“Maybe I should have.”

“Nah, you couldn’t have helped. A man has to find his own way.”

Myron wondered about that. He wondered about Alista Snow, whether earlier intervention with Gabriel Wire could have helped her out. He almost said that, but what would be the point?

“You keep wanting to fix things,” Lex said, “but the world has a certain ebb and flow. You screw with it, you just make it worse. It isn’t always your fight, Myron. Do you mind if I give you a quick example from, well, from your past?”

“I guess not,” Myron said, regretting the words the moment they passed his lips.

“When I first met you all those years ago, you had a serious girlfriend, right? Jessica something. The writer.”

The regret started taking shape and expanding.

“And something bad happened between you. I don’t know what. Here you were, what, twenty-four, twenty-five years old?”

“What’s your point, Lex?”

“I was a huge basketball fan, so I knew your whole story. First-round draft pick of the Boston Celtics. Supposed to be the next big superstar, all the planets aligned, and then, bam, you wreck your knee in a preseason game. Career over, just like that.”

Myron made a face. “Uh, your point?”

“Just listen a second, okay? So you go to Harvard Law and then you come down to Nick’s tennis camp to recruit these tennis players. You had no chance against the big guys like IMG and TruPro. I mean, who are you? You’re barely out of school. But you land Kitty, the top prospect, and then when she quits the game, you get Suzze. You know how you did that?”

“I really don’t see the relevance.”

“Just stay with me a moment. Do you know how?”

“I made a good pitch, I guess.”

“No. You landed them the same way you landed me when I heard you were branching out of sports. There’s a decency to you, Myron. A person senses it right away. Yeah, you give good meeting and let’s face it, having Win as your financial guy gives you a big head start. But what separates you is that we know you care. We know you’d rescue us if we were in trouble. We know you’d rather lose a limb than steal a nickel from us.”

“With all due respect,” Myron said, “I still don’t see your point.”

“So when Suzze calls you because we’ve had a tiff, you come running. That’s your job. You’re hired to do that. But unless a person is hired, well, I have a different philosophy: Things ripple.”

“Wow, can I jot that down?” Myron faked taking out a pen and scribbling. “Things . . . ripple. Great, got it.”

“Stop being a wiseass. What I’m saying is, people shouldn’t butt in, even with the best of intentions. It’s dangerous and an invasion. When you and Jessica had your big problem, would you have wanted all of us to try to butt in and help?”