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her she might have to do a double check on Mr. Gorman, ask around, learn a little more about his lifestyle. Shotgun News did not go with the brocade draperies, the formal, traditional furniture, the huge Hudson Valley landscapes in the heavy gilt frames. Or did it? Maybe his mother had decorated the place. Maybe Chucky Gorman was hardline NRA, ready to defend his property against Communists, Cubans, Haitians or citizens of Miami in general; living thirty miles north might not be to him a safe enough distance.
    There was a phone with extension buttons—one of them lit—on the marble coffee table, no ashtray, no other magazines. Shotgun News was it.
    How about a nice MIA-E2 semiautomatic rifle with matching handguard, sling and bipod? Set it up on the table and get them coming over the rail of the fifteen-story balcony.
    It occurred to her, also, to move from the sofa. The sliding glass doors to the balcony were directly across the room, the draperies pulled back all the way, so that she faced sun-reflected sky flat on the glass, a west exposure. If Mr. Gorman sat across from her she wouldn’t be able to read his expression. But as Kyle waited and the sky paled, lost its fire, her mind changed with it.
    Why bother to move? To begin with, she was almost certain she was wasting her time, that she would not be able to relate to a grown man who went by the name “Chucky.” She could recall only one person in her whole life named Chucky and he was a little kid back in New York, a spoiled little pain in the ass, in fact; so there you were. The profile she had on this Chucky described a man:
    Thirty-two who looked at least forty. Originally from Georgia, a well-to-do family that milled cotton for generations, carried Chucky on a remittance for a time—he’d had some kind of mental problem—then cut him off, disowned him. It didn’t matter though, because Chucky did all right on his own: invested, bought real estate, belonged to a good club . . .  But what did he do exactly?
    Her friend Barry Stam, who was also a client and had indirectly arranged this meeting, said, “Ask him. See what he says.” Barry, with his put-on innocence, eyebrows raised. “I’ll be interested to hear your impression, what you think of him.”
    â€œDoes he have money? I mean a lot.”
    â€œWait and see,” Barry said, deadpan. “He’s an unusual type. Colorful, you might say.”
    She waited, all right . . .
    Almost a half hour before a door finally opened and there he was.
    As for Kyle’s instant impression—as Chucky came in with his shirt hanging out, wearing untied sneakers, baggy pants and a straw cowboy hat, grinning—she had to believe this Chucky wasn’t much older or much different than the other Chucky she had once known on East Thirty-first Street in New York. This one was a great deal larger and in his heart, beneath all that bulk, he could be a Shotgun News freak, a hardline conservative, an eccentric with Old South connections, but he sure wasn’t anyone’s image of a serious businessman.
    Look at that sweet young thing.
    Chucky believed he loved girls who were sweet and wholesome, without guile or wile, because he didn’t know any. But here was one right in his own living room. He felt alive.
    Then felt the cowboy hat perched on his thick crown and raised his eyes to make sure that’s what it was. He said to the sweet girl, “Whoops, you caught me playing.” He pulled off the hat as he walked back to the den, sailed it inside and slammed the door closed.
    â€œNow then . . .  So you’re Kyle McLaren.” Sounding like he couldn’t believe it. Which was true, though he gave the words more amazement than he actually felt. “I enjoyed the newsletters you sent. You write all that stuff in there?”
    She said, “Yes, it’s part of the service.” But seemed just a bit vague.