Twisted

gun.”
    “Yeah, we thought you’d gone off the deep end,” Viamonte offered.
    “But we weren’t going to say anything,” Wu said.
    Viamonte said, “Hey, let’s go celebrate.”
    Tribow declined. He hadn’t spent much time with his wife and son lately and he was desperate to get home to them. He finished packing up the big litigation bags.
    “Thank you,” a woman’s voice said. Tribow turned to see Jose Valdez’s widow standing in front of him. He nodded. She seemed to be casting about for something else to say but then she just shook theprosecutor’s hand and she and an older woman walked out of the nearly empty courtroom.
    Tribow watched her leave.
    I guess people like that, really bad people, they don’t play by the rules. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes they’re just going to win. . . .
    But that means sometimes they’re not.
    Danny Tribow hefted the largest of the litigation bags and together the three prosecutors left the courtroom.

T HE B LANK C ARD

    T he little things.
    Like the way she’d leave the office at five but sometimes not get home until six-twenty.
    He knew his wife was a fast driver and could make the trip in maybe forty minutes that time of day. So where did she spend the remaining minutes?
    And little things like the phone calls.
    He’d come home and find Mary on the phone and, sure, she’d smile at him and blow him a little kiss-across-the-room. But it seemed that the tone of her voice would change as soon as she saw him and she’d hang up soon after. So Dennis would go to take a shower and pretend to forget a clean towel and call for Mary to get one for him, please, honey, and when she disappeared into the laundry room he’d go into the kitchen and debate a minute or so but then he’d go ahead and hit redial on the phone. And sometimes it turned out to be a neighbor or Mary’s mother. But sometimes nobody picked up. He rememberedseeing in a movie once, about spies or something, one guy would call this other one and they’d let it ring twice then call back exactly one minute later and he knew it was safe to pick up. Dennis tried to figure out the numbers from the sound of the dialing but they went too fast.
    He’d be embarrassed because he was acting so paranoid. But then there’d be another little thing, and he’d get suspicious again. Like the wine. Sometimes he’d meet his wife at the door of their spacious Colonial in Westchester County, after she’d been out; he’d walk up to her fast and kiss her hard. She’d act surprised, all the passion and everything. But occasionally he’d smelled wine on her breath. She’d claim she’d been at a church fund-raising meeting at Patty’s or Kit’s. But do you drink wine at church meetings? Dennis Linden didn’t think so.
    Dennis’s suspicions of his wife smacked of midlife crisis. But they also made some sense. He was too generous—that was his problem—and the women he’d ended up with in his life had taken advantage of him. He never thought it would be that way with Mary, a sharp, ambitious businesswoman in her own right, but not long after they’d been married, five years ago, he’d started to wonder about her. Nothing big, just being cautious. Sometimes in life you have to be smart.
    But he hadn’t really found any proof until about three months ago, in late September—after Dennis had met his best buddy, Sid Farnsworth, for drinks in White Plains.
    “I don’t know, I have this feeling she’s seeingsomebody,” Dennis had muttered, hunched over his V&T.
    “Who? Mary?” Sid had shook his head. “You’re nuts. She loves you.” The men had known each other since college and Sid was one of the few people who’d be completely straight with Dennis.
    “She made this big deal out of going on a business trip to San Francisco last week.”
    “Whatta you mean, made a big deal? She didn’t want to go?”
    “No, she did want to go. But I wasn’t sure it was a good idea.”
    “ You thought it wasn’t a good idea?” Sid hadn’t understood. “Whatta you mean?”
    “I was worried she’d get into trouble.”
    “Why you think that?”
    “ ’Cause she’s a beautiful woman, why else? Everybody’s always flirting with her and coming on to her.”
    “Mary?” Sid had laughed. “Gimme a break. Guys flirt with women. If they don’t they’re gay or dead. But she doesn’t flirt back or anything. She’s just . . . nice. She smiles at everybody.”
    “Men take it the