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leaning back in his chair. “I’ve known him for eighteen years. Most of that time we were in business together. He was handsome, he had a good head for numbers, you couldn’t help but like Lee. But then he came to me before Diamond Valley’s collapse and asked me to buy twenty-five thousand dollars of mortgages.”
    They were worthless—Ackerman had mortgaged the same piece of land two or three times, thinking, perhaps, that it didn’t matter, that since the time payments were so small, no one was ever going to take title anyway. But half of the mortgages weren’t even current. Rich had lost the whole $25,000.
    Ed ran his hand over his knee, looking down, assessing the story because it didn’t jibe with what he thought he knew. Dave Rich had been one of his clients for the past several years. It was only this week that he had learned of his connection to Ned Warren. He was trying to remember a series of newspaper stories from the year before—1967—about Warren and Ackerman, the kind of thing you skimmed if you read it at all, letting the photos and their captions do most of the work: “Lee J. Ackerman, Politician, Investor,” “Nathan J. Warren, Two Prison Terms.” It was the kind of story that left a strong but blunt impression, enough to muster an opinion about if it came up in conversation but not enough to support that opinion. He remembered there were some fraudulent deals. Selling land in a bar, phony sales. He remembered something about Warren’s prison record. He’d been in Sing Sing. Ed remembered that.
    “Ned was into all kinds of rackets,” Rich said, breathing out in disgust. “But this was years ago, fifteen years ago. I understand, I did some checking up on him, too. He’s in business with Richard Stenz now—Richard’s some sort of higher-up in the Republican Party, very straight. Before I made any loans, I talked to Richard and he told me that Ned was completely reformed. Now, I agree with him, but I also understand your concerns. It wasn’t Ned, though, it was Lee who came in here and sold me those twenty-five thousand dollars of bad mortgages.”
    “Where is Ackerman now?”
    “Lee? It’s a tragedy—the company’s in bankruptcy, he’s in personal bankruptcy. His house is on the market. The last I saw him, he wouldn’t sit down, he was so anxious. Lee was never anxious.”
    Ed nodded slowly, his eyes moving away from Rich to the pictures on his wall. “Warren’s books look fine,” he said. “The last audit was Arthur Andersen. They’re not exactly in the business of lying for people, not for people like Warren anyway.”
    “I told Ned you were my accountant,” said Rich, clasping his hands on his desk and leaning forward. “I recommended you, and I wouldn’t have done that if I thought Ned was a crook. He’s made a pile of money in the last few years—Prescott Valley, this Queen Creek venture with Stenz. It’s in his own interest to keep on the straight and narrow, don’t you think?”
    They’re not exactly in the business of lying for people, not for people like Warren anyway.
    It was a stupid thing to say, Ed thought in the car later that afternoon. The question it raised, of course, was why was Warren looking for a new accountant in the first place? Was it because Arthur Andersen had been too “conservative”?
    He was on Camelback Road, driving to Warren’s house in Paradise Valley. He had spoken to Warren that afternoon on the phone and told him yes, they had a deal, he would bring over some initial paperwork they could go over together. He had done this without thinking it through all the way, or rather he had wanted to do it and had allowed himself to make the call before working through all of his misgivings. It was a big account. If they took it on, it would be one of Gallant, Farrow’s biggest accounts. Sam Gallant himself had encouraged Ed to give it his consideration.
    When he’d hung up the phone, Ed had realized that he was curious about Warren in