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rest of my life.”
    “Come on, babe.”
    Her laugh said: Nice try. But he wasn’t pardoned for the “honey” glitch.
    “Well, you mind if I come over and just pick up something?”
    “Pick up something?” Carmen asked.
    “A pair of slacks.”
    “You mean, you called me just now because you wanted to pick up some laundry?”
    “No, no, babe. I wanted to see you. I really did. I just spilled some coffee on my slacks. While we were talking.”
    “Gotta go, Charlie.”
    “Babe—”
    Click.
    Damn.
    Mondays, Monroe was thinking. I hate Mondays.
    He called directory assistance and asked for the number of a jewelry store near Carmen’s office. He charged a five-hundred-dollar pair of diamond earrings and arranged to have them delivered to her as soon as possible.The note he dictated read, “To my grade-A lover: A little something to go with your tuna salad. Charlie.”
    Eyes out the window. The train was close to the city now. The big mansions and the little wannabe mansions had given way to row houses and squat bungalows painted in hopeful pastels. Blue and red plastic toys and parts of toys sat in the balding backyards. A heavyset woman hanging laundry paused and, frowning, watched the train speed past as if she were watching an air show disaster clip on CNN.
    He made another call.
    “Let me speak to Hank Shapiro.”
    A moment later a gruff voice came on the line. “Yeah?”
    “Hey, Hank. It’s Charlie. Monroe.”
    “Charlie, how the hell’re we coming with our project?”
    Monroe wasn’t expecting the question quite this soon in the conversation. “Great,” he said after a moment. “We’re doing great.”
    “But?”
    “But what?”
    Shapiro said, “It sounds like you’re trying to tell me something.”
    “No . . . . It’s just things’re going a little slower than I thought. I wanted to—”
    “Slower?” Shapiro asked.
    “They’re putting some of the information on a new computer system. It’s a little harder to find than it used to be.” He tried to joke, “You know, those old-style floppy disks? They called them file folders?”
    Shapiro barked, “I’m hearing ‘little slower.’ I’m hearing‘little harder.’ That’s not my problem. I need that information and I need it soon.”
    The morning’s irritations caught up with Monroe and he whispered fiercely, “Listen, Hank, I’ve been at Johnson, Levine for years. Nobody has the insider information I do except Foxworth himself. So just back off, okay? I’ll get you what I promised.”
    Shapiro sighed. After a moment he asked, “You’re sure he doesn’t have any idea?”
    “Who, Foxworth? He’s completely in the dark.”
    A fast, irritating image of his boss flickered in Monroe’s thoughts. Todd Foxworth was a large, quirky man. He’d built a huge ad agency from a small graphic design firm in SoHo. Monroe was a senior account executive and vice president. He’d risen about as far as he could in the company doing account work but Foxworth had resisted Monroe’s repeated suggestions that the agency create a special title for him. Tension sat between the men like a rotting plum and over the past year Monroe had come to believe that Foxworth was persecuting him—continually complaining about his expense account, his sloppy record keeping, his unexplained absences from the office. Finally, when he’d gotten only a seven percent raise after his annual review, Monroe’d decided to retaliate. He’d gone to Hunter, Shapiro, Stein & Arthur and offered to sell them insider client information. The idea troubled him at first but then he figured it was just another way of collecting the twenty percent raise that he thought he was due.
    Shapiro said, “I can’t wait much longer, Charlie. I don’t see something soon, I may have to cut bait.”
    Crazy wives, rude commuters . . . Now this. Jesus. What a morning.
    “This info’ll be grade-A gold, Hank.”
    “Better be. I sure as hell am paying for gold.”
    “I’ll have