Rocky frank inhaled sharply. Deny roy was sporting a new look—his head was freshly shorn bald, in the vaguely menacing style popular on Wall Street with men with thinning hair. She watched him stride briskly across the forty-fourth floor elevator lobby, expertly elbowing his way through the throng of early morning arrivals. Deny's reputation as a serial destroyer of young careers was legendary at the storied investment bank in Lower Manhattan where Rocky worked, and, of particular concern to her, of late his behavior was becoming increasingly erratic. Rocky took this overnight change in Deny's personal grooming as a sign of (yet another) difficult day ahead. She slowed her pace to avoid encountering him at the firm's high security entrance. Before she had time to settle into her office, Deny's assistant called to summon her. Rocky's shoulders slumped. Not today Deny, she thought. Please, not today.

Waved in by the assistant, Rocky entered Deny's spacious corner office with its expansive cityscape view and lowered herself into one of the sumptuously upholstered club chairs in front of his desk. Purposefully, she sat up straight in the chair and folded her hands neatly in her lap. She fixed her gaze on Deny's mouth, to avoid the appearance of inspecting his scalp. Deny did not greet her. Instead, he took his time as he read through the contents of a thin manila folder laid out on the desk.

Looking up at Rocky at last, he asked what she knew about Rios Capital.

Rocky allowed herself to relax slightly into the chair. This unscheduled meeting was about a new assignment, not a reprimand. "Alejandro Rios," she said. "Buys and sells high tech companies out in California."

"Have you met him?" Deny asked. When Rocky shook her head, no, he went on, "You will, tomorrow. He's planning a takeover, some biotech startup. I'm giving you the deal. You can handle it by yourself, right?"

"Of course," Rocky replied evenly, a shiver flooding from her head to her toes. Ever since rejoining Deny's group she had wanted to get the lead on a transaction, but Deny had been very hands on, watching over her every decision, and second-guessing most of them. "What's Rios like?" she asked. "I've heard some things."

Deny scowled at her. "You know better than to pay attention to what people say," he said. "If Rios wants this startup, your job is to see that he gets it, and at his price. Didn't you major in hardball at business school?"

"No, Deny, I didn't," Rocky replied, coolly returning his gaze. "Everything I know about hardball I learned from you."

Deny abruptly closed the folder and handed it to her. "Here's everything you need to get started," he said.

Rocky recognised that she had been dismissed. "Thanks for letting me have this one," she said. "I'll make it work." Deny had already returned his attention to his computer screen and did not reply.

Rocky walked hurriedly back to her office. She closed the door and called Nick Fitzgerald, but the call went to voice mail. He would be airborne now, she remembered,

disappointed. She was about to leave Nick a message, but, recalling their tense conversation earlier that morning, she decided that she should give him this news in person.

She called jimmy Blumenthal. "You won't believe what just happened," she said excitedly. "Deny has done me a huge favor."

"Hmm. Deny and favor in the same sentence," Jimmy said. "Somehow I doubt that Deny Roy will ever do you, or anyone else, a favor. It's part of the investment bankers' code of conduct. No favors, ever. Deny's idea of rewarding your loyalty and hard work is to not demolish you. Helping you out has never crossed his mind.

"Jimmy, why are you always so cynical?" Rocky protested.

"Because I'm a lawyer and I deal with the species on a daily basis," jimmy said.

"OK, I get it," Rocky said. "But it's all in how you handle them, and I know how

to handle Deny. Remember, I'm a banker too."

"Putting aside your troubling career choice for the moment, what's this about

anyway?"

" Deny has given me a deal! My very own deal. Please, Jimmy , try to be more positive.

This means a lot to me."

"All right, I'm positive that you will be very successful, and you will make a boat load

of money. Does that help?" Jimmy said, her tone softening. "Look, I'm happy for you, but I have to get back to work. Let's get together tonight and you can fill me in on the details. I'll call Millie and ask her to join us."

Mollified by her friend's conciliatory tone Rocky said, "Thanks, I'd like that." After the call, rocky sat at her desk and took a moment to calm down. When she was able to focus, she opened the file that Deny had given her. As she read, she learned that the company with the misfortune to draw Alejandro Rios' attention was called ZIFIX, and it was trying to commercialize a discovery made by its founder, Dr. Nathaniel Carmichael. Dr. Carmichael's credentials were impressive; he had risen swiftly in the professorial ranks at the medical school located near the startup, and he held a patent on his invention. The contents of the patent were described in the file but Rocky lacked the expertise to understand its significance. Stymied, she called in her assistant. She ordered him to have the bank's intellectual property group review the patent at once; then, she told him, he was to write a synopsis of its main ideas in lay language, to be in her hands before her flight to California

early the next morning. She ignored the young man's stricken look.

Turning to the startup's financials Rocky saw that in less than three years Dr.

Carmichael had burned through most of the capital that he had raised from a handful of local investors, largely family and friends. The company was running short of money and there was no product in sight. Rocky's confidence mounted. Dr. Carmichael was clearly a rookie. Skewering neophytes in deals was almost too easy, she thought, but this could not have come at a better time for her. She guessed that Deny had thrown her this plum as payback for returning to his group. In any case, Rocky sensed that Dr. Carmichael's struggling startup was shortly to be in the more capable—or a least better capitalized— hands of the formidable Alejandro Rios, and that she was on her way to a quick score.

Dr. Nathaniel Carmichael drove up the graveled driveway to his former home, a tidy, low- slung adobe in the style of early California. The house and the two-acre parcel of land on which it stood now belonged to his ex-wife Katy. Nate lingered for a moment behind the wheel, looking out over the garden and beyond to the eucalyptus forest that bordered it. It was the first peaceful moment that he had had all day. He got out of the car and walked up the brick pathway to the front door, already open in anticipation of his arrival. Poking his

head inside he called out, "Is Gordon ready?" He heard the familiar sound of Katy's high heels on the terracotta tile floors.

"Almost," Katy replied from somewhere inside the house. "Gordon, hurry up. Your father's here." The tapping of Katy's heels on tile floor got louder and then she stood before him. She was dressed for an evening out, her softly curled auburn hair and trim figure enhanced by a perfectly fitted, teal-colored dress. Nate thought that she looked beautiful, younger than she had in years and more like the vibrant girl who had attracted his eye in medical school. "Gordon's coming," she said. "How have you been?"

"OK," Nate replied. He detected that Katy was wearing an unfamiliar perfume. "You?"

"I'm good," she said. "So, any news about more financing for ZIFIX?" Nate had continued to keep Katy informed about the startup, even though under the terms of the divorce she no longer had any financial interest in it.

"I've been talking to Rios Capital," he said. "We're close to making a deal."

"Rios?" she said. "Alejandro Rios?"

"You know him?"

"I've heard of him," Katy said. "He lives here in the Ranch. The talk is, he's a very

tough customer." Katy was more attuned than was her ex-husband to the goings on in Rancho Secreto. A regular reader of the local newspaper, Katy often saw photographs of Rios' two teenaged granddaughters dressed in full English riding gear, jumping horses at the shows that were a prominent feature of Ranch life. Since Rios himself attended few social events, he was rarely photographed. But as one of the Ranch's wealthiest residents his activities, both business and personal, were a staple of the grapevine on which locals shared gossip with other locals but never with outsiders.

"Rios has cash and I need cash," Nate said defensively.

"Better count your fingers after you shake hands with him," Katy warned. "I mean it, Nate, you need to be very, very careful."

Gordon appeared, backpack in hand. An energetic six year old, he dropped the backpack and reached up to his father, who gave him a hug. Nate gamely wished Katy a "good time tonight." She waved them off.

As he drove to his apartment Nate listened absentmindedly to Gordon's long- winded narrative about events at school that day. His thoughts wandered to Katy. How had it turned out like this?

Nate and Katy had married in their final year of medical school. After surviving grueling residencies and fellowships they had spent their early years on faculty striving to make their marks. But after Gordon was born Katy had changed in ways that Nate did not understand. She had seemed happy in her new role as mother but, at the same time, she had become increasingly out of sorts. Ominously, much of her newly found resentment had focused on Nate. Even though he had been on notice about his wife's unhappiness, Nate had been stunned when Katy asked him to move out. Bewildered and hurt, he had moved to a rental apartment at the beach.

Nate blamed Katy for ending the marriage, but he nursed his bitterness in private. His day-to-day existence and his outward demeanor continued much as before. Consumed with juggling his commitments at the hospital, the medical school and the startup, he was seriously overextended. But he told himself that everything would work out, just as soon as he got an infusion of cash into ZIFIX.

Gordon had stopped talking. Nate looked in the rear view mirror and saw that his son was nodding off. He wondered whether Gordon was troubled by all the changes in his

young life. It was after all Gordon who had first told him about Katy's new man, when he displayed a toy from "Mommy's friend." Katy had confirmed that there was someone in her life, but she had been guarded about sharing much about him. Nate debated whether he should ask Gordon how he felt about this man. Gordon might be confused, he thought. But what would he say to him if he wanted to talk? Nate suddenly came to the disquieting realization that he did not know how he felt about Katy's new relationship himself.