"She was talking about selling her piece of Everest."

Whitman's eyes flashed to Gillette's. "What?" "What?"

"Yeah. With that big fat 25 percent voting bloc."

Whitman pointed at Gillette. "You can't let her do that, you hear me? You cannot cannot let that happen." let that happen."

"I hear you, Miles. Believe me. I don't want to be out on my a.s.s."

Whitman settled back in his chair. "Right. Of course you don't." He glanced around. "Have you made any organizational changes yet?"

"What do you mean?"

"Promotions."

"I'm going to promote Kyle and Marcie to managing partner. I told you that."

"Yeah, sure. Anything else?"

Gillette thought for a moment. "Well, I'm going to make Cohen the chief operating officer. That's really more an internal thing than anything else. So the troops know he's in charge."

"Oh? When does that take effect?"

"I just need to send out an e-mail tomorrow morning."

Whitman nodded. "Good move. He seems like a decent guy. Harmless, but decent. That kind of thing will probably make him happy. Wouldn't make you or me happy, but Cohen seems like the type who would appreciate it. And you want to keep turmoil to a minimum right now."

Kathy Hays eased the car to a stop after slowly negotiating the long, twisting driveway through the dense woods. She'd taken an extra day and a 300-mile detour to visit her family in Pittsburgh. There she had told them how she was starting a new life in Los Angeles-which was what she'd been told to say-but this was about as far from L.A. as you could get.

She stepped out of the car and gazed through the night at the tiny house that she'd call home for the next six months. That's what they'd said. Six months, then she could go on with her life. She shrugged as she started walking through the gloom toward the house, gravel crunching beneath her shoes. For what they were paying her-and what they were willing not to tell anyone-she could do anything for six months.

As she climbed the front steps to the porch, she reached into her purse for the house keys they'd given her, thinking about Troy Mason. How she'd gotten him fired. How he had a wife and a young child. It was awful. She shook her head. But they'd given her no choice. If she didn't work with them, they'd have told her parents and all of her parents' friends about her prost.i.tution arrest in college at the University of New Mexico.

Kathy slid the key into the front door. So stupid. A one-time thing, but she'd solicited an undercover cop and he'd taken her straight to jail. She'd served ten days, paid a small fine, and that had been that-or so she'd thought. Until they approached her on the street that day to tell her they'd found out about it.

Kathy shuddered as she pushed the door open, thinking about what that news would do to her parents. Her mother was active in the neighborhood church and her father was suffering from high blood pressure. They'd always thought she'd been such an angel. And they were going to tell her parents that it hadn't been a one-time thing at all, that she'd been doing it for money for months.

She flipped on the living room light and took a deep breath. A musty smell came to her nostrils. This was definitely the best outcome. Good money, no worries about her parents finding out anything, and Troy Mason would catch on somewhere else. And they'd promised her no one was going to get hurt.

Kathy put her purse down on the table by the door and glanced around the room. Six months. It couldn't go fast enough.

She shivered as she stood a short distance down Fifth Avenue from the apartment building entrance, pulling the flimsy coat tightly around her body. She'd been waiting for three hours in the darkness-and the freezing cold. She'd never experienced anything like it. The trees across Fifth Avenue-at the eastern edge of Central Park-swayed from side to side against a sudden gust, and she tried pulling the coat even closer to her body.

A blue sedan eased to a stop in front of the apartment building and two men got out. One of them hurried up the steps and through the doorway, while the other remained outside, checking the sidewalk in both directions. It was almost ten o'clock and, because of the wind and cold, there was no one on the street. So he spotted her right away and moved directly toward her.

"Why are you standing here?" he demanded.

"I'm waiting for someone."

"Who?"

"A friend."

"Well, move off for now, miss," he said politely.

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Then she saw a limousine approaching. He had to be in there.

"Move off now," the man ordered, his voice intensifying.

Isabelle took a few steps down the street, as if she were obeying, then spun around and tried to dart past him. But he caught her easily, gathering her slender body up in his huge arms and carrying her away from the entrance as Gillette's limousine pulled to a stop.

She tried to break free, slapping the man about the face and shoulders, but he was too strong for her.

When they were far enough away from the entrance, he put her down and held her against the wall. Trying to be as gentle as possible, he pulled her wrists behind her back and held them together with one hand while he frisked her with the other.

"What's this?" he demanded, yanking a steak knife from her coat pocket and holding it in front of her face.

"Protection."

"Uh-huh. Sure." The man grabbed his radio phone. "Stiles!"

"Yeah."

"Get Gillette inside! Fast!"

Reggie's was the best pool hall in Harlem, best from the standpoint of the caliber of play. But it was a rough place, too. Much rougher than the place he'd been in the night of the funeral reception.

Gillette had worked his way into a game with a tough opponent, again able to convince the gate he was good for the five grand without actually putting it up. All he had on him was a pair of twenties for the cab home.

There was nothing left on the table but the eight and the cue ball. The eight was against one side, a few inches from a corner pocket, and the cue ball was all the way at the other end of the table. Lots of felt to cover, but it was an easy shot, one Gillette had executed a thousand times. Hit the side of the table and the eight at the same time and the eight would roll straight into the corner pocket. Game over, pay me five grand.

He leaned over the table, and lined up the shot, drawing the stick smoothly back through his fingers, seconds from the win.

But suddenly he needed something more. He could feel it. Sinking the shot and taking the five grand wasn't going to do it for him. Not this time.

He hit down on the cue ball, shooting it across the table toward the eight with tremendous backspin. The eight slammed into the corner pocket, but the cue ball rolled back toward Gillette, toward the opposite corner pocket-and dropped in. Scratch. Game over, pay him him five grand. five grand.

The crowd erupted and Gillette glanced up at his opponent. There was a broad smile on the man's face.

"Five grand," the man demanded over the din, sauntering toward Gillette. "Fork it up, rich boy."

"Double or nothing," Gillette offered.

"No way. I want five grand, and I want it now."

Gillette glanced around. If he couldn't convince the man to play again, things were going to get bad. A few of the man's friends were in the crowd, guys who looked like they might enjoy beating up a Manhattan punk dressed in expensive clothes.

Gillette's eyes flicked to the gate, who was fidgeting, nervous that he'd misjudged the rich boy's ability to produce the dough and might end up having the s.h.i.t kicked out of him, too. Gillette looked back at his opponent, feeling a rush in his head and chest. He'd put himself in a terrible jam-and it felt awesome.

"How about I give you two-to-one odds on ten grand?" Gillette suggested.

The man gave Gillette a curious look. "What do you mean?"

"If you win, I pay you twenty grand. If I win, I get ten grand. Netted against the five I just lost, you'd only owe me five if I win. Five to win twenty. That's a d.a.m.n good deal." He could see he'd gotten the man's attention.

"Four-to-one."

People were so d.a.m.n predictable when it came to money. "No. Two on ten. That's it."

"Let me see the money."

Gillette pointed at the man's friends. "You really think I'd risk getting into it with them?"

"People don't usually carry that much cash around. I want to see it."

"They do if they want to play big stakes pool in this place," Gillette said calmly, "and live." He could see the gears in the man's head spinning as he tried to figure out what to do.

Thirty minutes later Gillette walked out of the pool hall onto 134th Street, five thousand dollars richer and very satisfied. As he emerged onto the sidewalk, he stopped and handed five hundred dollars to a woman pushing a baby carriage. Her eyes widened when she saw how much it was. Gillette simply nodded, then moved toward the curb, glancing around for a cab. It wasn't going to be easy getting one up here. He might have to take the subway.

"Hey, you really thought you gave us the slip?"

Gillette spun around, startled. Relieved when he saw Quentin Stiles standing beside a black sedan parked twenty feet away.

Stiles walked up to Gillette deliberately and tapped him on the chest. "Don't ever do that again," he warned sternly. "You do and I drop this a.s.signment. Understand?"

Gillette nodded, suddenly feeling very safe. "Okay."

Stiles motioned toward the car. "Come on, let's go. I don't want you out on the street like this." He took a few steps and looked back over his shoulder. "By the way, nice playing in there. You might even give me a game."

15.

Infatuation. So powerful sometimes. Powerful enough to distract a man who prides himself on So powerful sometimes. Powerful enough to distract a man who prides himself on never never being distracted. being distracted.

"NO. I'M NOT GONNA LET you to go in there without me." Stiles stood between Gillette and the hotel room door, arms crossed defiantly over his maroon turtleneck and a sharp wool blazer.

"Quentin, it's all right. I'm telling you."

"I said no."

"She's harmless. There's no reason to be suspicious."

"I'm paid paid to be suspicious." to be suspicious."

"And I'm I'm the one paying you," Gillette reminded Stiles sternly. "You better let me go in there." the one paying you," Gillette reminded Stiles sternly. "You better let me go in there."

"You hired me to do a job, Christian. To protect you. I'll do that job as I see fit, no matter what."

"I could let you go."

"You mean fire me?"

"Sure."

"Fine," Stiles retorted.

Gillette glanced down the hall. A maid was picking up towels off a cart outside a room she was cleaning, trying hard to seem like she wasn't listening. "Gets you mad, huh?" He'd heard an edge in Stiles's voice, and he liked it. He wanted to see Stiles lose that signature cool.

"I don't get mad. Getting mad gets in the way."

"Okay. Then this won't get you mad. You're fired."

"Great. I'll alert the media. But I'm still not letting you in that room alone. Besides, Cohen already paid me for a month."

"I want my money back."

"No refunds. It's in the contract."

"You're making that up-"

"Page seven, paragraph two."

"Cohen would never have agreed to that."

"Well, he did."

Gillette gritted his teeth. "Quentin, I don't have time for this. I want to-"

Stiles put his hand on Gillette's shoulder. "Christian, my guy found a knife on her last night when she was outside your building."

"It was a steak knife, for Christ's sake."

"So what? That could do the job."

"No. That could be paranoia."

"We've been over this. You pay me to be paranoid."

"Quentin, listen. Isabelle wouldn't hurt anyone."