“Yeah, well, I do charge for my services.”

“Of course. I can’t imagine you wouldn’t; it’s just that I’m only recently out of residency, and I just started this new job, and I was wondering…”

Jack hadn’t moved, but she sensed that he’d somehow receded.

“If I’d cut my price?” He shook his head. “I don’t haggle, especially when someone like Dragovic is involved. Sometimes I go on a contingency basis, but this isn’t that sort of job.”

Well, at least I tried, Nadia thought. “Ok, then, can I make time payments?”

He sat there staring at her for what felt to her like an eternity.

“Tell you what,” he said finally. “Someone else contacted me about a matter involving Mr. Dragovic—just last week as a matter of fact. If I can find a way to work the two of them together, I may be able to give you a break on the fee.”

“And if you can’t?”

He shrugged. “I don’t do time payments—a guy in my position has no legal means to go after a welsher. But since Alicia vouched for you, I’ll make an exception.”

Relief flooded her, “Then you’ll do it?”

“I’ll look into it; that’s all I promise.”

Nadia drew another envelope from her pocketbook and hesitated. Ten $100 bills crinkled within. A lot of money to hand to a man she’d met only moments ago. But despite his bland looks, she sensed a core of steely determination. All her instincts testified that he was the man.

“All right, then. Here’s a thousand as—what? A retainer?”

He smiled as he took the envelope and tucked it away without looking inside. “Retainer, down payment, whatever you like.”

“Don’t I get a receipt?”

Another smile as he shook his head. “No receipts, no written reports, no evidence that we’ve ever met.” He rose and extended his right hand across the desk. “It’s all right here.”

She took his hand.

“There’s our contract,” he said, still clasping her hand. “You trust me to do what I say I’ll do, I trust you to compensate me for it.”

“Trust,” she said softly. “What a concept.”

He released her hand and reached for the doorknob. “I’ll be in touch.”

And then he was gone and Nadia was alone, fighting a sudden wave of apprehension. Anyone watching her hand over a thousand dollars to a complete stranger would have thought her crazy. But money had nothing to do with her worry—although she had nothing in writing, Nadia sensed she had a contract etched in stone.

No, it was a gnawing uncertainty about what she just had set in motion and a premonition that it would end badly.

2

As Jack walked toward Park Avenue, looking for a cab uptown, he heard someone call to him.

“Yo, Jack!”

He turned and saw One-leg Lenny leaning against the wall of the Union Square Theater; he held his crutch in one hand and was rattling the change in the bottom of a Styrofoam cup with the other. His right leg stopped just below the knee.