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convertible. There were only a half dozen cars in the lot, two of them Mercedeses, one a gleaming black Lexus.
    The kid was back in his chair by the time Harry got to the door.
    “Which way’s the bar?”
    “Straight through to the right. You can’t miss it.”
    “Thanks.”
    He pulled open the heavy smoked glass door, stepped through into air-conditioning. There was a small fountain tinkling quietly in the center of the lobby, chairs evenly spaced on the marble floor. Beyond the fountain was a reception desk, unmanned, and beyond that two sliding oak doors opened onto an empty dining room.
    He took off his sunglasses, slipped them into the pocket of his shirt. To the right of the desk was a glass door with a carved wooden sign above it that read the paddock room. He went through. Inside was a small lounge with a short bar, a half dozen tables, and open double doors that led out onto a roofed porch.
    The lounge was empty except for the bartender, a man in his sixties with snow-white hair and a tough Irish face. He was smoking a cigarette and watching a baseball game on the TV above the bar, the sound turned low. From outside, Harry could hear the steady
thwops
of a tennis game in progress.
    The bartender looked at him, nodded.
    “What’s the score?” Harry asked.
    “Five–two, Yanks. Baltimore’s choking. What can I get you?”
    “I’m here to see Mr. Fallon.”
    The bartender nodded at the double doors. “Out there. I think he’s expecting you.”
    He walked out into bright sunshine. The porch stretched the length of the rear of the building, curving around on both sides. There was another door to the left, the outside entrance to the dining room, closed now to keep the air-conditioning in. There were tables out here on the porch as well, wrought-iron with glass tops, chairs with cushioned seats. Steps led down to a flagstone path that ran past a fenced-in pool area and tennis courts. Flowers in stone planters lined the walkway, and on either side of the steps were small, stone-lined ponds, their surfaces choked with water lilies.
    “You Rane?”
    He turned. At a table behind him sat a big man in his early thirties, his head shaved like a wrestler’s. Acne scars pitted his thick neck and a neatly trimmed goatee surrounded his mouth. He was wearing a too-tight sport jacket over a shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, exposing a thin silver chain. On the table was a newspaper open to the sports page.
    “Yeah,” Harry said.
    “About time.”
    Harry didn’t respond. The big man looked him over, got slowly to his feet.
    “Wait here,” he said. As he turned away, Harry saw the telltale bulge on his right hip beneath the jacket. Clip holster, he thought. Likely an automatic. Something small and flat.
    The big man went down the steps and out toward the pasture. There was a man leaning against the split-rail fence there, talking to one of the riders, a woman on a white horse. She wore jeans, a denim shirt, and a riding helmet with the bill pulled low. The other rider, a man, had moved his horse away as if to be out of earshot, waiting for the conversation to end.
    The man at the fence raised his voice, slapped the rail in anger. Harry couldn’t make out what he was saying. The woman listened without speaking, then wheeled the horse away, started toward the barn. The other rider moved to follow her.
    The man at the fence was shaking his head, still talking to her receding back, when the big man came up behind him and spoke. The man turned, looked back at Harry on the porch. After a moment, they started toward him across the lawn.
    Eddie Fallon was in his early fifties, with wide shoulders and the beginnings of a paunch. He wore a thin gray jacket that might have been silk over a black linen pullover. His slacks were the same color as the jacket. His hair—an unnatural glossy black—was combed straight back from his forehead, every strand in place.
    Harry waited. They came up the porch steps, eyeing him.