Serita shrugged. “So what does that mean?”

“The Pacific International Hotel is on the same street as the Peterson Group’s building,” Laura explained, her voice flat. “The call to the bank was placed from a hotel less than a block from where I had my meeting.”

Serita leaned back in the chair. She kicked her shoes off her feet and across the room. “This whole thing is getting kind of eerie, huh?”

Laura did not respond.

“I keep waiting for Twilight Zone music,” Serita said. “So what’s our next step? You gonna call T.C.?”

“Not yet,” Laura said.

“Why not?”

“Because I think he already suspects something.”

“What? How can that be?”

Laura shrugged. “He’s the professional, right? If I could figure it out, so could he.”

“So why not work together?” Serita suggested.

She shook her head. “I don’t think T.C. wants to find out what really happened . . . or he already has and doesn’t want me to know.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, girl.”

“I know. It’s just a feeling I can’t shake.”

“Well, I think you better shake it and talk to him.”

“Maybe later,” Laura said. “Right now, I think I’m going to take a shower and change.”

“Go ahead. I’ll change when you’re finished. Can I borrow that new white outfit of yours?”

“Sure. It’ll probably look better on you anyway.”

“It’s my ebony complexion.”

Laura smiled dully and headed into the bathroom. Serita waited for her friend to turn on the shower before picking up the phone and dialing.

“T.C.,” Serita said quietly, “I need to talk to you.”

STAN Baskin looked out the window at the Charles River. In many ways, the new apartment was nothing special. It consisted of one bedroom, a living room, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a terrace. As far as Stan was concerned, you could get rid of the bedroom, the living room, the bathroom. Just leave him the terrace. The view soothed him like a gentle touch. Though he and Gloria had moved in only a couple of days ago, Stan had already spent what seemed like countless blissful hours gazing at the Charles River. He watched the college couples stroll along her banks; he watched the crew boats from Harvard slice through her still waters. And at night, the Charles became a sparkling jewel of lights reflecting off of nearby buildings and onto her shiny, wet coat.

Usually, Gloria sat beside him and watched, too. But she never disturbed him when he was lost in his own thoughts. Gloria had an uncanny knack for knowing when he wanted to talk and when he just wanted to be left alone. Right now, she was at Svengali’s headquarters putting together a new marketing scheme for the teenage set. She would not be home for several hours yet.

Stan moved away from the window. He knew that he needed to find a job (or a good con) soon. The ten grand he had made from his part in the Deerfield Inn scam was running low. Shit, the B Man had made a nice little profit on that one. He got the fifty grand Stan owed him, plus ten grand interest and another twenty grand net profit minus whatever minuscule amount he paid that Neanderthal Bart.

Stan picked up the newspaper from the couch. He had a tip about a horse in the seventh race named Breeze’s Girl. The horse, his contact had assured him, could not lose. But somehow it did not feel right. Stan rarely, if ever, bet on a filly. Be they human or animal, females could not be depended upon to come through for you.

The clock read three o’clock. Gloria usually came home between six and seven. At least three more hours until she was back. Stan shook his head, wondering why he would be counting the hours until she returned. If he did not know himself better, he could swear that he sort of missed her. But of course that was impossible. Stan Baskin did not miss women. They missed him.

He moved back into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of orange juice. When he was a little kid, his mother had squeezed him fresh orange juice every morning because she knew how much he loved it. His poor old lady. She had ended up dying of cancer. What an awful fuckin’ disease, he thought. You’re either lucky enough to be in remission or you get to stay in bed and wait for the cancer to claim your life, wait as the disease eats away at you from within. Or worse, the doctors make you go through that chemotherapy shit. No way would I go put up with that, Stan thought. If I’m ever in her shoes, I’d go out and buy myself the biggest gun I could find and press it against my temple and pull the trigger.

Bam.

Dead. Quick and painless, just like what had happened to his dad—or so they all thought. Only Stan knew better.

Every morning Stan’s mother squeezed him fresh orange juice. “It’s good for you,” she would say. But Stan needed no encouragement to drink the pulpy liquid with the little seeds. He loved Grace Baskin’s fresh squeezed orange juice. But then his father died (was murdered) and all that changed. Stan had been only ten years old at the time—David not yet two.

The funeral had been jammed with thousands of people from the university: professors, deans, secretaries, students. All the neighbors were there, too. Stan stood quietly next to his mother. She wore black and cried into a white handkerchief.

“We have to think of David now, Stan,” she said to him as they lowered the casket into the ground. “We have to make up for the fact that he is going to grow up without a father. Do you understand?”

Stan nodded to his mother. But in truth, he did not understand. Why should David be the one to worry about? He had never even known their father. David had never played catch with their dad. He had never gone fishing or to museums or to ball parks or to movies or even to the dentist with him. Fact was, David wouldn’t even remember Sinclair Baskin.

Grace Baskin did not see it that way. Never did. She decided to put all her energies into raising her precious David. She chose to be two parents for her younger child, even if it left none for her older son.

But Stan didn’t care. Who needed her anyway? For that matter, who needed women? As he eventually learned, women were basically worthless and cruel. They could all be lumped into two basic groups: parasites who wanted to suck you dry, or ball-breaking bitches who used words like “love” and “togetherness” when all they wanted to do was possess and control and destroy.

Therein lay the beauty of Stan’s livelihood (or scams, as those who did not understand liked to call it). He simply turned the tables on the female sex. He used women the same way they used men. And for that, people wanted him to go to jail? How goddamn ridiculous! You talk about being equal and fair—why not arrest every gold-digging bitch who pretended she cared about a guy just to get his dough? Shit, there would be scarce few broads around then.