Chapter One

In the years since Ginny divorced me, Jeanmarie's black hair had turned white, her body had thickened, and deep lines crosshatched her cheeks. But if you looked closely, the same feral madness still bubbled in her eyes.

For the better part of a half hour she sipped coffee from an NYPD mug with a crack in its handle and rattled on about people I didn't remember and deaths I didn't mourn. Even though the snakes in my head screamed that she was about to screw up my life, I didn't interrupt. Jeanmarie got to things in her own time.

After the second refill, the well of small talk had run dry, and Jeanmarie got down to business.

"Steeg," she said, "I need your help."

My mother, Norah, used to say that the fairies give each of us a measure of cheek at birth. And as the years pile up on each other, all we're left with is humility. It was fair to say Jeanmarie's measure had a long way to go before the larder was empty.

The sheer chutzpah of the woman was astounding.

The snakes had had enough. I got up from the table, walked to the door, and held it open.

"Have a nice day, Jeanmarie."

"It's not for me I'm asking, it's for Ginny."

That got my attention.

"Ginny and her husband are getting death threats," she said. "I'm not surprised. It was a match I didn't approve of."

She wrinkled her nose and glanced out the window at a pale and listless day.

"But she's my child," Jeanmarie continued, "and I only want for