Dark Rivers of the Heart

duck, almond essence.
        The immense and spotlessly clean kitchen was filled with ovens, cooktops, griddles, huge woks, deep fryers, warming tables, sinks, chopping blocks. Sparkling white ceramic tile and stainless steel dominated. At least a dozen chefs and cooks and assistants, dressed in white from head to foot, were busy at a variety of culinary tasks.
        The operation was as organized and precise as the mechanism in an elaborate Swiss clock with twirling ballerina dolls, marching toy soldiers, prancing wooden horses. Reliably tick-tick-ticking along.
        Spencer trailed his escort through another swinging door, into a corridor, past storage rooms and staff rest rooms, to an elevator. He expected to go up. In silence, they went down one floor. When the doors opened, the escort motioned for Spencer to exit first.
        The basement was not dank and dreary. They were in a mahoganypaneled lounge with handsome teak chairs upholstered in teal fabric.
        The receptionist at the teak and polished-steel desk was a man: Asian, totally bald, six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. He was typing furiously at a computer keyboard. When he turned from the keyboard and smiled, his gray suit jacket stretched tautly across a concealed handgun in a shoulder holster.
        He said, "Good morning," and Spencer replied in kind.
        "Can we go in?" asked the napkin folder.
        The bald man nodded. "Everything's fine."
        As the escort led Spencer to an inner door, an electrically operated deadbolt clacked open, triggered by the receptionist.
        Behind them, the bald man began to type again. His fingers raced across the keys. If he could use a gun as well as he could type, he would be a deadly adversary.
        Beyond the loun e, the followed a white corridor with a gray vinyltile floor. It served windowless offices on both sides. Most of the doors were open, and Spencer saw men and women-many but not all of them Asian-working at desks, filing cabinets, and computers just like office workers in the real world.
        The door at the end of the hall led into Louis Lee's office, which was another surprise. Travertine floor. A beautiful Persian carpet: mostly grays, lavender, and greens. Tapestry-covered walls. Early nineteenthcentury French furniture, with elaborate marquetry and ormolu.
        Leatherbound books in cases with glass doors. The large room was warmly but not brightly lighted by Tiffany floor and table lamps, some with stained glass and some with blown-glass shades, and Spencer was sure that none was a reproduction.
        "Mr. Lee, this is Mr. Grant," said the escort.
        The man who came out from behind the ornate desk was five feet seven, slender, in his fifties. His thick jet-black hair had begun to turn gray at the temples. He wore black wingtips, dark blue trousers with suspenders, a white shirt, a bow tie with small red polka dots against a blue background, and horn-rimmed glasses.
        "Welcome, Mr. Grant." He had a musical accent as European as it was Chinese. His hand was small, but his grip was firm.
        "Thank you for seeing me," Spencer said, feeling as disoriented as he might have felt if he had followed Alice's white rabbit into this windowless, Tiffany-illumined hole.
        Lee's eyes were anthracite black. They fixed Spencer with a stare that penetrated him almost as effectively as a scalpel.
        The escort and erstwhile napkin folder stood to one side of the door, his hands clasped behind him. He had not grown, but he now seemed as much of a bodyguard as the huge, bald receptionist.
        Louis Lee invited Spencer to one of a pair of armchairs that faced each other across a low table. A nearby Tiffany floor lamp cast blue, green, and scarlet light.
        Lee took the chair opposite Spencer and sat very erect. With his spectacles, bow tie, and suspenders, and with the backdrop of books, he might have been a professor of literature in the study of his home, near the campus of Yale or another Ivy League university.
        His manner was reserved but friendly. "So you are a friend of His.
        Keene's? Perhaps you went to high school together? College?"
        "No, sir. I haven't known her that long. I met her where she works.
        I'm a recent… friend. But I do care about her and… well, I'm concerned that something's happened to her."
        "What do you think might have happened to