I STOLE AWAY for a quick lunch with Cindy Thomas. Dim sum at the Long Life Noodle Company in Yerba Buena Gardens.

"You see the Chronicle this morning?" she asked, a pork dumpling sliding off her chopsticks as we sat on a ledge out-side. "We lowered the boom on X/L."

"Thanks," I said. "I won't be needing you to run a follow-up."

"So, now it's your turn, right, to do a little rhythm for me."

"Cindy, I'm thinking this isn't going to be my case much longer, especially if anything leaks out to the press."

"At least tell me" - she looked at me solidly - "if I should be feeling these two murders are related?"

"What makes you think they're related?"

"Gee," she chortled, "two big-time businessmen murdered in the same city two days apart. Both of them ran companies on the wrong side of the headlines lately."

"Two totally different MOs." I held my ground.

"Oh? On one hand, we have a greedy corporate high roller sucking off tens of millions while his sales are going to rot; the other's hiding behind a bunch of high-priced lobby-ists trying to screw poor people. Both are dead. Violently. What was the question, Linds? Why do I think they might be related?"

"Okay." I exhaled. "You know our arrangement? Absolutely nothing gets into print without my okay."

"Someone's targeting these people, aren't they?" She didn't mean the two already dead. I knew what she was saying.

I put............