The Kills

'A behemoth. Precisely. Do you know that when the Spanish-American War broke out, the government asked Morgan to turn over the Corsair to be converted into a gunboat, to blockade the Spanish at Santiago Harbor?'

I might not only get some scoops for Battaglia, but some trivia for Chapman. 'Did he get the yacht back?'

'No, he simply built a bigger one. Corsair III. Three hundred and four feet. Faster and stronger, more than six hundred tons and twenty-five hundred horsepower. 'You can do business with anyone,' Morgan liked to say, 'but you can only sail with a gentleman.' I look at what's happened in boardrooms across the country these last few years, and I have to admit that he wasn't wrong. Do you enjoy sailing, Alex?'

'I like anything on the water. I've got a house on the Vineyard,' I said, remembering Hoyt's reference to nearby Nantucket. I thought of Adam Nyman, and how, when we were engaged, he loved to take me out on his sloop. 'I used to sail quite a bit.'

'When this is all behind us,' Hoyt said, talking about the trial, 'I'll make it a point for Jenna to put a date together with you, on the islands. There are a few hurricanes kicking around in the Caribbean, so let's hope they blow past northeast without any damage.'

'Well, this is the season for them. Is there a model of your boat in here?'

Hoyt walked me to a point on the far wall, below an ornate balcony, and pointed at a black-hulled vessel that looked as though it would have put him back a couple of million.

'The Pirate?' I asked. Not a very original name, but an exact translation of corsair.

'J. P. Morgan's my personal hero.'

'A robber baron as role model. Is that the part of him you admire?' I asked, with a smile.

'No, no. The greatest collector of all times. That's what I love about the man. One of those passions you either have or you don't understand.'

'I've got a similar taste for rare books-just a different budget.' The Pierpont Morgan Library housed one of the most exquisite collections in the world.

'He had brilliant accumulations of paintings and sculptures, manuscripts, Steinway pianos, Limoges enamels, Chinese porcelains, snuffboxes, Gothic ivories. Imagine being able to indulge every one of your fantasies.'

'And yours?' I asked. 'What do you like to collect?'

'Several things. Pretty eclectic. Contemporary art, watches, medieval prints, stamps. Nothing out of my range. I imagine, when you're ready to leave the district attorney's office, that half the law firms in the city will be clamoring to take you on board, and pay you what you deserve to be earning. How do you manage to keep up a house on the Vineyard on a prosecutor's salary?'

'I get a lot of help from my family,' I said. His question put me in my place. I hated being asked that kind of thing, and knew what great good fortune it was that my father's invention had provided me with such extraordinary rewards. I had been on the verge of questioning Graham Hoyt about how he'd amassed the money for such high living from a couple of lucky investments and the ordinary practice of law, but now-on the defensive-I thought better of it.

'Well, I don't know how Battaglia continues to attract the best and the brightest. My father used to say, 'Pay people peanuts, you get monkeys to work for you.''

I swallowed the urge to respond to his backhanded compliment. The young lawyers with whom I worked shoulder to shoulder every day had chosen public service as a career path, as I had, out of a desire to give back to society. Their starting salaries were less than one-quarter of the money that associates going to corporate law firms were paid, and the only bonus they received was the psychic satisfaction of their work. They didn't need yachts or art collections to make them happy.

I stopped beneath the oil painting of a tall black-skinned man in a loincloth, carrying a long staff with the flag of the New York Yacht Club aloft. I doubted he was a member.

'The Nubian?' Hoyt asked.

'It's a curious sight.'

'It was James Gordon Bennett-you know, the publisher of the New York Herald -who paid for one of his reporters, Henry Stanley, to go to Africa and find the great Dr. Livingstone, who'd been missing for months. Bennett was our commodore, of course, back then, in the 1870s. When Stanley rode out of the jungle on the back of a mule, this fellow emerged first, carrying our club burgee. Quite a crew of intrepid sportsmen.'

'A lot of history in here,' I said, scanning the portraits and plaques stretching from floor to ceiling. 'Thanks for suggesting we meet. Do I have to worry about Peter Robelon being indicted before I finish my case? The last thing I need, after all this, is a mistrial because we lost the defense attorney.'

'Not a chance. They're just in the early stages of gathering all the information and building a case.'

'Is there anything I can offer to Paul Battaglia as an olive branch? He'd love me to get rid of the Tripping case,' I said.

'You mean something that his own Jack Kliger doesn't know about Peter Robelon yet?' Hoyt asked.

'That would be a good place to start.'

He put both hands in his pants pockets and shuffled his coins. I smiled at him and assured him that anything he told me could only help soften Battaglia to back me on any decisions that had to be made.

'Remember what happened with ImClone a few years back? Sam Waksal started dumping the stock when he got word that the FDA was not going to approve the drug the company was testing.'

'Sure. Classic insider trading. Even his father and daughter were involved, not to mention catching up Martha Stewart in the whole thing.'

'Tell your boss that Robelon's been drawn in by the same kind of net. The SEC's computerized alert system picked up his brother's company on the radar screen. Small business that normally traded five hundred thousand shares was spiking to three million a day. Peter's cell phone was more active than the One Hundred and First Airborne during a shock-and-awe campaign.'

'And Jack Kliger knows…?'

'He's only aware of the tip of the iceberg, Alex,' Hoyt said, cutting me off as he sensed my instinct to press further. 'I'll call you Monday morning, before you head up to court.'

I turned left on Forty-fourth Street and walked up Fifth Avenue. It was a spectacular fall afternoon, but despite the clear skies and mild temperature, I made a mental note to call my Vineyard caretaker and remind him to batten down the house. If the prediction of approaching hurricanes Hoyt had mentioned was accurate, I'd be glad I did it.

By four-thirty I was comfortably settled into the chair at my hair salon, so that my friend Elsa could refresh my blonde highlights and Nana could give me an elegant 'do' for tonight's theater date.

There were no messages on the machine when I got home at half past six, no update from anyone. Jake came in from a late-afternoon run in the park shortly after I arrived.

'Is there a plan?' he asked.

'We're meeting Joan and Jim at the theater, just before eight. Would you be sure to take the tickets?' I said, pointing to the dresser, as I pulled a black silk sheath out of my closet and began to dress. 'Dinner after the play, at '21.' Can you hold out?'

'Yeah. I went into the office to research a story. Grabbed some lunch while I was there.'

We took a cab to the Barrymore Theater, where our friends were waiting below the marquee. Ralph Fiennes was starring in Othello, and the reviews from London's West End had been smashing. We settled into our seats, and Joan and I caught up on gossip until the lights dimmed and the curtain rose. I had turned my beeper to the vibrate mode and put it in my evening bag on my lap so that I could slip out of my aisle seat in case anyone tried to communicate with me about Dulles in the next few hours.

At the intermission after the second act, the four of us stretched our legs and went to the lobby for a drink. When we reached the bar, I saw Mike Chapman standing against one of the pillars, cocktail in hand, flipping through the Playbill.

There had been so much tension with Jake lately that I hoped Mike had only chosen to interrupt one of our few social evenings for good news about the missing child. Jake followed me over to where Mike was standing, and I tried not to show my disappointment at his arrival.