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colleagues—the people he was close to, his correspondents, if any. It may be that someone was using him as an intermediary, or that he was being paid to do what he did.”
    “Which was . . . ?”
    “Smear my client.”
    “Would it be possible to see the stories?” Danny asked. “It might help.”
    Belzer thought about it. “Do you read Italian?”
    Danny looked regretful.
    Belzer shrugged. “Well, perhaps we could have them translated for you, though actually . . . I’m not sure they’d be all that helpful.” He paused and shifted gears. “We’re
particularly
interested in any files you can obtain—paper, computer, whatever. There might be items of interest—connections to Mr. Zebek—that
we’d
recognize but you would not.”
    “Things that would be meaningful to your client.”
    Belzer let his hands fall open like the pages of a book. “Exactly. The more raw data we get, the better. Apart from that, we’d like you to investigate Mr. Terio as if we were in a hostile takeover situation.”
    “So . . . you want me to profile him.”
    “Exactly. And with as much detail as possible.”
    “An assets search?”
    The lawyer nodded. “Keeping in mind that Terio was a professor and not a Nigerian dictator—yes. An assets search might tell us who was paying him.”
    Danny cleared his throat. “I don’t see a problem with any of that,” he said, “though I’ll need to know what sort of budget you have.”
    The lawyer made a dismissive gesture. “The budget is . . . open. We’ll pay whatever expenses you have—and your rates, which are . . . what? A hundred dollars an hour?”
    Danny tried to keep a straight face. Here he was, trying to find the chutzpah to jack up his rates to thirty-five or forty bucks an hour, when Belzer
volunteers
a hundred! He took a deep breath. “That’s fine,” he managed.
    Belzer grinned. “I know you’re an artist, Mr. Cray—”
    “Dan.”
    “—and that you’re still getting established. I don’t mind helping you with that, so long as the client’s interests are served.”
    “Of course.”
    “And I do hear great things about you.”
    “You
do
?” This seemed so unlikely that Danny couldn’t suppress a nervous laugh.
    “I do,” Belzer insisted. “I saw a piece of yours at Les Yeux de Monde—brushed aluminum—very nice. And I understand you had something at the Torpedo Factory. I didn’t see it, but I did read that you took a first-in-show.”
    Danny was flattered and a bit unnerved. Obviously Belzer himself knew something about investigation.
    “Maybe, when this is done,” Belzer went on, “I could take a look at your . . .
oeuvre
.”
    “Actually, I’m having a show,” Danny told him. “In October—at the Neon Gallery.”
    “Fantastic. I don’t buy a lot of art, but I do have a few pieces, so who knows?” And with that, Belzer handed him an envelope bearing the logo of the Admirals Club. “Your retainer,” he explained. “There’s five thousand to start—against your time and expenses. If you’ll keep an accounting, we’ll supplement this as needed.”
    It was Danny’s first retainer. Usually he had to wait as long as two months for Fellner to process his hours and expenses. Having so much cash all at once, and up front, was startling. “So—”
    “Just do whatever it takes,” Belzer said. Then, getting to his feet with the help of his silver-handled cane, he removed a business card from inside his jacket. The card was embossed with a telephone number—and nothing else.
    “My cell phone,” Belzer explained. “Call me when you have something.” Then he turned and, with a little wave over his shoulder, stabbed his cane into the thickly carpeted floor and walked out.
    Danny just stood there, card in hand, thinking,
A hundred dollars an hour eight hours a day five days a week—what happened to the guys with the honey-roasted peanuts?
    He looked around. They were gone.
    Four grand a week, sixteen grand a month . . .
It wasn’t