The smile turns to a broad grin; he laughs, middle-aged kid. I look at Frank and wonder what dark and twisted thing got ahold of his mind. Whatever incarnation of the devil it is, we are still struggling. Frank hasn't put the gun down.

I take a quick glance at my watch. It's after ten. If Tash comes through that door, the place is going to turn into a shooting gallery.

"Frank, you can't go on like this."

"I know."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

"Let me help you."

"How? How can anybody help me?"

"We can start by ending the violence," I tell him. "Do you think Penny would want you to do this?"

The look in his eye tells me he's never asked himself this question before. What little life is left leaves his face.

"Why don't you put the gun down? Let me make some phone calls?"

Eyes darting. He wants to say yes, but he doesn't know how.

"Please."

Slowly the muzzle of the gun goes toward the floor. His grip loosens. He looks up at me. Gently he lays it on the floor next to his feet.

I'm afraid to make a play for it, especially now that he's going in the right direction. I might set him off.

"Can we call Doris? Maybe you could talk to her?

"That would be good," he says.

"Do you have the number, up in Fremont?"

"Somewhere," he says. He's reaching around, patting his pockets, the front of his shirt, seat of his pants. He stands up and pulls his wallet from his back pocket. He opens it and from the inside he pulls out a slip of paper and steps over the shotgun toward me.

There are penned notes, some names, probably jobs Frank has worked on and some penciled numbers. He points to one of these, an area code and number. He wants me to place the call, as if killing Tash is all right, but using his phone would be a social violation.

I take the slip of paper and walk toward the phone in the kitchen. I dial the number and wait. A tired voice, half asleep, answers.

"Is Doris Boyd there?"

"Just a moment. I'll get her."

The sigh of relief that rifles through my body in this moment causes my knees to go slack.

Doris comes on the line. "h.e.l.lo."

"Doris. It's Paul Madriani."

"What is it?"

"Can you hold just a moment?"

"Sure."

I step back out into the living room.

"Frank, she's on the line."

Something's wrong. The wind from the ocean is filling the room, blinds rattling. The first thing I notice is that the shotgun is gone.

I look toward the balcony, and from the corner of my eye all I see is a flash of pant leg and two boots as Frank Boyd sails over the railing and into the darkness.

epilogue.

eight days later, a couple walking along a lonely stretch of beach nearly four miles north of Tash's apartment stumbled on Frank's remains, washed up, battered by the rocks, almost unrecognizable.

Harry and I knew there was no way Frank could have survived the plunge from the balcony. We talked for several minutes, considered the options and in the end I wiped the phone and a few other surfaces for fingerprints, and we left as quietly as we'd arrived. The only evidence that we had ever been there were the two dangling belts left on the balcony between the apartments. No doubt some tenant would find them and wonder where they came from. They would never know.

We looked for Frank's floating body from the rocks below the complex for almost an hour and decided there was nothing we could do. It was fruitless to call the police. It would only open new wounds for Doris and the kids, and could accomplish nothing for either Epperson or Kalista Jordan.

Harry had been right; Tash and Crone were out celebrating. They never knew we were at the apartment that night. To this day, we have kept our silence.

Seven months have now pa.s.sed, and after a coroner's inquest, Frank's death has been ruled an accident. Only the insurance company fought this finding. The million-dollar policy Frank purchased years before contained a double-indemnity clause paying two million dollars on accidental death. Even a suicide guaranteed the face amount of one million since Frank had held the policy long enough to establish that he hadn't purchased it in contemplation of killing himself. For the carrier it was not a happy scenario, a desperate family in financial need pitted against a Goliath insurance company with its offices in some skysc.r.a.per in another city.

Doris wanted me to represent her at the inquest. I told her I could not, but I didn't tell her why. My only advice was that she not volunteer information to anyone regarding my telephone call to her that night. It was better that way. She could testify truthfully about what she didn't know. And no one ever asked. To this day, Doris doesn't know why I called or how I got the telephone number to her mother's house. When I went back to the phone that night, after Frank had disappeared over the balcony, I told Doris I was looking for him. It was the best I could do under the circ.u.mstances. She didn't know where he was.

On the stand they asked her several pointed questions. Yes, her husband was despondent over the death of his daughter. No, he never threatened to take his own life. No, she never found or saw a suicide note. What they don't know, and could never guess, is that the only suicide note Frank ever wrote was for someone else.

If the hearing officer at the inquest was in doubt, he came down on the side of the angels. After all, there was no solid evidence of suicide. Even I could not testify with certainty, should some psychic have called me to the stand, whether Frank jumped or fell that night, though the details of what I do know would have caused much pain. I have no difficulty sleeping with my secret, though the visage of Frank's tortured soul visits me from time to time in my dreams.

When it was over, David Crone, then back at the center, tested the two surviving Boyd children, Jennifer and Donald, for Huntington's ch.o.r.ea. They were both negative. Frank would be happy to know, and perhaps he does, that his family has finally found peace.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's Imagination or are used fict.i.tiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com.

ALSO BY.

Steve Martini.

THE ATTORNEY.

CRITICAL Ma.s.s.

THE LIST.

THE JUDGE.

UNDUE INFLUENCE.

PRIME WITNESS.

COMPELLING EVIDENCE.

THE SIMEON CHAMBER.