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“I have some ideas about how to deal with that when the time comes.”

CHAPTER 3
    K en wiped his brow as he stood over the engine of Bill’s ’55 Corvette. The perennial weekend project had consumed hundreds, perhaps thousands of man-hours since Bill had “rescued” it from the local scrap yard three years before. The car sat on concrete blocks in the garage of Bill and Margot’s suburban home, and it was in no immediate danger of moving anywhere under its own power.
    Ken and another of Bill’s friends, Colby Lassen, spent many a Saturday helping him with the car. Each week another part of the engine was tackled, but every repair seemed to reveal yet another problem. Today they were installing new pistons.
    “My ideal woman…She’s gotta be small,” Colby said. “Tiny. Not
dwarf
tiny, but petite. A lotta guys, they like the tall ones. Not me. I don’t want a woman I can lose myself in.”
    Ken snorted. “I’ve seen you in the locker room, Colby. You could lose yourself in a tiny woman too.”
    “Blow me.”
    Bill looked at Ken. “What about
your
ideal woman?”
    Ken paused with his pliers. “She burns bright.”
    Colby snickered. “Oooh, yeah.”
    “No, I mean…everything she does, she does full throttle.All out. She never doubts herself. She always knows exactly what she wants and how to get it.”
    Ken leaned against the car. “She’s beautiful, and maybe she even knows it. But deep down, she’s scared.”
    “Scared of what?” Bill asked.
    “Life. She’s not neurotic or anything. But it’s just enough to melt the ‘ice queen’ image she tries to put on. People like that need to feel they’re in control. It’s the only way they can keep their grip.”
    Bill and Colby stared at Ken, dumbfounded.
    “Who are we talking about?” Colby asked.
    “Yeah, who is she?” Bill was smiling.
    “No one.”
    Bill stepped closer. “Come on. Who?”
    “Nobody. Really. We’re talking hypothetical here, right?”
    Bill gave his friend a doubtful look. “I was gonna say my ideal woman is blond with big tits. I guess now I’ll have to do better.”
    Ken stared into the engine compartment. He didn’t know if he was describing Myth or merely an elaborate fantasy of who she might be. It wouldn’t be the first time someone projected their soul mate behind a pretty face.
    Don’t get off track, man. Do her job, take the money, and run. That’s what this is all about.
    The money had already made a huge difference in his life. He had paid off his car, gotten the most persistent bill collectors off his back, and slipped five thousand dollars into his brother’s mail slot. If only he didn’t still feel guilty about the way he was accomplishing it.
    He bent over and tried to look as if he was working. “This car of yours is gonna be on the blocks for
another
three years.”
    Bill laughed. He opened a mini-refrigerator and grabbed a cold Bud. “Hell, this car isn’t for driving. It’s for dreaming. It’s for standing around, drinking beer,and having conversations just like this. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
    —
    At the end of the afternoon Ken turned down Bill’s offer to stay for dinner. There was work to do.
    He drove to the Emory University library, where he hoped to find some background material on the various methods of defeating polygraphs. There was a surprising amount of literature on the subject, detailed in books, magazine articles, and scientific journals. Many studies in the area were commissioned by the CIA and branches of the armed services, but their methodology and results were classified. Everyone knew the common-wisdom tricks: biting your tongue, putting a tack in your shoe, and so on. Examiners, however, were hip to these methods, rendering any such attempts worthless. It wasn’t enough for Sabini to pass the test; he had to do it with no evidence of trickery.
    Ken put down the last article. There wasn’t a lot there that he didn’t already know, but he was sure he