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“Information about what?”

Howie winked. “White House insider stuff.”

“And you got it for her?”

“Don’t think it came easy,” Howie said, puffing out his chest. “It didn’t. I had to do some investigative work myself, tap in to my real hush-hush sources, but I found the creamy nougat center that Barrie’s after.”

“Must have made her happy.”

“She will be.”

“You haven’t told her yet?” The man’s eyes brightened and the mustache lifted in a grin. He cuffed Howie on the shoulder. “Ah, I get it. You’re holding out until you get something from her in return, huh?”

Howie chuckled. He had his new pal right where he wanted him, believing that he was a lady-killer, a man of the world, a force to be reckoned with, and nobody’s fool. “I’m seeing her later tonight. For what I’ve got to tell her, I think she’ll be willing to swap favors, don’t you?”

* * *

Tonight Barrie was driving a Volvo, stolen that afternoon from the parking lot of a medical complex. When she reached Howie’s building, she slowed to a crawl. “Where should I park?” she asked Gray.

“Down the block. Stop and let me out here. I’ll go up first.”

“Through the front door?”

“Last night’s theatrics intimidated him, so I feel safe in making a more straightforward approach tonight.”

“What if he couldn’t find out anything?”

“I’ll know if he’s lying. See you up there,” he said, stepping onto the pavement and closing the door.

“Be gentle,” she called, but he either didn’t hear her, or he chose to ignore her.

* * *

Howie’s courage was short-lived. Soon after he parted company with his new friend and left the bar, his anxiety returned. On the drive home, his palms became so slippery that he could barely keep them on the steering wheel.

Bondurant was going to kick his ass if he didn’t have something useful to report. And if he made something up and Bondurant found out, which he would surely do within a matter of hours, he’d probably come back and kill him. Either way, Howie was screwed. Unless he begged Barrie for mercy. She’d been pretty harsh last night, but he didn’t think she could stand by and let Bondurant shoot him in cold blood.

“No, she’d go into the other room so she wouldn’t lose her appetite,” he muttered as he parked in his designated spot at the rear of the building and took the stairs. With shaky hands he unlocked his door and swung it open. He hesitated, straining to hear the slightest sound. Finally, he stepped into his living room and closed the door behind him.

He was fairly certain that he was alone in the apartment and that nobody had entered it since he’d left that morning. Even so, he scurried through the small rooms, moving quickly from lamp to wall switch, flooding the place with bright light. He looked through his bedroom window at the fire escape, having determined that his callers last night had used it to get into and out of his apartment. There was no one on the metal stairs zigzagging down the side of the building.

He went to the kitchen. Nerves had turned the beer in his belly sour. He belched as he opened the refrigerator, looking for something to soak up the excess acid.

“This is nuts,” he muttered around a mouthful of cold spaghetti of indeterminate age.

He wasn’t a kid. He was a man. Yet he was creeping around his own home, scared of his own shadow. Ever since Barrie got this harebrained notion about the First Lady, Howie’s life hadn’t been worth shit. He’d had trouble at work, with Jenkins. Trouble in his leisure time, too. Ho

w could you cultivate a friendship when you were worried about a Marine recon making hash of your head? Now, the trouble had invaded his home.

Well, he was mad as hell and he wasn’t going to take it anymore!

As soon as Barrie arrived, he intended to—

There was a knock on his door.

Reflexively, his gut constricted.

Then his bravery reasserted itself, and he strode belligerently to the door and yanked it open, prepared to give Barrie and Bondurant a piece of his mind. But only one guest had come to call, and he was smiling.