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gave the file to his secretary and told her to xerox it and return it to Benson, as quickly as possible. "It'd be nice if he thought I just glanced at it. Don't mention that you made a copy."
    "Ah, screwin' the new guy, huh?" Carol said.
    By early afternoon, the storm had cleared. Splashing through the leftover puddles, Lucas took the Porsche off Robert Street south of St. Paul, and poked into the bare winter forest that was Sunfish Lake.
    The Twin Cities have no really exclusive suburbs, except those that are exclusively rich or poor. No social barriers: if you had the cash or could get the mortgage, you could live there, whatever your race, color, creed, or national origin. Sunfish Lake was one of those.
    The first fifty feet of the Austin driveway were gravel, as if to say, We may be rich, but we're really country. The last three hundred feet were blacktop, which said, We may be country, but we're not stupid.
    The driveway ran slightly uphill, then over a crest and down to the house. The house had three sections that he could see--a center/main section, of stone and redwood, with barren flower beds under the white-painted window trim; and a cedar-shingled wing on each end, bending away from him, toward the lake. The four-car garage was in the right wing.
    The house was buried in oaks and spruce, snuggled into the slope, surrounded by a patch of grass that faded into the forest. From the crest of the hill, Lucas could see a broad flagstone path meandering down to the lake. A wheeled dock had been pulled out of the water, next to the path, and a finger of snow hunkered beneath it. More snow hid out in the woods, where it had been protected from the rain.
    Lucas parked the Porsche, and got out into the smell of wet old leaves, tate-winter woods, and the faintest stink of rotting fish. H e w alked up to the door, rang the doorbell, and grinned at his reflection in the glass panel beside the door.
    He was wearing jeans, a white shirt, Mephisto black-leather athletic shoes, a black leather jacket, and aviator sunglasses. He was packing heat, he thought, and also carried a gun.
    Austin glanced at him through the glass, pulled the door open, and said, "I've already got a vacuum cleaner."
    "Well, shoot, another wasted trip," Lucas said.
    She smiled then, but a sad smile, the kind of smile he might have a month after one of his kids was killed. She said, "Lucas--you look like a rich cop."
    He took her hand, which was cool and muscular and dry. "Alyssa. How are you?"
    "Not good," she said. "Or you wouldn't be here. Come in."
    She was a small woman and slender. She'd been a swimmer in college, and after marrying Hunter Austin, had started a chain of high - end athletic clubs for wealthy women. The clubs--Weather belonged to one--were quiet, discreet, luxurious, efficient, expensive, and successful.
    Alyssa Austin dabbled with several kinds of therapies, as well as astrology and tarot. On the functioning side of her brain, she had degrees in management and accounting.
    Lucas could see the swimmer in her, the athlete, as he followed her through the entry, down the high-ceiling hall to the living room. Her ass was like a rock, and interesting to look at. His taste in women was catholic, but she fit into a particularly interesting small-tough-blonde slot, the same slot occupied by Weather.
    ". . . couldn't think of what else to do, so finally I talked to Weather. I know that makes you unhappy," she was saying.
    "No, no, I'm happy to do it," he lied. Great ass or not, she wa s g oofy. The thought brought to mind the punch line of the old Mickey Mouse-Minnie Mouse joke--"I didn't say you were crazy, I said you were fuckin' Goofy."
    He smiled to himself, then hid the smile.
    The living room was done as two partial-hemispheres of glass, looking out toward the lake, almost like the cups of a brassiere. A Steinway grand piano sat in one of the cups, while a circle of overstuffed furniture was arranged as a conversation group in the other. She