After dinner, she told Max she didn't think she could do it, and they argued until 2 A.M.
"An ethical problem?" Max asked incredulously as he paced around her small living room. "Three years of planning, and now you have an eth-i-cal prob-lem." He dragged out the words, as if trying a strange new phrase in Tagalog or Punjabi.
"Yes, Max, I realize that's a foreign concept to you."
He stopped pacing long enough to absorb the insult, then ignored it. "Are you worried about being disbarred?"
"It would be one of the shortest legal careers in history," she said, ruefully. "I could go to jail, too."
"So that's it! You are afraid." He laughed, the told-you-so, condescending chuckle he used when the joke was on someone else. "I remember a time when you could walk, buck naked, into a party of drunken investment bankers and show no fear. You could control every man in the place with your wits and your poise, and now you're afraid of what, being subpoenaed by some two-bit G-twelve assistant attorney general who drives a Chevy?"
Vintage Max, measuring a man by his net worth.
"If he drove a Porsche," she said, "would he be more worthy of respect?"
Max glared at her, a black-eyed scowl that could terrorize a corporate VP or send a secretary home in tears. In the old days, Lisa was intimidated by him, too. Not anymore.
"What are you going to do, Max, fire me? Too late. I've got tenure. I know where the skeletons are buried."
"Not all of them," he said with a coldness that sent a shiver up her spine.
They stood looking at each other, Max Wanaker and Lisa Fremont, former lovers and current coconspirators. He was frowning, his gray mustache turning downward. He was handsome and dark-complexioned with salt-and-pepper hair swept back and moussed. A jogger and tennis player in his younger days, Max was starting to put on a little weight around the middle. Too many business dinners, too much booze.
She remembered the way he looked when they first met, ten years ago. Why did it seem like another lifetime? He had been thirty-nine, and she was seventeen.
Jesus, it was another lifetime.
She knew how much she had changed. But what was different about Max? Not . just his graying hair. In those days-before Atlantica-he was on his way up. Big dreams, boundless energy and optimism. He'd scratched and clawed until the dreams came true. So why was he so unhappy now? There was the crash of Flight 640 three years ago and the lawsuit, of course, but she knew there was more, and lately, Max wasn't talking.
She poured him another Scotch, hoping to mellow him out. "I went to the Court today, just to look around. Jesus, Max, you walk through these giant bronze doors with scenes of ancient Greece and Rome molded into them. Then there are marble statues and busts everywhere. Lady Justice, Moses, Confucius …"
"Confucius?" he said, puzzled.
"I went into the library. All hand-carved wood, giant arches, a quiet, peaceful place. It's almost holy, like a church or a cathedral."
"Exactly!" he agreed, smiling now. "That's what they want you to think. Like all those churches you hauled me to in Italy. Why do you think they built them like that? For the glory of God. Hell, no! They did it to scare the shit out of the peasants. You walk into a church, what's the first thing you do? You lower your voice, you whisper. Same thing in your fancy Court, right? The judges are the priests- they even dress like priests-and everyone else is a peasant. They want to scare you into thinking you're on hallowed ground, that they're doing sacred work. Hypocrites! They don't want you to know what they're doing under the robes."
Lisa walked to the window, looking past her balcony into Dumbarton Oaks Park and the creek beyond. Max had chosen the apartment, but unlike the old days, he wasn't paying for it. At least not on the books. Two years ago, when she was still in law school, he began erasing the paper trail-the canceled checks, airline passes, credit card receipts-that would link her to him. It was his idea that maybe one day she'd be able to help him in a way no one could know about. It sounded crazy at first, just as crazy as taking a money-losing air-freight forwarder with three aging jet props and turning it into Atlantica Airlines, poster child of deregulation and booming international air carrier … until the disastrous crash of Flight 640.
"You're very persuasive, Max," she said, at last. "You should have been a lawyer."
Max laughed. "No way, baby! That's why I spent a hundred grand on you."
"I don't think I'll get the job," she said, softly. "I think Justice Truitt will look at me and see I don't belong there."
Or is that what I want? The easy way out, sparing me the hassle of refusing to do Max's dirty work.
"That's where you're wrong. You belong anywhere you want to be. You're the most powerful woman I've ever known."
"I learned from you," she said.
"No! You had the power as a seventeen-year-old but didn't know it. All I did was mark the trail for you. You climbed it all by yourself." He studied her for a moment, and she averted her eyes, her shyness a childhood trait. He smiled. "Anyway, don't worry. The judge will take one look at you and want to adopt you."
"Max, he's
