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“I will not share my plans with you or anyone else, but if everything works out, Mr. Man will be able to make his own decisions.”

I could see that she was about to ask another question and many more after that, but then the buzzer sounded.

I didn’t even look through the peephole.

Mel was standing there wearing a corn-colored suit with a black shirt underneath.

We didn’t speak. I walked him over to the desk and Willa stood. She was both fascinated by and afraid of this man. He looked at her like an evolved tiger might, through self-imposed bars.

Mel pulled up a chair.

After her usual hesitation, Willa sat too.

Those few days held the most potent experiences in my life up until that point. It was as if every nerve had the volume turned up and every perception had a dozen meanings—all of which I understood and profited from.

“This is going to be a short meeting,” I said. Then, turning to Willa: “My friend here is going to give you something and you will take it into that room for private meetings with lawyers. You will give him the packet and say that you got it from a friend. Don’t tell him any names. Do not indicate anything about us, including gender, knowledge we might have, or about any investigation. He will take the item and make up his own mind.”

“What will the note say?” Willa asked.

“That has to be between us and him,” Mel said in a surprisingly soothing voice. “That way everyone is protected.”

“They search you down to your underwear when you go in to visit a death row inmate.”

Mel reached into his pocket and came out with a small box with the name A Summer’s Day printed over a field of windblown grasses. It was a popular feminine hygiene product—a packet of three tampons. He handed the box to the young lawyer and she took it.

“The seals are intact and the price is stamped on the bottom,” he said.

“But I won’t be having my period Monday.”

“Then it must be coming on,” he said with an irrepressible wolfish tone.

“Just give him the packet,” I said. “The note is inside.”

“Tell him to keep it hidden and tear it open when he’s back in his cell,” Mel added. “If you follow these instructions to the letter, he will have a fifty-fifty chance of being saved.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, looking directly into my friend’s dead eyes.

“If I told you I’d have to kill you.”

Her nostrils flared and I wondered if she was turned on by the power pulsating behind those words.

“Okay,” Willa said to me. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

After she was gone I took out a very old port and served.

“You think she’ll do what we said?” Mel asked.

“I’m pretty sure. He’s a man she loves and we’re the only show in town.”

“The only one,” Mel agreed. “Now, how about this place?”

“It’s called Treacher Admitting on Maiden Lane just a couple of blocks east of Broadway.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“It doesn’t advertise. They mostly serve rich patients from Wall Street, but they have a deal with law enforcement; free medical attention for certain protections.” I paused and then asked, “What about the powder?”