The van pulled around a small building and we followed, and cruised along a path between two runways, with several more spread out around us, the pale bulbs of their lights glistening in the morning dew. I saw cargo planes and sleek jets and small white puddle-jumpers, fuel trucks and two idling ambulances, a parked fire engine, three other limousines. It was as if we’d entered into a formerly hidden world, which reeked of power and influence and lives so important they couldn’t be bothered with normal modes of transport or something so banal as a schedule designed by others. We were in a world where a first-class seat on a commercial airliner was considered second-class, and the true corridors of power lay before us dotted with landing lights.

I guessed which was Trevor Stone’s jet before we pulled to a stop in front of it. It stood out even in the company of Cessnas and Lears. It was a white Gulfstream with the thin slanted beak of the Concorde, a body as streamlined as a bullet, wings tucked tight against the hull, a tail the shape of a dorsal fin. A mean-looking machine, a white hawk in holding pattern.

We took our bags from the limousine and another Precision employee took them from our hands and placed them in the luggage compartment by the tail.

I said to Lurch, “What’s a jet like this run—about seven million?”

He chuckled.

“He’s amused,” I said to Angie.

“Busting a gut,” she said.

“I believe Mr. Stone paid twenty-six million for this Gulfstream.”

He said “this” Gulfstream, as if there were a couple more back in the garage in Marblehead.

“Twenty-six.” I nudged Angie. “Bet the salesman was asking twenty-eight, but they talked him down.”

On board, we met Captain Jimmy McCann and his copilot, Herb. They were a jolly pair, big smiles and bushy eyebrows raised behind mirrored glasses. They assured us we were in good hands, don’t you worry, haven’t crashed one in months, ha ha ha. Pilot humor. The best. Can’t get enough of it.

We left them to play with their dials and their torques and think up amusing ways to make us lose bowel control and whimper, and we headed back into the main compartment.

It, too, seemed bigger than my apartment, but maybe I was just star-struck.

There was a bar, a piano, three single beds in the rear. The bathroom had a shower in it. Plush lavender carpeting covered the floor. Six leather seats were spread out along the right and left side and two of them had cherrywood tables riveted to the floor in front of them. Each seat reclined like a BarcaLounger.