convinced his dreaming had gone on.

"What?" He was lost. Was she crying?

"I need you." She seemed short of breath. When he had answered-as in the office, 'Stern here'-she had said repeatedly she was sorry to be calling. Sorry. Sorry. "I need you here. Please."

"Yes, yes. I shall be there momentarily."

In the bathroom, he felt unbalanced by the light. He splashed water on his face and gave up the thought of shaving. The line of a sheet was impressed on his cheek.

Had she even mentioned the problem? One of her children, he imagined.

The boy in college. He crept down to the garage.

When he started the Cadillac, the digital clock flashed on.

It was almost three; early Friday morning. He had been asleep since a little after nine, having gotten only an hour or two on Wednesday night.

Marta had kept him awake, demanding that he share in advance every thought and nuance that would go into the closing argument in U.S.v.

Cavarelli. Stern had delivered this argument at ten yesterday morning, then waited with poor Remo most of the day for the jury, which returned near five o'clock. Not guilty. With the verdict, Judge Winchell had fixed Remo with a sour look, but her sole comment had been to Moses Appleton: 'Better luck next time." Marta, who had assisted her father throughout, even cross-examined one of the surveillance agents, was eager to celebrate. Gracious to the core, Moses had insisted on buying both of them a drink..After a single soda water, Stern had left Marta and Appleton for the sleep of the old and weary. Why were triumph and exultation always so fleeting? He drove through the night streets now, toward Helen's, waking gradually and increasingly alarmed.

Facing him, in Helen's drive, a van had been backed to the paneled door of the garage. In his own headlights Stern could read the lettering, reversed to be legible in rearview mirrors: gEl(IEIMA.qAq Not again, he thought, God, not again. He ran up the walk, his change and keys jumping in his pockets; he did not have to ring the bell.

Helen, by the door, swept it open and was in his arms at once, weeping and thanking him for coming.

He had caught her face for just a second, but it was a sight. She had been fully made up when she started crying.

A mess of liner was clumped along her cheeks, and the tears had washed away the cosmetics in streaks below her eyes. A tuft of her hair stood on end. In his arms, in spite of the heavy robe, he could tell that she was otherwise unclad, and all of this-the sight of her, the feeling now, her voice and breath, her urgent clinging-unloosed in him a tremendous wallop of sensation. His poor heart. It was like a barnacle drifting through the sea and ready to attach itself to any prominence.

And still how welcome all this was, her ardor, her presence, her declared need. Lord, what a dear person Helen Dudak was to him. For this instant he felt amazing gratitude.

"What? Please?" He held her hands.

She tossed her head about.

"I'm so sorry I had to call you. You were the only person I could think of. Sandy, please…" She did not finish; a retching sound escaped her.

She pressed her folded hand to her mouth and once more leaned against him.

"Lady, hey. Sir?" A latino in the ambulance service's brown uniform was on the landing of the staircase, beckoning down to both of them. "His no good." The man slowly shook his head.

Helen wailed, a brief wavering sound.

Stern was already on the way up, following the attendant, who had retraced his way along the staircase and was headed down the hall. In Helen's bedroom there was a terrible st'ink. The bed was unmade. And a man was in it, a crippled, still figure, unclothed, his face beneath the plastic form of an oxygen mask. In extremity, he had apparently lost control of his bowels. There was a second attendant here, a young white man, and both of them were busy with the equipment which they had at the bedside, two large green cast-iron tanks and a cart with wires and various apparatuses. On one corner of the king-sized bed, entirely unexplained, stood a small wooden end table. The latino, the one Stern had seen on the stairs, gestured to Stern in the doorway. He was removing the last lead from the man's chest.

"EKG?" He whistled and drew a smooth line in space.

"No good. They'll pronounce him at Riverside. Okay I use the phone? I got to call the cops." Before he moved on, the attendant leaned over and removed the air mask from the man in the bed and stopped to close his eyes, a quick stroke with his forefinger and his thumb. Even from the doorway, Stern could tell.

"Oh, dear God," he said out loud. Helen had arrived beside him. Stern was holding on to the doorjamb. "Who is it?" he asked her, moved by some impulse of propriety or hope.

Helen had not looked at him directly since he had arrived.

She gripped Stern's hand with both of hers and bowed her head a bit, so that her forehead rested against his shoulder. "Helen, please tell me that is not Dixon."

As before, she merely shook her head, the washed-Out tousles of fox-colored hair. She had no words for the moment. And in any event, what Stern wanted was something she could never say.

With the attendants' consent, it was Stern who summoned the police. He called Division 4 Homicide and insisted they rouse the lieutenant at home. When he called back, Stern put him on the line with the attendants. At the lieutenant's instruction, they were relieved, told tO go on their way and to leave the body to the police. Stern saw the two out as they bumped their tanks and cart over the threshold. Helen was seated right there, on a low, upholstered bench posi-rioned by the doorway to collect mail or packages or wraps. She remained downcast, looking into a snifter of brandy.

Stern sat beside her and she passed him the glass.

"I'm sorry I had to call," she said again.

"Please, do not-" A hand drummed in the air. The words did not need to be spoken. "In the act?"

She nodded with emphasis.

Dead with his boots on. Dixon Hartnell in his many lost vain moments would be abundantly pleased. Stern attempted without success to smile.

"And how long has this been going on?"

"Going on?"

"This," said Stern decidedly.

Helen glanced up.

"Sandy, please don't take that tone with me. He called. Did I do something wrong?"

Stern worked against the weight of various judgments, too shocked, it seemed, to follow his customary instinct for reticence.

"He is married, Helen."

"I'm not."

"No," Stern agreed.

"Do you think this was aimed at you somehow?"

Did he? God knows what he felt. He looked back up the stairs, where Dixon's body now lay beneath an old blue sheet, like some shrouded' piece of statuary.

"He called me. The week you left me high and dry, as a matter of fact. And I enjoyed his company. That's all."

"Very well," said Stern.

"He was very romantic," said Helen. Her face was harsh with unconcealed ire. "He'd call, he'd come by at any hour. He was charming."

"Yes, I see," said Stern. No need now to ask where Dixon was roaming to at night. His next utterance would be 'Enough."

They sat in silence. Stern could hear the clocks tick, the appliances.

The headlights of another car swcp.t into the drive.

"The policeman," Stern said.

Helen tightened the belt on her robe, preparing to tell the story.

Radczyk, alone, in his rumpled sport coat and an old fedore, approached the doorway. Stern shooed Helen into the living room, then let him in.

"Always sad occasions, Lieutenant."

"My business," said Radczyk, and laughed in his inoffensive, hickish way, amused by himself. His blotchy face was red from sleep. He raked the straying hair over his head and clutched his hat.

Stern introduced Helen, who in a few brief strokes said what she had to.

They were making love, she said. Radczyk stood in the living room with his tiny pad, making notes.

"So, let's see," he said. "This guy and this gal-" He nodded in a courteous way to Helen, who was standing right there. "This guy-"

"My c/lent," said Stern.

"Your client," said Radczyk. He hitched his chin finally and invited Stern to walk farther down the hall.

"I take it this fella wasn't the gentleman of the house."

"Ms. Dudak is unmarried. He was my brother-in-law," said Stern. "My sister's husband."

"Okay," said Radczyk. He nodded a number of times. He got it now.

"This will be terrible for her."

"Sure, sure. So wha'dya got in mind?" He knew there was something, because Stern had told him on the phone he would ask a favor. He wished to spare his sister, Stern said now.

Radczyk listened. It was nothing to him, one way or the other.

"Let me look around, be sure it's kosher," Radezyk said. He was matter-of-fact. It was his job.

Upstairs, he examined the body, touched the chest, rolled Dixon a bit from side to side. Radczyk held his nose.

"P.U.," he said. "Stroke or heart attack, you figure?"

"Heart," said Stern. That was the paramedics' diagnosis.

Radczyk thought so, too. "Looks okay. No marks or anything.

I ain't got a problem, if you're sure that's what you want fo do."

Stern said it was.

"I gotta make a call or two," said Radczyk. "Get somebody to hit the wrong key on 'the computer." He winked. At the doorway to the bedroom, Radczyk grabbed Stern's ann, lowered his voice. "What about the table?"

He hitched a shoulder toward the corner of the bed where the small end table had remained.

Stern only shrugged.

While Radczyk was on the phone, Stern returned to Helen.

She had not moved. She was st'ill in her robe, still pale and stricken, barefoot, with her thin calves looking white without hosiery. The brandy glass was beside her. Stern took it up again and told her what he planned.

"It will be much easier this way for Silvia," said Stern.

Dixon and he were to have lunch with her today. Stern would drive out to the house and together they were going to tell her-that Dixon was going to plead guilty to two counts of mail fraud next week, and soon after would be confined in a federal penitentiary, probably the one in Minnesota, for a year, ten months; actually, with good time. It had not been a task he had been looking forward to, and in a peculiar way the notion that he had already shouldered some ominous duty toward his sister made the thought of what was now at hand easier by some bare measure.

"Silvia," said Helen. With that realization she started crying again.

"I was trying to get even with you, I sup"You were entitled."

She wiped her nose on her sleeve before Stern could get out his hanky.

"I was," said Helen, as only she could, in her frank, emphatic way. "I was so hurt, Sandy. I feel. Felt. Shit."

She lowered her head and laughed and cried at once. "He would have dropped me, anyway. -He hadn't come by for days and he told me tonight that he'd decided we had to break it off. I couldn't believe it. Jilted by the replacement, too." Helen smiled a bit, but then the thought of something, the moment probably, carne back to her and she wrapped her arms about herself and closed her eyes. "He was trying to comfort me," she said.

She took a second.

"I should have known better. I tried to get even with Miles, too, 'after I found out about him. Did you know that?

That I hd an affair before I left him?"

"No. Should IT' "I always felt everyone knew. Didn't you? I was certain you did, that night."

Stern looked at her blankly. "What night?"

"When Nate dropped by," said Helen. "At your house? I'd brought dinner?"

He absorbed this, too.

"I do not approve," Stern said suddenly. "I understand. But I do not approve of any of this."

This utterance amazed him. Not so much the judgment as its sudden force. He realized that he st.ood revealed, a man of harsh opinions, which he ordinarily kept to himself. It seemed that he spoke mostly out of confusion, but the significance was not lost on Helen. She looked at him bravely, knowing, apparently, with her strong intuitions of him, that it was necessary that something be denounced. "Of course not," she said. Radczyk returned then.

"Okey-doke," he said. "All set. No report, no nothim This here never happened." He nodded politely to Helen. "I'll give you a hand," he said to Stern.

Dixon's clothes were strewn about the room. Stern gathered the items, but Radczyk took them from his hands. "Here, here, let me," he said.

"Homicide dick is half an undertaker."

When Dixon was dressed again, they carried him out. Radczyk took the ankles and Stern grasped Dixon's hands, clammy to the touch and strangely firm. The feel was like nothing human; cool, almost chilled.

Dead weight, they said. It was a considerable task. Helen walked away, at the sight of the body. They rested Dixon on a sofa in the small den off the kitchen and then Stern backed his' car into the garage.

Together, they laid Dixon out in the back seat and covered him with the same washed-out sheet. "I'll meet you down there," Radczyk said. "I gotta make a call, then I'll be there."

Stern insisted it was not necessary, but Radczyk would not hear of it.

"You gonna go walkin round Center City with a stiff, better have a badge along. Could get pretty peculiar, otherwise."

Radczyk drove off, and Stern returned to Helen, who had sat again on the bench, her place of contemplation for the night. She had dressed in the interval, a black top and stretch pants, and had washed her face clean of any makeup.

She looked plain, drawn but composed. He had been pondering his outburst, haunted now by embarrassment. Something-that high-and-mighty tone-was so wildly hypocritical. He began to apologize.

"Please, Sandy," she said.

He sighed at length.

"You must understand," he said. And so he told her, more directly than he ever could have imagined, about Clara: she and Dixon had had a brief affair some years ago. As he spoke, it occurred to him that there was nothing in the world he could not say to Helen Dudak.

"Oh, Sandy." She covered her open mouth with one hand.

"So you see," he said.

"Yes, of course." She closed her eyes. Then she took his hand. "He must have envied you terribly."

"Envied me?"

"Don't you see?"

The thought was breathtaking.

They sat together on the bench in silence. He would have to move along, he thought, meet Radczyk. She con-. tinued to hold his hand, and now Stern was reluctant to depart,

"How's your friend?" she asked presently.

He did not understand.

"Your new friend," Helen said.

"Oh, that." He smiled to himself. "Well past. Temporary insanity," he said. "I seem to have grown up again."

They were both quiet. EventualLy, Helen slumped and held her face in her hands in her familiar, youthful manner. "Do you believe,'; she asked, "that we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes all our lives?"

"There is that tendency," he said. But, of course, if he believed that the soul would forever be a slave to its private fetishes, why had he come to the U.S.? Why did he cry out for justice for those who were most often unredeemable? What, indeed, had he spent these months trying to transcend? "But I also believe in second chances."

"So do I," said Helen, and reached over again to take his hand.

After he married Helen the following spring, Stern told her on a number of occasions that it had all been foregone from the moment they had sat together on that bench. But this was not really true. For months after, he remained uncertain about many things, particularly himseft, the limits of his strength and the exact form of his wishes.

But as he rose to leave that night, he took her once more in his arms-Helen, who had been in bed with Dixon a few hours ago, and Stern, who had his body in the back seat of his carm and felt, as he embraced her in these impossible circumstances, if only for an instant, the clear bright light of desire. It was what he had felt when he greeted her tonight, but the events that had unfolded since had added a new urgency.

What was it? He could never explain, but as he had absorbed her peculiar confession, he had been full of strong emotion. In her disorder, her confusion, her hasty admission that she, like the rest of us, was still, for all her effort, partly invisible to herself, he adored her. So he held her another moment and told her a bit more of the story. About the latest turn of events with D'Lxon.

And the fact that his children were involved. He did not say how.

Helen, he knew, would want to share every secret, to tell each of hers and to hear from him everything he told no one else. And in time, he realized, he would probably do that. It was that moment, those discoveries, he would be talking about the following spring.

Then Mr. Alejandro Stern, heavy with thought and feeling, drove through the night, eerily aware of the presence behind him. At every light, he ffited down the rearview mirror so that he could look at the form in the back seat.

"My God, Dixon," he said out loud at one point. Envied him.

Envied, Helen said. For what? He was a fat man with a foreign accent.

The respect he claimed, esteem, was nothing, minor, transitory. What, really, were his achievements? A disordered family life? Poor Dixon.

His cravings were unending. Great men, thought Stern, had great appetites. Had someone said that? He was not certain, nor was he sure what name he would put to Dixon. Great something, was the thought tonight.

Radczyk's car, an old Reliant, was in the loading zone behind the building. Stern took the door handle and was ready to alight when he was struck again with that sensation, clear as d.jd vu, that none of this had happened, that this actual moment was not occurring. Not this or anything of the last week, weeks, months. He was someone else, somewhere else. This was all the concoction of some stupefied wreck in the comer cot of a distant bedlam. He stared at the amber circles thrown down by the crane-necked street lamps and returned gradually to his life.

They carried Dixon under the sheet. Radczyk propped the building's from doors open with pieces of' cardboard and they hauled Dixon around to the back service elevator. In a building tenanted principally by lawyers, someone was likely to be here, even at 5:45 in the morning. In the dirty elevator, they kept Dixon, taller than both of them, between them, under his pale blue sheet. Radczyk held the body upright with a hand on D'nton's belt.

In Stern's office, they attempted to position him, as he had been on those two recent nights, on the sofa. Stern crossed Dixon's legs, and with that the body rolled slowly forward, collapsing by stages, until it arrived with a heavy helpless thump on the floor.

Stern covered his face. It could not be avoided. Both Radczyk and he laughed out loud.

Then they placed him once more on the sofa, holding him there. Stern unbuttoned Dixon's jacket, lifted his hands.

He was like a store mannequin now. When Stern bent Dixon's legs to position his feet, Dixon's head fell backward, his mouth open, agape, in an unmistakable pose of death.

Neither Radczyk nor he moved for a moment.:

"How may I thank you, Lieutenant?" Stern asked as Radczyk started to leave.

"No need," said Radczyk, He looked at Stern sadly. "I owed you. I told ya. Never woulda straightened myself out otherwise."

Radczyk had said he owed him forty ftmes if he had said it once, and Stern had never caught the meaning But now he did. There was a reason Radczyk sat through each of Marvin's meetings with Stern. A reason for his nervous garrulousness. He and Marvin, after all, were raised as brothers. They had shared many things. Too many. Rad-czyk, given a reprieve and the opportunity for reform, had seized it; Marvin took the more familiar cturse. Stern shared a look with Radczyk, this man whom he barely knew-:they possessed many of each other's most terrible secrets. Then Stern simply nodded, a compact of confidence, gratitude, renewal.

Stern saw the policeman to the outer door and then, on second thought, went back to retrieve the sheet. He wanted no telltale signs when the others arrived here this morning.

Then he returned to his office and was alone with the body of his brother-in-law, Dixon Harmell. There was no comfortable place to. sit.

The sofa clearly was out, and his desk chair was still beneath the broken glass, which had not been removed or replaced, given the spell of busy activity for Remo's trial. Stern was required to use one of the uphol stered pull-up chairs, cut a bit too narrowly for him. He hauled the chair about to face the body. How sad Dixon looked, how fully depleted. His color was unnatural, that dark gray veiced him once more on the sofa, holding him there. Stern unbuttoned Dixon's jacket, lifted his hands.

He was like a store mannequin now. When Stern bent Dixon's legs to position his feet, Dixon's head fell backward, his mouth open, agape, in an unmistakable pose of death.

Neither Radczyk nor he moved for a moment.:

"How may I thank you, Lieutenant?" Stern asked as Radczyk started to leave.

"No need," said Radczyk, He looked at Stern sadly. "I owed you. I told ya. Never woulda straightened myself out otherwise."

Radczyk had said he owed him forty ftmes if he had said it once, and Stern had never caught the meaning But now he did. There was a reason Radczyk sat through each of Marvin's meetings with Stern. A reason for his nervous garrulousness. He and Marvin, after all, were raised as brothers. They had shared many things. Too many. Rad-czyk, given a reprieve and the opportunity for reform, had seized it; Marvin took the more familiar cturse. Stern shared a look with Radczyk, this man whom he barely knew-:they possessed many of each other's most terrible secrets. Then Stern simply nodded, a compact of confidence, gratitude, renewal.

Stern saw the policeman to the outer door and then, on second thought, went back to retrieve the sheet. He wanted no telltale signs when the others arrived here this morning.

Then he returned to his office and was alone with the body of his brother-in-law, Dixon Harmell. There was no comfortable place to. sit.

The sofa clearly was out, and his desk chair was still beneath the broken glass, which had not been removed or replaced, given the spell of busy activity for Remo's trial. Stern was required to use one of the uphol stered pull-up chairs, cut a bit too narrowly for him. He hauled the chair about to face the body. How sad Dixon looked, how fully depleted. His color was unnatural, that dark gray veinous shade. The spirit had red.

"Does good always win, Dixon?" Stern asked. "It does on TV."

He had no idea how the words came to him or why, with them, he began to cry. The tears ha,d been in the offing for some days now; that he knew.

He.was puzzled merely by the tuoment. But there was no point in holding back. The storm blew up and through him. He covered his mouth with his hanky and pressed his fist to his lips at moments to suppress his howl.

"My God, Dixon," he kept repeating when he spoke. When he was done, he stood, approached the sofa, and decided to pray. He had never been certain what it was he believed. On High Holidays he attended shul and engaged the Lord in direct address. The rest of the year he seemed agnostic. But at this point, he called on his talent for sincerity, since he was his finest self, an advocate not speaking on his own behalf.

Accept, dear God, the soul of Dixon Hartnell, who made his own amends, and who traveled his own way. He failed, as we all fail, and perhaps more often than some. Yet he recognized fundamental things. Not that we are evil; for we are not. But that, by whatever name-self-interest, impulse, anger, lust, or greedrowe are inclined that way; and that it is our tragedy to know this can never change; our duty to try at every moment to overcome it; and our glory occasionally to succeed.

An extra suit hung behind the office door, and Stern quickly changed. He had a tie and shirt in a drawer, and a razor. He would not have his attache case, but in the confusion no one would notice. He went down the hall to shave, returned, and sat before the telephone. When he heard the first stirring of someone else within the office, he would call Silvia to tell her he had just found Dixon, here where he had spent many recent nights, intent, obsessed with assembling his defense.

From this side of the desk, he faced the shelves of the walnut cabinet where the framed photographs of his family remained, the ones Dixon had lingered with last week. They were free. Totally. John. Kate. Even Peter. That thought had not occurred to him until now. With Dixon's death, the entire matter was over. The events-theft shamemwould recede into the past. With Clara's fortune, they were now even prosperous. The three of them would have their second chances, too. He tried to envision theft futures and his with them, but nothing came-murky shades, something bleak.

Then he recalled. There would be a baby-a child. Children always drew a family together. Even his, he supposed. He had some vision, like a vaguely surreal painting, the strange conjunctions of a dream, of all of them drawn close to this pink, unknown infant in a kind of halo radiance, each face alight with that wonderful instinctive glee. They would surround this child and be, each of them, someone new: parents, grandparent, uncle, aunts. New responsibilities. Fantasies. Dreams.

Mistakes, of course, would be made. Bad habits would be repeated and, worse, taught anew. They would succumb, each of them in some measure, to folly, to the grasp of unwanted portions of the dark, indomitable past. Nonetheless. We go on.

In the outer office there was the sound of someone arriving; he reached at once for the phone. When he heard his sister's voice, he spoke her name and, in spite of the qualm of grief which unexpectedly rifled through him, began. Yet again, he said, a terrible blow. She knew at once.

"We must manage these burdens together," he told her. "I am able to help."

.