DESCEND INTO THE ABYSS

s tone, then walked down the hall to h

atients, but as sick as some of the

cent of the golden- haired women you saw on the street-and of Danish descent, which was unusual in the South. Her eyes were grayish blue-sea blue, if you wanted to get

o-earth country boy who'd made good by trusting his insti

ome rich when Red died, but where was the fault in that? When a rich man died, someone always profit

at last year-and she deserved everything he had, come hell or high water. That's the way Red would hav

phone and calle

eptionist. The yes finally terminated afte

in college named Darryl Foster.

. He was originally from Memphis, but the last I h

nd

y old fraternity is trying to add on to the house up at Ole

you suggest I fin

ime there playing poker and shopping eBay. The le

udly. "I'll give i

strain y

t Chris knew she would have th

Morse had said. Don't do anything

aid aloud. "This has

or, but Jane's buzz brought him back to his desk.

ur wife's on

e on the phone. He looked down at her picture, waiting for a spark of instinct about what to do. But what

e had said. Even the

I'm with a p

e receptionist,

'll call her back in a little while."

the last second he said, "Find Fo

f Jane's voice; she knew wh

ot it,

Rusk wa

w skyline of Jackson, Mississippi. Not an impressive vista as citysca

ng enclaves for twenty-first-century yuppies. Farther on, the new Nissan plant was bringing relative wealth to the state's strugg

who had been dragging the city down for the past twenty years. R

ate and preyed upon others with enough regularity to

n't the sourc

hat end, he had built his home in an oak forest north of the city, near Annandale, a golf club that occupied

arage, climbed into his black Porsche Cayenne Turbo, and roared nort

e rarely wore swimwear in the summer. After a poolside kiss-or more often, lately, a session of listening to her bitch about nothing

it. Fear tasted like junior high school: like being backed into a corner by a tenth grader who wanted to beat your face int

pull. Whiskey at work was an indulgence, one he'd allowed him

graph from his desktop. The photo showed a dark-haired woman with an angular fac

pick up line. Maybe if he'd caught her young-a freshman in college when he

she had it in spades. The apple of her daddy's eye, you c

lex," he murmure

g, and his secre

firm-not goddamn personal assistants-and

generous perks, and e

ain View: no worker should ever be more than fifty feet away from food.

by five decades, and it went thus: no partner should ever be more than fifty feet from a good and willin

ler and walked to his desk, where his

a shimmering event horizon. Rusk remembered a little Latin from his days in prep school: ex nihilo mean

at Rusk had contracted for today. He suspected that kiddie-porn addicts made up the lion's share o

, recalling his fath

is staying in a marriage or a partnership after it's over. And that's not life-it's living death. Rusk hated m

'd memorized pi to the fortieth decimal place to impress his father. Immediately after his proud dinner

Rusk home. Nothing was ever good