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brows. He was slighter than his father, less burly, and there was a trace of mischief in him that even grief could not completely suppress. Still, the resemblance was eerie.
    But the similarities between the two men were purely physical. Black Bart had grown up with nothing and spent a lifetime trying to put as many dollars as possible between himself and his impoverished beginnings. Barton Jr. had grown up in a sea of materialism and had chosen a path for himself where money and possessions counted for very little.
    A professor of theoretical mathematics at Northwestern University, Dr. Barton Hexter, Jr., was an expert in the emerging field of chaos theory, which focuses on the modeling of large, complex systems. While futures markets represent one such system, Barton’s interest in his father’s business had, much to the elder Hexter’s dismay, never gone beyond the academic.
    “Ken Kurlander told me I should try to find you,” he said after I’d expressed my condolences. “He said you’d want to talk to me.”
    “I hate to be the one to do this,” I began, very conscious of the fact that it was my job to lay a very large burden on the shoulders of a man who had, just an hour ago, learned that his father had been brutally murdered. “I know that Ken will be meeting with all of you in the next day or so to discuss the details of your father’s will, but in the meantime, your mother said that you are the executor of the estate.”
    “I know. Ken told me,” he replied. “So what does that mean?”
    “Quite a lot of things,” I answered slowly. “But right now it means that you’re the one who has to call the shots when it comes to Hexter Commodities.”
    Barton Jr. took a minute to let that one sink in. Hexter Commodities was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This was not going to be like stepping in and inning the family dry-cleaning business.
    “I am not a businessman,” he said, finally, in a hollow voice.
    “You’ll have lots of people to help you,” I said. “Me, your father’s employees, Ken Kurlander. The problem, of course, is that futures is a fast business. There are things that have to be done today, decisions to be made over the next seventy-two hours that can’t be postponed, decisions with long-term consequences.”
    Barton Jr. looked grim.
    “I’ve already contacted the exchanges,” I continued. “I have a meeting set up with Ricky Sullivan at noon to go through your father’s trading accounts, just to be certain there are no surprises.”
    “You mean nothing that someone would want to kill I him for.”
    “Among other things. Do you want to come along?”
    “No, I think I’m needed here.”
    “I’m confident I can handle everything,” I said. “If not, I’ll call you. The exchanges are going to insist that we liquidate your father’s positions as quickly as possible.”
    “But we can’t do that until we’re sure he’s not offsetting himself in other markets,” interjected Barton Jr. “I know that lots of times Dad would offset purchases in Chicago with equivalent contracts in Hong Kong.” I heard a chorus of quiet hallelujahs. If Barton Jr. knew enough to be worried about offsetting or spread positions, there was a good chance that he and I and Hexter Commodities would survive the weeks ahead.
    “With your approval, I’d like to try to get the exchanges to agree to a gradual liquidation schedule, depending on the positions your father was holding, possibly over a week or ten days. That will give us a chance to look for warehouse receipts or confirmation slips from other markets. Do you have any idea where those things might be kept?”
    “The person who’d know is my cousin Tim. He was my father’s assistant.”
    “Do you have his phone number?” I asked. “I’d also like to have someone call the people who worked for your dad, spare them hearing about this on the news.“
    “I don’t think you’ll be able to reach Tim until dinnertime today. He