But how could she when his line was always busy?

“It’s Doug,” Nadia told her. “He must be on-line with that computer of his.”

She’d left the lab early and had been trying to contact Doug all day—and not just to invite him for dinner—but his line had been busy every time she called. He wasn’t answering his cell phone either, which meant he probably hadn’t turned it on. He often didn’t on weekends.

Or maybe Doug had lapsed into one of his programming fugues. Nadia had seen it happen before. He’d take the phone off the hook, bury it under a cushion, and start hitting the keys. Gradually he’d fade into a state of altered consciousness where he became one with his computer and nothing else existed beyond their union. It was spooky.

But why did he have to fugue out today of all days? She’d been in a blue funk ever since running the inert Berzerk through the imager this morning. Seeing that molecule floating before her had drained her enthusiasm for stabilizing it.

Oh, God! she thought, stiffening. I left the sample in the imager!

She’d been so shocked after recognizing the molecule…

She calmed herself. No one would be in the dry lab until Tuesday. She’d go back first thing tomorrow morning and clean up.

What she needed most now was to talk about this. Her mother might be good for any other topic, but not this one. Nadia needed Doug.

“Come, Nadjie,” her mother called. “Eat. You’ll feel better.”

Why not? she thought with a mental shrug. Not much else to do.

But when she sat down she realized she wasn’t hungry. As she picked at her food she noticed the beer and shot of Reischman’s sitting by her mother’s plate.

“Mom,” she said. “Would you mind pouring me one of those?”

6

Milos Dragovic gazed out upon the expanse of his grounds and was pleased. In less than forty-eight hours the army of laborers and craftsmen he had assembled had worked a miracle. And just in time. The final touches had been applied just minutes before the first guests arrived.

He watched them milling about the pool and clustering on the decks—the women mostly in black, the peacock men in coats of many colors. Quite a different crowd from Friday night’s. Sprinkled among the glitterati he’d shipped in from the city were a fair number of Hamptons society. Not all the crème de la crème had accepted his invitation, but more than enough to allow him to call the party a resounding success.

He smiled. To the uninformed, the acceptance rate to a party hosted by a high-profile gangster might have seemed surprisingly high. But not if Milos’s invitation strategy were known. He had investigated Hamptons society and divided the upper echelons into three groups. He then sent out his invitations in three waves, all mailed locally two days apart. When the first wave was received, he knew it would be chatted up in the social circles. He could just hear them: Did you know that boorish Dragovic fellow is having a party and he wants me to come? Can you imagine?