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enough to ask a question. What do you want from me?
    There's a drugstore at the corner of Tenth and Monroe - Albert's. Be at the pay phone out front. Noon, Thursday. Alone. And don't even think about calling the cops. If you do, I go right to the newspapers. You hear what I'm saying?
    The governor swallowed hard. Yes, he replied.
    The man pushed the governor's face into the ground and sprung to his feet. Before you even twitch a finger, count to a hundred, out loud, nice and slow. Now.
    One, two, Harry counted off, listening carefully as the man's footsteps faded into the distance. He lay still until he reached thirty, when he figured it was safe to move. Then he quickly rolled over and snatched the transmitter from his pocket. If he pushed the red button, security would be there in less than a minute. But he hesitated. What would he tell them? That some thug had threatened to reveal he'd executed an innocent man?
    He tucked the transmitter into his pocket, still thinking. His attacker had warned him: Alert security and the Fernandez story goes straight to the media. Would that really be so disastrous? No question, it would be bad, but inside he felt an even deeper fear. That the attacker wouldn't go to the newspapers. That if he didn't show up at Albert's, he'd never hear from the man again. And he'd never know the truth about Fernandez.
    He cast a forlorn look over the weeds, toward the thick woods where his attacker had disappeared. Tenth and Monroe was a crowded intersection - a very public and safe place. It wasn't like a face-to-face meeting in a dark alley. Hell, if the guy'd wanted to kill him, he'd be dead already. The decision was clear.
    Noon, he said aloud, confirming their telephone conference. Tomorrow.

    Chapter 6
    Grateful for smart lawyers and legal loopholes, Eddy Goss was back on the streets of Miami, following the familiar cracked sidewalk to his favorite hangout. It was in a desolate part of town, where women stood alone on street corners to pay for their hundred-dollar-a-day crack habit and married men drove slowly by to satisfy their twenty-dollar urges. Goss, however, always avoided the women, ignoring their blunt offers of a quick up and down. He would pass right by them on his way to the bright yellow building with no windows and huge black triple X's covering the length of the door. Inside, the windowless walls were lined with cellophane-wrapped magazines sitting in floor-to-ceiling racks. Goss liked the magazines because the girls were always so much prettier than the women on the street.
    He moved around the adult bookstore like he owned the place, familiar with every rack. He liked the way the materials were organized. Oral sex on the east wall. Group sex on the west. If he wanted messy sex, the south wall was the place. His favorite was the back wall, the place for those who liked really young girls.
    You buying anything? asked the very fat man seated by the cash register behind the counter.
    Huh? Goss responded, realizing that the man was talking to him.
    The man rolled his eyes as his dirty, stubby fingers shoved an overstuffed sandwich into his mouth. I said, he repeated with his mouth full, bits of lettuce and mayonnaise stuck in his straggly salt-and-pepper beard, are you gonna buy anything, asshole?
    Goss shoved a magazine entitled Pixie Vixens back into the rack. I'm just lookin' around.
    Well, an hour and a fucking half is long enough to look. Out, pal.
    Goss stood rigidly, his furor-filled eyes locked in an intense stare-down. At first the clerk's expression was tough, but after a few seconds he seemed to lose heart. Just three weeks on the job and already he'd seen hundreds of weirdos in the shop. No one, however, had ever looked at him with such bone-chilling contempt.
    Do you know who you're talking to? Goss seethed.
    The clerk swallowed hard. I don't care who -
    I'm Eddy Goss.
    The clerk froze. He'd seen the news coverage on television, and suddenly the face was familiar.
    Goss took