Just then, the door opened a crack, and Agnes stuck her head in the door. "Excuse me, Mr. Grassley," she said. "Lucien, I'm afraid I need to see you for a moment. Could you step out?"

Lucien glared at Agnes, more alarmed at the bad news he intuitively knew was coming than at the fact that she'd interrupted his meeting.

"Oh, thanks, Agnes," he said in an artificially businesslike tone, rising from his chair as his knees turned to water.

Had, in fact, the other shoe dropped? he wondered.

Hollis Burns sat across the desk from the Vice President of a medium-sized bank in downtown Great Falls, Montana. The banker was a tidy, compact man in his 30s with short blond hair, Marine Corps-style, and a high school ring -- more boy than man. Hollis looked at him condescendingly, indeed contemptuously.

"Here you go Mr. Burns," the banker said, handing Hollis a business-size manila envelope and smiling broadly. "I've taken the electronic money transfer from New York and issued a cashier's check in your name for $100,000. Anything else we can do for you today?"

"No thank you. Thank you very much," replied Hollis, absolutely amazed at the ease not only with which he'd convinced Bernadette to forward him the money -- God, women were stupid -- but the laughable politeness with which this Gomer at the bank supported his scheme.

"I appreciate your help," Hollis said in his trademark "aren't-I-sincere?" tone of voice, pushing back the wooden chair that, in the five minutes he'd been sitting in it, had already given him a backache. He extended his large, tanned hand.

Out on the street, a light flurry of snow was falling from a gray sky. In his jeans, boots, and denim jacket, anyone would have taken Hollis for a Big Sky Country businessman on a dress-down Friday, or even a local rancher -- not a leader of a charismatic religious cult ...and certainly not as the con-man of the decade -- which he was rapidly becoming. Gloating with evil satisfaction, Hollis strode purposefully down the sidewalk, unlocked the Grand Cherokee he'd parallel-parked, hopped in, and drove off. Twenty minutes later the speedometer was brushing 75 as he switched lanes on I-15, headed north. In his head, he was calculating how long it would be before he reached the Alberta border. For no particular reason, Hollis laughed out loud. Hollis Burns seemed insane.

On the run. The reader with a strong moral sense is thinking, "He's actually getting away with this." But the writer responds, "There is justice in the universe. Wait." Hollis Burns is a believer in the power of karma. If only he knew what his karmic future held. But most fugitives flee to Mexico, Hollis. Why are you heading north, big guy?

At just that moment in New York, Agnes Ramirez received an enormous vase of flowers on her desk. The messenger could barely struggle out of the elevator at 475 Madison Avenue with them. It was a gaudy, embarrassing, tacky, and obviously expensive "arrangement."

Agnes stood at her desk and, cradling the reception-desk phone with her shoulder and transferring a call to the Art Department, she plucked the tiny envelope from in among the greenery, opened it, and read the card.

"Agnes, you'll never know how much your help and friendship mean to me. You're a life saver. Thanks for bailing me out. Love, Bernadette."

Agnes threw the note into the wastebasket, already angry at herself for granting Bernadette's request to advance her $100,000 from the agency's bonuses. It wasn't just that she was breaking company policy. That was bad enough. It was that she was sure Bernadette was being made a complete fool of -- and probably being taken for all she was worth.

But try telling that, Agnes though, to a forty-five year old woman "in love." The fool.