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hot, then as cold as he could stand it—pelted him awake. He toweled off briskly in the gold-and-gray splendor of his bedroom, then lifted the phone to check for messages at the desk. None. His agent hadn’t caught up with him yet. Maybe he’d finally brought on old Harry’s long-overdue cardiac arrest. Walking out of a play the day before opening … He wondered what sort of tales his departure would breed. Spraggue? The rich bastard? Oh, yes. Terminally jealous of the lead actor. Couldn’t get his lines. An alcoholic, you know. So sad. Not to mention the cocaine …
    He turned that portion of his mind off, tumbled the contents of his duffel bag on the football-field-sized bed. After yanking on a pair of faded jeans, he draped a towel around his bare shoulders and rubbed a hand across a rough jaw. He tried to remember whether he’d shaved during the morning brouhaha of phone calls, abandonments, airplanes.
    Shaved.
    He entered Mary’s study still rubbing his dripping hair with a towel, half-blinded, but awake. “Hi.” He bent and kissed her on the cheek. “Want to start over?”
    â€œYou smell marvelous,” Mary said. “Did you have a nice flight in?”
    â€œAwful.”
    â€œYou should have let me send the Learjet.”
    â€œNo,” Spraggue said. “Thanks, but no.” He didn’t live in the goddamned mansion and he wasn’t going to use the goddamned Learjet. His mouth twitched. The commercial flight, late leaving Boston, fogbound in Pittsburgh, had been almost enough to shake his independence. That, and his sinking bank balance. Hollywood hadn’t called lately.
    Mary smoothly changed the subject. “They have a trout Marguery on the menu that Dora says is quite nice.”
    â€œShe’s out?”
    â€œNo, dear. Mr. Jackson, the attorney, is doing all he can, but he wanted to wait for another judge, one who’s a trifle less law-and-ordery. Dora mentioned Denise’s trout prior to her—uh, incarceration. I ordered two of them and they should be up soon.”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œAnd a bottle of Sauvignon blanc. Possibly I should have made it two bottles.”
    â€œPossibly,” Spraggue agreed.
    â€œIt’s bad, isn’t it?” Mary said softly.
    â€œI just blew my career, and hired a cabbie to sign me up for hoodoo lessons.”
    â€œYou know what I mean, Michael. Dora.”
    â€œYeah.” Spraggue flopped down on the sofa and closed his eyes.
    â€œSo what do you think?” Mary asked. When her nephew didn’t answer, she leaned over and placed a thick manila folder on his chest.
    Spraggue groaned, but he sat up and thumbed through it with increasing speed. It was stuffed with photographs, newspaper articles, glossy magazine spreads, all tracing the career of Joseph Fontenot.
    â€œAunt Mary,” Spraggue said, “I thought you slept.”
    â€œI did,” she said. “But first I made a few phone calls. You remember Joanna, the financial writer at the Globe? Well, she has a colleague at the Times-Picayune . And Pierce came down from Boston.”
    That explained everything. Pierce, Mary’s butler, bridge partner, and chief game opponent, was a wonder, a wizard of organization.
    Spraggue pulled a five-by-eight glossy out of the folder. Joe Fontenot had a sleek, rounded face, camouflaged by heavy glasses and a bushy mustache. His weight had smoothed out the age wrinkles and left plump blandness in its place. His ears were tiny, delicate. The collar of his dinner jacket almost touched them, the man had so little in the way of a neck.
    â€œDarling,” Mary said, folding her hands in her lap, “I’m your assistant, as well as your client.”
    Spraggue read the first paragraph of an article headlined CAJUN FOOD GOES HAUTE CUISINE . “Mary,” he said, “you ought to go into the business yourself.”
    â€œI wish you’d go back to