We were getting back to that. Kenny Rosenbaum, the perfectly adequate legal practitioner had laid out the case for why I needed Maddie’s money. It was interesting, and very perverse, that the idea of murder for money had made me come alive again and made it more likely that I’d actually do it. I was determined not to let that show. My fatalistic indifference and cantankerous reluctance seemed to work well with her.

“I didn’t tell you this before…because…it’s so humiliating…embarrassing. So horrible.”

“Go on.”

“He likes young girls.”

“Like six or seven?”

“No. More…after puberty…thirteen, fourteen…my daughter’s eleven and starting to develop, and the way he looks at her…”

My, how cynical I’ve become. Was she bringing up Jeffrey Epstein Syndrome, call it middle pedophilia, which comes between early pedophilia—sex with children before puberty—and late pedophilia—when many normal teens are sexually active but calendar-designated as being below the age of legal consent—because it was certain to come draped with adjectives like “horrible,” “heinous,” “odious,” and “abhorrent,” which the listener was required to echo, and we could all agree that it was bad, really, really bad, and it must be stopped.

Or was it a real concern?

I shook my head in sad agreement. I said, “Why not just report him to the police? Get a protection order. Keep him away from your daughter. And it will help with your divorce.”

“It’s not that simple,” she said.

It should have been. I wondered why it wasn’t.

“Talk to Liz,” she said. “Please. She admits she made a mistake. Talk to her.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said in my old-fashioned, stern, and manly way. Then I began walking back up the hill, doing my damnedest to disguise how hard it made me breathe.

CHAPTER TWELVE

LET US REASON TOGETHER

“Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.”

TIMOTHY LEARY

ELIZABETH BLOOM CARTER’S OPENING MOVE, after greetings and some this and that, had been to let me know that she knew about my problems with my property and the bank and exactly how much was involved. It didn’t need to be said that this business would fix all that. If I cared. She clearly thought I did—that anyone would—that I was desperate—and therefore she had me hooked. I left that alone. Neither confirmed nor denied.

“The one problem that must be solved,” I said, “is the back end.”

“We’re good for it,” Liz said. She sounded very certain and deeply sincere. “And we will pay.”

“You know Larry Beinhart?”

“I do. Well, actually, Maddie knows him better than I do. I only met him once, briefly.”

It was three o’clock in the afternoon. In Manhattan. She’d made the invitation. She’d picked the time. I’d picked the place. A nondescript hotel room.