"Shit."

  Down by the house, Jessica Coder shielded her eyes against their headlights. She looked small in her rumpled suit. Her hair was in a tangle, as if she'd been driving with the window down.

  "Can I help you?" she said, glaring at them as they climbed out of the Crown Vic.

  "FBI, ma'am," Dorothy said, flipping open her badge.

  "We need to talk to you," Amanda said.

  "My husband is coming," Jessica said.

  "Can we come in?"

  "Is it about his accident?" Jessica said.

  "We should probably sit down," Amanda said.

  Jessica looked toward her house, then studied the two women for a moment before she said, "Sure."

  The front door was unlocked and they followed Jessica inside. A young woman appeared and with a Russian accent said she'd put the boy to bed. Jessica took money from her purse and put it into the woman's hand before she slipped out the door with a sideways glance. Jessica led them into a room that was almost as big as Amanda's entire house. A tall span of windows overlooked the long dark lake. A band of moonlight glowed across its width, and random specks of light winked from homes up and down the thick black hillsides bordering the long stretch of water. Amanda smelled the musky scent of fresh lilies. There was a tall vase of them resting in the middle of a coffee table. Amanda and Dorothy sat on the couch, and Jessica sat in a leather chair with her hands gripping the armrests and her feet curled up underneath her. She was a pretty woman, almost girlish except for the small creases at the corners of eyes whose sharpness put Amanda on guard.

  "So?" she asked in a voice as small as her figure.

  Amanda heard Dorothy snort.

  "Mrs. Coder," she said. "Remember Al Capone?"

  "I guess."

  Amanda rolled her eyes and cleared her throat, but Dorothy wasn't stopping.

  "A crime boss. A murdering monster," she said. "You know what he went to jail for? Taxes. That's a big thing in this country. You cheat Uncle Sam, you end up in stripes. Two years in federal prison. That's what you're looking at.

  "Both of you."

  17

  "So," the shrink says, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands over his stomach, "what did they want?"

  "To screw me over."

  "Deep down."

  "The one probably wanted to be a man."

  "Or?"

  "Castrate her father? Isn't that the other Freud thing?"

  "What else do men have? In law enforcement that women might not?"

  I think about that for a minute in a serious way before I say, "Respect, I guess."

  "Hmm."

  "Wow. I'm cured."

  He almost smiles, but gets it under control right away and in that rumbling voice says, "There are different ways to get respect. Someone does a good job. Maybe they got money or power or fame, but it's all about self-worth. We define who we are in the context of our own reality."

  "Deep," I say, wondering what textbook that line came out of.

  "Women want respect," he says. "We all do. Your wife did, right? Isn't material wealth just another way to gain respect? Especially in our world. Conflict, stress, mental disorder come when you do something you don't respect to get respect . . . like a snake eating its tail."

  "You lost me," I say.

  "I don't think I did," he says. "But back to you. The night James told you the company was going public."

  "After what she said about me not wanting her to be pregnant, I stopped talking too," I say. "We just went back and started packing our things. I took the bags down the back stairs and loaded up our cars in the dark. When I went to shut the door, Eva King was standing there, apologizing for the ruckus, and telling me we should stay.

  "I told her Jessica wasn't feeling well, which was pretty much the truth. Eva told me she knew how hard I worked and that it would all turn out okay.

  "She knew James worked me like a dog. There you go, I did it again. Anyway, she knew about what happened--or what didn't happen--to me with football. She knew what I wanted.

  "And, she knew the whole president thing was like shooting ducks on their way back to the barn. A setup."

  "So you left," he says.

  "Yes," I say. "Out of the pan and into the fire, and if I didn't stop to talk to Eva, or if I'd driven a little faster, I might not be sitting here right now."

  "How is that?" he asks.

  I shrug and say, "We drove separate cars to Cascade, remember? What if I kept up with Jessica on the ride home? If I'd pulled in right behind her, then I'd have been there to greet them and maybe those two witches wouldn't have backed her into a corner. She was smart, but she never had anything like that happen before.

  "I'd seen that kind of stuff. We had a partner out in Boston try to lay some fraud crap on James a few years back, got the FBI involved. I guarantee you the minute I heard them talk about jail I would have stopped it and called my lawyer. Then maybe Jessica wouldn't have gotten the whole crazy idea into her head, cutting a deal with the union."

  "Didn't you say she mentioned that before?"

  "Mentioned," I say, "but this pushed her right over the edge. I think she figured if they were going to treat her like a criminal, she might as well get something out of it."

  18

  I ALMOST CAUGHT UP TO HER. There was a back way to get home that's a little quicker. The thing about the shortcut though is the twists and turns and the high spots. There's one on Depot Road over by County Line that when you come off it you feel that light-headed rush and the heavy brick that drops in your gut. Right after it there's a hairpin turn and that's where I lost control. I was fine and the car only had a few scratches, but I sat there for a minute, breathing and thinking that it was the second time in two days. I sat too long.

  By the time I got there, that dark blue Crown Vic was already sitting there, empty in the driveway right beside the Mercedes with its engine ticking. I bolted inside, thinking maybe they'd waited for me, but Jessica was already sitting there in the living room, swiveling gently back and forth in one of those heavy leather captain's chairs. Her hands were splayed out on those thick leather armrests with the tips of her fingers dug in. Her back was to the fireplace, facing those two FBI witches. They were sitting on the couch with their hands on their knees and their eyebrows knit tight. Jessica was smiling at them, and simpering.

  But deep in her eyes was an acid burning I doubt they noticed. My stomach turned, and they all stopped talking and looked at me.

  All I could do was stand there with my hands hanging heavy at my sides, knowing that whatever I said, it was already too late. Jessica had some kind of a plan. I'd seen that look.

  "We'll do whatever you need," she said, nodding to them and me at the same time. I sat down on the ottoman next to her chair and held one of her hands. She covered my hand with her other one, patting it gently, soothing me.

  "What are we doing?" I asked, looking from her to them.

  "Mr. Coder," Dorothy said. "Two years ago, you were paid just over two million dollars by King Corp. You used the money to cover your bets in the stock market. Unfortunately, you never paid taxes on the two million dollars."

  "I know that," I said. A seashell sound started humming in my ears. "Those were capital losses in the market. The money was a priority distribution for the leases on the Cumberland Mall. That's rental income. It's passive."

  "No," Amanda said, shaking her head slow and almost sad, "it's not, Mr. Coder. We all know it's not."

  "My accountant said it was," I said. I was fighting that drifting feeling again. Jessica squeezed my fingers so hard their bones ached.

  "I signed them too," she said.

  "A joint return," Dorothy said, a smile sneaking onto her yellow face.

  "Tax fraud for something this big, you're looking at two years, Mr. Coder," Amanda said, pinching her lips.

  "Remember Al Capone?" Dorothy said. "I told your wife, eleven years in Alcatraz for the same damn thing."

  "Look, we can help you," Amanda said. "We just need you to help us too."

  Jessica let up and I felt the blood flooding back into my fingers. They tingled.

  "We appreciate it," Jessica said, stroking my hand.

  I did a double-take, and despite that look in her eye, I stared at her as I spoke and said, "I think we should talk to John."

  John Langan was King Corp's lawyer.

  "No," Jessica said, her voice was gentle, but she crushed my fingers in the web of her hand, "we shouldn't. They're trying to help us."

  She was breathing heavy. Shaking. Willing me to shut up.

  I looked at the big window that looked out over the water. Through the ghost of my own reflection I saw the night clouds drifting, their fringes lit by the moon they hid, and the dead black of the earth below. The lake might have been a tar pit, the kind that lured dinosaurs to their death, promising a drink.

  "We'll do whatever you need," Jessica said to the agents. "We will."

  "All right," I said.

  "We'd like you to set up a meeting with Johnny G," Amanda said. Her red hair reflected the yellow light of the room. "To talk about the upcoming contracts for the mall."

  "Plumbing, electric, Sheetrock," Dorothy said. "If you give him a whiff, he'll be on it like a crow."

  "What about James?" I asked.

  "No one else should know," Amanda said, nodding now and smiling, the lines gone from her face.

  "You won't go through with the deals, just get him into play. If we need James King, we'll talk to him. Meantime, we'll be watching everything. You'll be safe."

  "Like Milo?" I said.

  "Milo was working for them. You'll be working for us."

  "The good guys," Dorothy said, flashing a fake smile on and off. "In case you're confused."

  Amanda stood up and said they'd be in touch, and that we'd clearly made the right decision. We all walked into the foyer, newfound friends saying good-bye.

  When they left, Jessica shut the door and gave me that funny grin she has with one eyebrow lifting just a bit higher than the other.

  "That was not you," I said.

  "No? What's me?"

  "Why wouldn't we call John? That's what you do when things like this happen. You never just . . . just roll over."

  "Is that what I did?" she said, laughing and heading for the kitchen. I followed.

  "What are you doing?" I asked, turning toward her.

  "Making Tommy's lunch," she said, taking bread, mayo, and a container of boiled chicken out of the refrigerator and setting it on the countertop. "He's been asking for my chicken salad for three days."

  I sat down on one of the stools on the opposite side of the counter, my back to the windows now, and put my elbow on the countertop, resting my head on my hand.

  "Cheer up," she said, dumping chunks of chicken onto a wood cutting board and chopping them up with a cleaver. "They just gave us a license to steal."

  "Steal what?" I said, my mouth hanging open, my head coming up off my hand.

  "The FBI told you to cut a deal with Johnny G, right?" she said, chopping.

  "Yeah, so they can arrest him. You know what happens to people who do this kind of stuff? They change their name and move to Utah."

  "They must not play the middle then," she said, taking a carrot from the fridge and shaving it onto the board.

  "How's that?" I asked.

  "The FBI," she said. "They're like lamprey eels. They bore into your flesh and keep you bleeding. You either fill them up and they fall off, or they kill you. So we've got to fill them up."

  "Your creepy biology."

  "You'll give them meetings with Johnny G," she said, scraping the pulverized chicken and carrots into a bowl and adding a dollop of mayo. "You'll wear their wires until they can't stand it anymore. Hours and hours of talk."

  "And when Johnny G finds out? I end up like Milo. Jessica, these people are fucking lunatics."

  "Only the talk is worthless. The union, they're businessmen too," she said, her eyes glimmering in the moonlight, her voice lowered as if someone might hear. She stopped stirring and started adding spices, a dash here, a shake there. "That's the middle. We'll cut a deal with Johnny G to push the work to the contractor he wants.

  "We'll tell him about the FBI," she said, starting to stir again, her pace quickening with the cadence of her words. "He makes things up, sends the FBI on a wild-goose chase. Then you steer the work to the contractors he cuts deals with and we get part of it. Cash on the side. If anything ever goes wrong, we're working for the FBI, right?"

  "You're confusing me," I said.

  "What we're doing or not doing for the FBI will be so muddled they'll never be able to prove a thing. The bottom line is this, we'll push the work to the people Johnny tells us and he'll pay us to do it. He feeds the FBI fake information when you're wearing your wire. It's perfect."

  "I just spent six months getting around this union," I said.

  "And getting nothing for it," she said, doling out the chicken salad onto some bread.

  "Think about what you're saying."

  "Who got you this far?" she said, wrapping the sandwich and sliding it into a brown paper bag. "This is a chance. Sometimes they come around and you have to take them. It's your turn. You can steer that work to the contractors we want, right?"

  "If it's not too obvious."

  "I'm sure Johnny G can get his contractors to give you bids that are reasonable. Pass me that cookie jar," she said.

  "What'd you make?" I asked, taking off the lid and smelling cinnamon.

  "Cinnamon oatmeal," she said, stuffing a handful of them into a Ziploc bag. "They do this stuff all the time and things get built down there. Skyscrapers like that Trump thing. King Corp can hire the unionbacked contractors and James never even has to know it. We get our cut. The FBI gets a bunch of worthless audiotapes and they can't say we didn't help."

  "You heard those agents. They'll be watching. Everything I do. Everything he does."

  "I know, honey," she said, adding a bag of chips and putting the finished lunch bag into the fridge before she leaned across the counter to kiss the tip of my nose.

  "Time for bed," she said. And then, "That's why the deal has to be done by someone they won't be watching."

  She smiled and said, "Me."

  19

  I look at the shrink, nodding my head.

  "What, like a double agent?" he says.

  "I told her a guy like Johnny G wasn't going to do business with a woman. You know, all that Italian mobster crap. She looked at me like I was sad.

  "She lined it up. Walked right into the union hall. Wouldn't leave until she could see Johnny G. Told him she was just the messenger. He probably bought it. For a little while, anyway. I doubt it took him too long, though, to figure out I had no say."

  "Back to your script? No choices."

  "That's right," I say.

  "Come on. Killing James King, you did that."

  "If someone holds a gun to your head and says, 'Shoot the guy that walks through that door or I'll shoot you,' and you do it, is that murder?"

  "You got to be accountable."

  "Who's accountable for that?"

  "Someone had a gun to your head?"

  "Goddamn right. They might as well have."

  I took off my suit coat and the shirt underneath and this technical geek stuck the wire to my bare skin. Those two witches stood there watching. I could smell my sweat. I felt a chill, crossed my arms, and put my hands up over my nipples. The redhead's face went pink and she looked down at the floor. The manly one just twisted her mouth up like she'd stepped in something. It was a hoot, really, walking into this little yellow house right off the interstate that they'd turned into a restaurant and seeing Johnny G sitting there in the back corner booth, his eyes shining like a cat's. He jumped right into it, talking nonsense about a big contractor that he wanted me to steer the work to, a contractor who I knew because they sponsored just about every charity fund-raiser you could think of. And the smile that Johnny G wore was laughing as much at us steering the government away from our own corruption as it was at gumming up the works for the honest and legitimate people working for the competition.

  I had already convinced James to bid out the entire job to a small list of qualified general contractors, arguing that time was money and with the slow season coming that we could get the benefits of one of the big boys without having to pay the usual premium you had to for one-stop shopping. Johnny G's real connection would be to one of the finalists, and their name would never come up in the conversation that was being taped by the FBI.

  I felt like I was watching a movie, sitting there eating caprise salad, fried squid, and manicotti in vodka sauce, grinning at a man I despised. Johnny G didn't make it easy either. He didn't just sit there, smiling like a normal person holding a handful of aces. He had this tick that I'd never noticed before. Every other minute, he'd lick the tip of his finger and touch it to the back of his neck and I found myself wishing like hell that he'd stop. But he never did, so the fun of sticking it to the FBI was watered down by having to conspire with a crooked guy who had a tick. I walked out of the restaurant feeling small, but things got better back at the cheesy motel where I met those witches and their geeky henchman. They were slapping each other high-fives over their big breakthrough. On top of the world. Better than the rest of us with their shiny badges and their government pensions waiting for them at the end of the game.

  "You don't look too happy," Rooks said after they'd calmed down.

  "I'm worried about my ass," I said, putting on a scowl and suppressing a silly grin. "You're not the one they'll be looking for when this comes out."

  "No one's gunning anyone down," the redhead said, looking at me with those big green eyes and some genuine concern.

  "Yeah, tell Milo," I said, wondering what would behoove anyone in their right mind to entrust their life to the FBI.