2.

NOR COULD PERLEY KEEP IT OUT OF THE FAMILY’S OWN PAPERS—though he had tried. He wrung his hands, his face became red, he sweated. But he could not keep it out. The story had first appeared on the back inside page—not the picture but the story without her name. It had moved in the last week to International on page four. That is where it was until yesterday—a heavily edited version, to be sure—but because of this, people were ignoring his papers and going online, where everything that was published in the New York tabloids was more salacious. He looked in the mirror at his great big ears, his huge stomach, and sighed.

The sun came through on his large body and his large head, and he looked at his cell phone, and then at his feet, pondering what to do. He was waiting for a call from Greg, who was in a meeting. Now he had to wait, because Greg had an empire to run—shipping and lumber, et cetera, were all his province now.

“I love Mary,” Perley said. “She is the only one who ever loved me—”

But his father said something that he sometimes said without thinking—something that callously defined his own self-interest—without realizing how it sounded.

“Well—she is to receive the seventy-eight million—but if she gets into trouble—well, then the money reverts back to the family—the family pays off Amigo Mining, and everyone is happy once again. They might even let her out of jail sooner. You know, let her do fewer years. Or maybe to a woman’s prison here—and you could visit her at Christmas.”

Perley looked at him in childlike wonder and disbelief, and Garnet managed a timid smile.

“Just saying, son,” Garnet said

The next morning Perley was rushed to the hospital. He’d had a slight heart attack. He was only forty-six.

But as soon as they put a stent in one of his arteries and placed him on medication, he was out of the hospital and making plans to go and rescue her. The trouble was, of course, she had heard about it.