The disappointments of my life had worn me down, not to mention that I was alone and lonely and had been both for far too long. Whatever optimism I had once held had been supplanted by a deep and gnawing resentment of everyone and everything. Then in that sad gray fall there finally arrived the chance for which I had been waiting. It was an opportunity rooted in murder, premised on betrayal, an opportunity that required the suspension of all I once held sacrosanct, but still there it was. And the only question was whether I was man enough to pay its price.

When I think back upon that season I see its inauguration in the apparitional appearance of the ruined Winston Osbourne, but from there it spun furiously out of control. It was the season of my opportunity, yes, but also a season of corruption, of treachery, a calamitous season of self-delusion and abnegation. Most of all it was a season of love, a sweat-soaked love that still leaves me gasping when I awake with a start in the middle of the night and remember. It was a season that promised my most desperate dreams and stroked my deepest fears.

It was fall in Philadelphia.

2

ONE LIBERTY PLACE was a huge granite and glass rocket that blasted beyond the staid and squared-off Philadelphia skyline until it lost itself in smoky autumnal skies, the highest, grandest, most prestigious building in the reviving City of Brotherly Love. Which explained why the law firm of Talbott, Kittredge and Chase had leased the fifty-fourth, fifty-fifth, and fifty-sixth floors for its offices even before construction was completed. Talbott, Kittredge and Chase was the city’s most entrenched law firm. It was the home of congressmen and mayors; it had yielded six judges to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and one to the Supreme Court. It was the dream of every law student who sought the brightest of the golden rings the law had to offer. Only the best was good enough for Talbott, Kittredge and Chase.



10 из 489