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less time to do them in. Let me get you Wayne’s address, and then I’d better get back to work.”
    We went out to the receptionist’s desk, where the guy who must be Brad was typing on a computer keyboard, talking on a phone tucked onto his shoulder. You’re going to pull a muscle like that, I thought, as Genna flipped through a Rolodex. I stood in front of Brad until he glanced up from phone and keyboard and noticed me. “Lydia,” I mouthed, pointing at myself. Brad’s face lit in a warm grin. Without missing a beat, he half lifted from his chair and offered me his hand. After we shook he sat again and went immediately back totalking and typing, with an apologetic shrug and a smile at me. I smiled back.
    I took the paper Genna handed me and promised to keep her up-to-date on whatever I did. As the elevator drifted to the ground floor I mused over the fact that, while waiting for someone to call and ask for a second fifty thousand dollars in exchange for her whole future, Genna Jing seemed able to concentrate on doing a million things.

F OUR
     
    T he address Genna had given me was in Greenwich Village, a nice walk from here on a spring day. I called the phone number, to make sure Wayne Lewis was in.
    “Lydia Chin?” he said, when I introduced myself. His voice was raspy and his words quick. “Do I know you?”
    “No,” I said. “But I’d like to come see you. I won’t take up much of your time. I’m in the neighborhood.”
    “You mean now?”
    “Yes, if it’s convenient.”
    “Sorry. I’m on my way out. What’s it about?”
    I’d planned carefully what I was going to say, and I said it. “I work for Genna Jing, Mr. Lewis. She has a problem she thought you might be able to help with.”
    “Genna Jing? She wants my help?” He laughed a short, unpleasant laugh. “You have to be kidding. Tell her to forget it. As a matter of fact, tell her to go to hell.”
    “It’s a fairly serious problem,” I went on. “Even if you don’t have a solution, I was hoping you might be able to suggest someone who would.”
    “Why the hell would I? With all due respect, Ms. Chin, Genna’snot my favorite person, and her boy toy Ryan even less. If they’ve dug themselves into a hole right before Market Week, I think it’s great.”
    “They haven’t exactly dug this hole, Mr. Lewis, but they’re willing to pay to get out of it.”
    “They’d have to pay a hell of a lot to get me to pick up a shovel.”
    “Fifty thousand dollars?”
    There was a long pause. “That must be one huge goddamn motherfucker of a hole.”
    My mother would wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you talk that way to me, I thought.
    Then she’d wash out my ears.
    I said, “May I come discuss it with you?”
    “In fact,” he mused, ignoring my question, “I bet that kind of money could get you out of a black hole. A blackmail hole. Don’t you think?”
    “Not blackmail,” I answered. “Blackmail’s a crime, and crimes interest the police. This problem, on the other hand, can be solved without police involvement. Though I have to say that the police, from another angle, have become interested. If the problem isn’t solved soon, they may get more deeply involved than anyone might want.”
    “You know, Ms. Chin, I’d almost think you were threatening me, if I had any idea what the hell you were talking about.”
    “I’d like to come tell you, Mr. Lewis, and I’d like to do it soon.”
    “Oh, would you? Well, you know, half of me wants to tell you that I really don’t give a shit what you’d like.”
    “And the other half?”
    “Wants to find a way to get in on this fifty thousand dollars, especially if it’s Genna Jing’s.”
    “So, may I come over?”
    “Please, be my guest. But not now. I have an appointment I can’t break. Say four o’clock?”
    “That’s the soonest you can manage?”
    “Lydia Chin. That’s a Chinese name, right?”
    “Yes—”
    “Amazing. And they say the Chinese, especially the