He combed through her hair with his fingers. "All right." He held her a while longer, then let her go. "Do you want anything? A drink?"

"Some coffee, if you have any."

He put water on the stove and ground a handful of beans, watching her over the breakfast bar. "What I can't understand," he said, "is why I can't get anything from these people's minds."

"You don't think I'm making all this up?"

"I know you're not," Fortunato said. "I could tell if you were lying."

She shook her head. "You take a lot of getting used to."

"Some things are more important than social niceties." The water boiled. Fortunato made two cups and took them to the couch.

"If they're as big as you think they are," Eileen said, "they're bound to have aces working with them. Somebody who could set up blocks for them, blocks against other people with mental powers."

"I guess."

She drank a little of the coffee. "I met Balsam this afternoon. We all got together at the bookstore."

"What's he like?"

"Smooth. He looked like a banker or something. Threepiece suit, glasses. But tanned, like he plays a lot of tennis on weekends."

"What did he say?"

"They finally mentioned the word `Mason.' Like it was the last test, to see if it would freak me out. Then Balsam gave me a history lesson. How the Scottish and York Rite Masons were just offshoots of the Speculative Masons, and that they only went back to the eighteenth century."

Fortunato nodded. "That's all true."

"Then he started talking about Solomon, and how the architect of his temple was actually an Egyptian. That Masonry started with Solomon, and all the other rites had lost the original meaning. But they say they've still got it. Just like you figured."

"I have to go with you tonight."

"There's no way you could get in. Not even if you disguised yourself. They'd know you.",