“You are the last person in the world I’d pick for this job, but The Man wants you, so it’s you. So you don’t fuck around and you don’t fuck up. Because if you do, I’m going to bust you up. I’m going to hurt you real bad. Got it?”

“Jesus, Ed,” said Graham.

“Got it?”

“You’re going to do this to me sometime, Ed, and I’m…”

Ed tightened his grip and laughed. “You’re going to do what, Neal? Huh? What are you going to do?”

Neal could barely breathe. He needed air-even Providence air. Levine could break him into little bits without breaking a sweat. The book said to hit Ed in the nose with the heel of his palm. The book wasn’t going to get killed.

So Neal did the best thing he could under the circumstances. He kept his mouth shut. After a few long seconds, Ed let him go and walked away. Graham rolled his eyes at Neal and hurried after Ed.

Neal slouched against the lockers and caught his breath. Then he shouted after Levine, “So, Ed! How’s the little woman?”

He watched as Graham nudged Levine through the door. Neal was getting tired of this shit-very tired.

4

At forty, ethan Kitteredge looked younger than Neal thought he would. A lock of ash blond hair fell over his forehead and the pale blue eyes that peered from behind his wire-rim glasses. He was about five ten, Neal guessed, and weighed maybe one seventy, one seventy-five. The body under the gray banker’s suit was trim: tennis or handball.

Then Neal quit playing Sherlock Holmes, because The Man was reaching out his hand and smiling.

“You must be Mr. Carey,” he said. His handshake was firm and quick: nothing to prove.

“And you’re Mr. Kitteredge.” Witty, Neal, he thought. Great first impression.