Judge Foote looked glum. "Oh I hope that that isn't so," she said, after a while. '1 hope that isn't true. And I hope if it is true that they don't decide to indict him. And if they do, then I hope they lose. Now I don't want you telling anybody else what I just said, but goddamn, I wish they wouldn't do that."

"Oh God, I'm sorry," Robey said, looking chagrined. "I didn't realize you knew the guy, were close to him."

"Oh I wasn't," she said quickly, silently chastising herself for having spoken impulsively and hoping not to have to tell more lies than she'd be able to remember. "Not the way you're thinking, at least. Keep in mind, Sandy: I can almost always tell what you're thinking. Shame on you." Robey looked sheepish.

"It was nothing you could really call "personal," she said, thinking:

It was more what you'd call sexual.

"I got to know him from when I was still married to Ray. Not happily married by then, anymore, but still, you know, under contract." For another eight or nine years or so, as a matter of fact -not that I let that stand in my way. "That racetrack deal I mentioned, "Seventy-two or so, early in "Seventy-three. One of the chores the Chief had me doing involved staying in touch making sure the local reps were up to speed on the project. Dan Hilliard naturally was one of them." Getting into bed with Dan Hilliard wasn't on the Chiefs specs; that was extracurricular.

"I saw him three or four times. Once I had to drive down to Boston, I recall." And a room in the Lenox Hotel. "And then the other times I went up to Holyoke, the huge second-floor office he used to have there.

Unless it was crowded, your voice echoed in it. I thought he was a very nice man, a thoroughly, truly, nice, man. I suppose I have to say he was charming." He's buying it, she thought, with a tincture of relief and shame. What they say is true, I guess: Once you get the hang of it, you never lose the touch. Very nicely done, girl, very nicely done.