“I’m going to need to talk to the chief justice. In person.”

“I doubt he’ll agree to it, but let me ask him.”

“One more question.”

He inclined his head.

“How many other firms turned you down before you had Malkin call me?”

“No one turned me down.”

“I was your first choice? Somehow I don’t believe that.”

“Of course not. I don’t know you. I had to make some inquiries about you first.”

“That’s not what I mean. I’m in Boston, and this is a DC case. You could get anyone you want in DC, without having to pay travel. Including the obvious choice.”

He knew I meant Jay Stoddard, my former boss, whose firm was the best known in the private intelligence business, a man who’d got his start working for Richard Nixon. Stoddard had recruited me from Defense intelligence and taught me the tricks of the trade. I learned a lot from him-a bleak education-until we had a falling out and I quit to start my own firm.

He heaved a sigh. “Jay has too many close ties to powerful interests in Washington. Whereas you’re an outsider.”

“Is that a polite way of saying I’ve made some enemies?”

He shrugged. “It is what it is.” One of those annoying catch phrases that seem to have caught on like herpes. “Everyone in DC is in bed with someone. And this feels like some kind of inside job. An attack like this doesn’t come out of nowhere. Someone went to a lot of trouble to put this thing together, and I can’t take a chance with the local talent.”

“Let’s be clear about something. You want more than information. You want me to do certain things in ways you can’t be associated with. Correct?”

“I want you to do whatever it takes to kill this story. I want you to strangle the baby in its cradle. And yes, you’re absolutely right, no one must ever know that you’re working for me.”

“And why is that so important?”

A long, long pause. “Candidly, the senior partners in this law firm are deathly afraid of Slander Sheet. No one wants to be fed into that wood chipper.”

“I appreciate the honesty. The chief justice is going to have to be just as open with me.”

“I’ll see if he agrees to meet. He can be prickly. He’s very private.”

“One more thing. If I find out the story’s true, I’m off the job. I’m not interested in helping cover something up. If that’s what you want, I’m not the right guy for this.”

He smiled. “Oh, I know that well. I believe the phrase Jay Stoddard used to describe you was ‘loose cannon.’ He made it eminently clear that you’re not controllable.”

“I have a feeling he put it more colorfully than that.”

He gave a low, rumbling chuckle, glancing at his watch. “I have a meeting with the Boston partners, and I want to reach the chief justice before that. I’ll let you know what he says. Let me have your cell phone number.”

I gave it to him. “The sooner the better,” I said.

4

In the cab on the way back to my office, I read over my copy of the letter Slander Sheet had sent to the Supreme Court’s public affairs office. I started to formulate a plan, in case I did take the case.

It looked really bad for the chief justice. They were highly specific questions and implied a pretty solid article. The questions weren’t part of a fishing expedition. If Gideon Parnell was right that the story about the chief justice and a hooker was a total lie, then it was a fiendishly clever hoax. And not the work of amateurs. From what I could put together from the list of questions, the chief justice had-allegedly had, to be fair-three trysts with an escort hired from a website called LilySchuyler.com, “the world’s leading online service for discreet encounters.”

I thought about Gideon Parnell. The fact that he was inserting himself in the middle of this battle was significant. His reputation was towering. He had much to lose, being associated with something as tawdry as this, true or not. He must have been a good friend of Justice Claflin’s.

And I mulled over the question of why they’d contacted me. Was Parnell on the level when he said he wanted someone outside DC? In a situation like this, in which speed and discretion are of paramount importance, it would make a lot more sense for him to hire someone in town he knew. The question kept coming back: Why me?

If the chief justice did agree to meet with me, I’d have to fly to DC immediately, which would mean rescheduling a few meetings and appointments I’d lined up for tomorrow and possibly the day after.

I had the taxi drop me off on High Street, at the old brick, converted lead-pipe factory in Boston’s Financial District where I have an office. It was still early, but by then my office manager/receptionist, Jillian Alperin, was in. She stood, back to me, struggling with a printer, trying to feed it paper.

Jillian was in her early twenties and had all sorts of piercings and tattoos. If I saw a lot of clients at the office, she wouldn’t have been a good hire. She was a little young, a little rough around the edges, not exactly business-appropriate. But she was competent and tried hard and I’d grown to like her.