Yarrow was very good. He didn’t even flinch when I referred to the club at Blacksmith Farms.

“Well, as long as it’s quick,” he said, just reluctantly enough. “Grace, tell Senator Morehouse not to start without me. You all can go ahead. I’m fine with the detective. I’ll be right along. It’s okay, Grace.”

A few seconds later, the senator and I were alone, as much as you could be in a place like this. For all I knew, the three-story coffered dome over our heads carried sound everywhere and anywhere.

“So, which credit card are we talking about?” he asked, with a perfectly straight face.

I kept my voice low. “Senator, I’d like to ask you about the half-million-dollar transfers you’ve made to a certain overseas account in the past six months. Would you rather talk about this somewhere else?”

“You know what?” he said, as brightly as if he were being interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today show. “I just remembered a file I need for this meeting, and I already sent my aides on. Would you mind walking with me?”

Chapter 70

THE FIRST THING I noticed about Marshall Yarrow’s private office was how many pictures of himself he had mounted on the walls. There seemed to be a visual clique of “important” people he wanted to be seen with. There was one with the president and one with the vice president. Tiger Woods. Bono. Arnold and Maria. Bob Woodward. Robert Barnett. He was obviously a well-connected man, and he wanted everyone who walked into this office to know it right away.

Yarrow perched on the edge of a huge cherry inlaid desk and made a point of not asking me to sit down.

I’d known I was going to have to be aggressive at first, but now I wanted to back off and see what I could accomplish with a little tact. If Yarrow chose to put up a firewall, it would be hard to get around without subpoenas.

“Senator, let me start by taking any association you may have with that social club off the table. It’s not why I’m here,” I told him. That wasn’t entirely true, but it was good enough for the time being.

“I never said I was associated with any club,” he said. It was a balls-of-steel moment on his part, especially considering the sex acts I’d seen him performing on more than one of Nicholson’s tapes.

I didn’t push it. “Fair enough, but you should know that my focus here is extortion, not solicitation.”

“Please don’t push your way in here doling out some puzzle pieces and holding on to others, Detective,” Yarrow said, suddenly more aggressive. “I’m too smart and too busy a man for that. What exactly are you hoping to walk away with here?”

“Good question, and I have an answer. I want you to tell me that those bank transfers are exactly what I think they are.”

There was a long standoff; I guess he was waiting for me to blink.