But they exposed growing tensions within the hospital that have been plaguing Lenox Hill for some time.

On one side are some academic physicians with new business considerations: These include Dr. Valavanur (Manny) Subramanian and Dr. Jeffrey W. Moses, his partner in a practice called Advanced Heart Physicians & Surgeons Network, and Dr. Angelo J. Acquista, as well as other Lenox Hill doctors who have thrived in part by their participation in for-profit endeavors.

On the other side are the Lenox Hill doctors who, both on and off the record, are deeply uncomfortable with incentivized medicine and its promise of equity. They may be old-fashioned, or-as some within Lenox Hill have suggested-they may be jealous that they're being left out of the action. But no matter who's right, the issue between them is patients: how they're referred, who treats them and who bills for them.

Possibly as a result of this longstanding struggle, as well as of open turmoil among various doctors within Lenox Hill, relationships surrounding the hospital and several doctors' practices are now part of what law enforcement sources described as a joint probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as The Observer reported on March 18.

Health and Human Services is focusing on Lenox Hill Hospital and whether it properly billed Medicaid and Medicare, the Government health insurance programs. Federal agents are also examining whether two corporations run by Lenox Hill doctors, Madison Medical Associates (which Dr. Acquista co-founded) and a defunct company called S.A.M. (an acronym derived from the names of Drs. Subramanian, Acquista and Moses), generated duplicative or erroneous bills that may have defrauded Medicare.

Other inquiries include whether S.A.M. violated a Federal law that prohibits doctors from referring patients to practices in which they have a financial stake, and whether financial incentives, including equity in a physician practice management company called Advanced Health Corporation, were improperly offered to outer-borough physicians in exchange for patient referrals.

Lenox Hill spokesman Karen Zipern had no comment about the Health and Human Services probe of the hospital, saying only that the U.S. Attorney's Office had informed Lenox Hill that it "is not the target of the investigation." (A subject of an investigation may become a formal target when the Government believes it has sufficient evidence that the subject may be guilty of a crime.)

Jonathan Rosenberg, counsel for Advanced Health, also said the company was not the "target" of the Federal investigation. Alan Metrick, a spokesman for Madison Medical, said, "There has been no request by any government agency for records or documents, or any other action that would lead us to believe that we are under investigation."

But since last June, the U.S. Attorney has served Lenox Hill with two subpoenas requesting documents. The hospital has cooperated with the requests. And last January, the hospital formed a committee to review physician complaints.

Lenox Hill's chief operating officer, Terence O'Brien, said that the hospital had done nothing to violate any laws. He also said that the complaints of disgruntled physicians may have sparked the investigation. The intrigues playing in the hallways of Lenox Hill are not lost on Federal agents. One law enforcement source compared the atmosphere there to "a sixth-grade" rumor mill.

Spokesmen and attorneys for Drs. Subramanian, Acquista and Moses, and for Advanced Health, Advanced Heart and Madison Medical, denied any wrongdoing and asserted that they were not being investigated. Melissa Krantz, a spokesman for Dr. Acquista, said that he has always "scrupulously complied with all applicable laws."

David Warmflash, an attorney representing Dr. Subramanian, said that his client "has always maintained his medical practice pursuant to the highest professional, legal and ethical standards" and is not "a target" of any investigation. Likewise, Dr. Moses "believes he has scrupulously followed a program of employing professionals to ensure that his practice is in strict accordance with all applicable laws," said his spokesman, Gerald McKelvey.

In mid-1995, a handful of doctors from Lenox Hill, along with two executives from Advanced Health, met for dinner in a Bay Shore, L.I., restaurant with several doctors from a Long Island cardiology group practice. The dinner, intended to hammer out a financially beneficial deal, reflects some of the conflict that has been running through Lenox Hill.

Over an amicable meal, one of the executives, Steven Hochberg, made a pitch. For a management fee, his company, Advanced Health Corporation, then a start-up physician practice management company, proposed to oversee the billing and administration for the cardiologists' thriving practice, South Bay Cardiovascular Associates. The cardiologists could eventually be eligible to receive stock in Advanced Health Corporation. And in time, two of the Lenox Hill doctors at dinner, Dr. Subramanian and Dr. Acquista, would acquire a financial stake in Advanced Health, and their medical practices would also become its major clients.

While the South Bay cardiologists ultimately did not join Advanced Health, the dinner is a snapshot of the kind of meeting that is more and more common in the new world of Doctors Inc.: businessmen and physicians joining forces and doing business in the new medical marketplace. What was discussed that night has also proved as controversial as the issues roiling certain factions at Lenox Hill.

One physician who attended the dinner told The Observer that during the discussion about joining Advanced Health, conversation turned to patient referrals-namely, how South Bay doctors could refer their patients needing specialized care, such as cardiac surgery or angioplasty, to Dr. Subramanian and Dr. Moses.

According to the physician, the message as he interpreted it from the Lenox Hill to the South Bay doctors was, "We want to be the place where you send your patients. What can we do to help you? What can we do to make it in your best interest?"

He said that Mr. Hochberg explained to the South Bay cardiologists that referrals to the Lenox Hill doctors would ultimately benefit them. (Referrals would augment the network's revenues and therefore benefit Advanced Health shareholders.)

The physician claimed that Dr. Acquista told the cardiologists that should they want to acquire new space for their practice or even build a building on Long Island, Advanced Health would be able to arrange the necessary financing. The company, in its prospectus and public filings, describes equity for its doctor members in detail. Its promotional literature also mentions "the purchase and sale aspects of physician financing," which includes financing for construction of doctors' offices. Both are benefits that physician practice management companies sometimes offer.

The problem, this physician said, was that he believed the benefits of membership came with an implicit expectation that the doctors would refer patients to the Lenox Hill cardiac specialists. The physician also said he felt strongly that referrals should be made with only the medical benefit of the patient in mind.

Federal anti-kickback law generally prohibits financial inducements in exchange for referrals whenever Medicaid or Medicare, the Government health insurance programs, are billed. However, both Advanced Health and other physicians who attended the dinner stated emphatically that referrals were never discussed.

This elucidates a larger point in the changing health care economy in New York: that many doctors are queasy with their new roles as businessmen and with the barrage of financial and legal complexities facing them.

Mr. Rosenberg, the attorney for Advanced Health, said that the company "categorically denies that Steven Hochberg or any other Advanced Health employee ever said, suggested, or implied to any doctor, including any from [South Bay], that a doctor entering into a management services agreement with Advanced Health would be expected to refer, or would receive a financial benefit from referring, patients to Advanced Heart or to any other entity that has a contractual relationship with Advanced Health." He added that no doctor "ever has been offered or received Advanced Health stock or other remuneration from Advanced Health in return for referring patients to any other entity that has a contractual relationship with Advanced Health."

A doctor who attended the meeting and whom Ms. Krantz made available to The Observer , denied that the subject of referrals came up at all. "Nobody said anything like, 'We'll give you stock if you send [your patients] to Advanced Heart,'" he said. "Dr. Acquista knows all the parties, but the meeting was arranged by Advanced Health," said Ms. Krantz, adding that referrals were not discussed that night.

"Of course it was discussed," countered the physician who was made uncomfortable by the meeting. "Why did they think [Lenox Hill doctors] were going out there-to play poker?"

New York has been one of the country's last holdouts against for-profit medicine; publicly traded hospitals are not even permitted to operate in the state. But health care as big business has crept in through physician management companies like Advanced Health.

This year, Phymatrix Corporation signed an agreement to manage services connected to the newly merged Beth Israel Medical Center-St. Luke's Hospital-Roosevelt Hospital; another such company, Phycor Inc., has had discussions with the recently merged New York and Presbyterian hospitals.

While other Manhattan medical centers have merged and formed networks with outer-borough hospitals in their efforts to negotiate with health maintenance organizations for big blocks of patients, Lenox Hill has remained independent. Its administrators have encouraged physicians to form professional corporations that give them more control over patient care. Also, its doctors have formed multispecialty group practices in an effort to pool resources and reduce overhead costs.

In the vanguard of these trends at Lenox Hill are cardiac specialists Drs. Subramanian and Moses, who, with the help of Dr. Acquista, built a booming practice of international prestige from which Lenox Hill has benefited.

In 1986, the hospital was losing money and its cardiac surgery program was on probation for having high patient mortality. As a result, the 1987 arrival of Dr. Subramanian and his subsequent recruitment of Dr. Moses presented a much needed medical and financial opportunity for Lenox Hill.

The two specialists were lured from New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center with an attractive offer: They would have exclusive contracts to direct Lenox Hill's invasive cardiac care-notably, open-heart surgery and angioplasty-through the establishment of their own professional corporations, or P.C.'s.

Dr. Subramanian quickly established Lenox Hill Cardiothoracic Surgical P.C., and Dr. Moses established Lenox Hill Interventional Cardiology P.C. Hospital administrators also placed Dr. Moses in charge of the catheterization laboratory, which X-rays the blood vessels leading to the heart to determine whether a cardiac patient needs more specialized treatment. Only cardiologists given the nod by Dr. Moses are allowed to practice there.

Such exclusive contracts created ill will. One former Lenox Hill cardiologist who worked in the catheterization lab said that when Dr. Moses established his corporation, he and other cardiologists consulted an attorney. "It was an infringement on our private practice. I really felt this was an attempt to control the physicians," he said. The physician left Lenox Hill shortly after Dr. Moses established his corporation.

The cardiac specialists and their practices thrived. Dr. Subramanian, 58, came to international attention for his innovations in minimally invasive open-heart surgery, pioneering a procedure that allowed him to operate on a patient's heart while it was still beating. Physicians at the hospital said that Dr. Subramanian, who was raised in Cuddalore, India, has a rigorous work ethic. The joke around his office, they said, is that his tombstone will read "Dead, but not tired."

When Dr. Moses, 49, arrived at Lenox Hill, he broke new ground in developing and using stents, meshlike devices that hold open blocked arteries and permit blood to flow more easily to the heart. He built Lenox Hill into a major center for angioplasties. In 1995, the most recent year for which figures were available, Advanced Heart performed 1,498 angioplasties. In comparison, 674 angioplasties were performed at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, 516 at New York University Medical Center and 426 at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, the other major Manhattan cardiac centers.

The specialists' practices were valuable to the hospital, because cardiac patients receiving invasive care from them were typically treated at Lenox Hill. While the specialists billed for their professional services, the hospital billed for room and board, nursing and other staff services, medications, X-rays, lab work and tests.

Shortly after Drs. Subramanian and Moses arrived at Lenox Hill, Dr. Acquista, then an internist and pulmonologist rising up through the ranks, began to work with them. Dr. Subramanian gave Dr. Acquista the work of performing pulmonary consultations on the open-heart recovery unit.

Described by several colleagues and his attorney as a self-made man under attack by jealous physicians, Dr. Acquista, 44, the son of a seamstress, came to this country from Sicily, Italy, as a child unable to speak any English. He took a full-time position at the hospital after his residency there and began building a thriving Park Avenue practice. Since 1986, he has served as chairman of the quality-assurance committee for the hospital's department of medicine; he has treated Leonard Bernstein and former governor Hugh Carey. Said John Mangiardi, Lenox Hill's chief of neurosurgery, "There are very gifted businessmen in medicine, but not a lot. [Dr. Acquista] is one of those. He has a certain genius for it."

Individually, Drs. Subramanian, Acquista and Moses had become successful. In 1991, the three joined forces: Even as Drs. Subramanian and Moses continued to provide specialty cardiac care through their professional corporations, with Dr. Acquista they founded another private corporation called S.A.M. Medical Associates P.C.

S.A.M., composed of internists and cardiologists, was an elegant idea: Patients undergoing surgery and angioplasty performed by Drs. Moses and Subramanian would need internists and cardiologists to oversee their recoveries. What better way to ensure their follow-up care than to entrust their patients to doctors they themselves had hired to work at S.A.M.? The group also enabled outlying cardiologists to refer their patients to S.A.M. internists at Lenox Hill who would oversee their specialty cardiac care.

Dr. Acquista quickly established himself as someone who could build the business. S.A.M. attracted referrals from Long Island, Brooklyn and Queens. "His role was first of all to go meet the doctors, let them know the service was available," said Mark Schiffer, a cardiologist at Lenox Hill who credits Dr. Acquista with coming up with the idea for S.A.M. "He's a good salesman. When he has a vision of what he wants to do, he's a good communicator."

Cardiac patients needing invasive care were generally sent from S.A.M. internists and cardiologists to the specialty P.C.'s of Drs. Subramanian and Moses. And after surgery or angioplasty, patients were often sent back to S.A.M. doctors for follow-up care. This flow of patients-which enabled the specialists to profit from the primary care that their cardiac patients received-disturbed some physicians in the hospital. Those doctors at Lenox Hill argued that S.A.M. gave the three physicians an unfair advantage over all aspects of cardiac patient care, shutting out cardiologists who were not employed by the group.

Law enforcement sources have told The Observer that they are examining whether S.A.M. may have violated the Federal Stark laws that restrict doctors from referring patients to certain types of practices in which they have a financial stake. A source with knowledge of Advanced Health's management said that while executives at the company wanted to manage the practices of Drs. Subramanian and Moses, one senior person involved raised concerns about S.A.M.'s patient referrals and did not want the company to take on the group. A management agreement was drafted between S.A.M. and a subsidiary of Advanced Health, but it never went into effect.

However, Drs. Subramanian and Moses said they ended their relationship with S.A.M. before Jan. 1, 1995, which is when the Stark provision regulating self-referrals for inpatient and outpatient hospital services went into effect. S.A.M. employed regulatory counsel to ensure its compliance, said Ms. Krantz, and Drs. Acquista, Subramanian and Moses all denied that any violation occurred. A health care law expert retained by The Observer said that cardiology and cardiac surgery are not the type of services that fall within the scope of the Stark laws.

Mr. McKelvey said that Dr. Moses believes that there was no unfair advantage by S.A.M. at Lenox Hill, "or any other unlawful or unethical conduct engaged in by S.A.M." while he was there. Mr. Warmflash and Mr. McKelvey said that Advanced Health was not concerned about S.A.M.'s pattern of referrals.

In 1995, the three doctors came into Advanced Health on the ground floor. They received a financial stake in the company and were among its first clients.

The way they did this was via a company called Majean Inc.-the title was an acronym for the three doctors' first names-which they created on June 20, 1995. Majean's shareholders were Drs. Subramanian and Moses, who each owned 304,105 shares. Dr. Acquista, who was also part of this venture, received the same amount in options, though it is unclear why he got options and not shares. Ms. Krantz declined to comment on why Dr. Acquista was compensated as part of the venture, a subsidiary of Majean, which was ostensibly set up to oversee the billing for Advanced Heart. The same day Advanced Heart was incorporated, Majean merged with Advanced Health. The doctors' financial stake was rolled over into Advanced Health, giving them an incentive to help the company grow.

The three doctors' corporations soon became the management company's flagship clients. In August 1996, Dr. Acquista opened the doors of Madison Medical Associates, one of the largest private group practices in Manhattan, which he co-founded with Lenox Hill's longtime chief of medicine, Michael Bruno. And on Oct. 2, 1996, Advanced Health went public on the strength of its management contracts with Advanced Heart and Madison Medical, both of which were created within four months of Advanced Health's incorporation. When Advanced Health convened a meeting for financial analysts in January of this year, the gathering was held in the conference room of Madison Medical's plush East 59th Street offices. Dr. Acquista made a presentation.

In the first half of 1996, Madison Medical and Advanced Heart jointly accounted for an estimated 72 percent of Advanced Health's revenue, according to a prospectus for the company's initial public offering. In 1997, the two doctors' groups were responsible for approximately 33 percent of Advanced Health revenues or $9.8 million and $10.4 million respectively, as reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission. With the help of Madison Medical and Advanced Heart, Advanced Health has built a controversial medical empire that had revenues of $61 million last year and currently manages 1,700 doctors. Some doctors have questioned whether a for-profit company, through its management of some of the most powerful doctors at Lenox Hill-including four department or division directors-has in effect seized too much control of a nonprofit hospital.

Lenox Hill responded in a statement that "Advanced Health has absolutely no control over Lenox Hill Hospital." In a March interview, Mr. O'Brien, the hospital's chief operating officer, stressed that the hospital was continuing to fulfill its mission. "We dance to the drum of patient satisfaction," he said. But he also acknowledged what no hospital these days can ignore. "The marketplace has changed, pretty much topsy-turvy."

He says he gives advice on everything from how to get a raise to how to deal with "a spouse who has a hygiene problem." He exudes boundless confidence about life's possibilities. "I know how to ask for a raise. I can get you a raise on a dime," he promised. "I've had people who had never written books write books." He said that if a person is "having problems with the landlord, I can take of that. Having problems with an employee? I can take care of that. Having problems with Mommy and Daddy? I can take care of that."

Even before Die Broke was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Oct. 21 and began heading toward the best-seller list, Mr. Pollan had won a well-heeled following, which, he writes, has accountants, therapists, nutritionists, personal trainers and "me to help them with their fears." He said his clients include media people, including New Yorker staff writer Mark Danner, TV Guide columnist J. Max Robins and MTV Productions president Van Toffler. Indeed, some of his clients and associates refer to him in gurulike terms: the uncle they wished they had, a consigliere , "homey and menschy"; one even said, "tell them he's my Svengali." Said one man, "I like to describe him as a father figure without the emotional baggage."

But along with his dear advice comes a dear bill. And apparently Mr. Pollan has an intolerance for clients who pay late. Some, all of whom refused to be named in The Observer , complained that Mr. Pollan's fees were higher than they'd expected; in one case, a client who called Mr. Pollan to contest a billing alleged that she was then charged for that conversation by the attorney. (He replied, "If that ever happened to anybody, that's an error.") And the contests have spilled into court: The Observer discovered eight cases in which Mr. Pollan has sued clients over unpaid bills-one for $350-in the past several years.

Mr. Pollan, who charges $300 to $350 an hour, defended his billing practices, saying that fees sometimes go above budget for reasons beyond his control, like the behavior of lawyers from the other side. He noted that his office handles 200 clients a year and also said that he does not turn matters over to a collection agency for six to nine months, and only then when he knows someone can pay. "I think I've loaned more money than I've sued for," he said.

Speaking in his five-person office on East 79th Street near First Avenue, Mr. Pollan was warm and gregarious, surrounded by framed posters of some of the cover stories he wrote for New York magazine ( Die Broke started out as two articles in Worth magazine) and a picture of him with his son-in-law Michael J. Fox on CNBC, where Mr. Pollan had a spot called "The Answer Man." On the round table in front of him sat a plaque and a pile of business cards that said "Stephen Pollan: Professional Fear Remover." Mr. Pollan, who was born in the Bronx and attended Forest Hills High School in Queens, said that when he was a boy, his father used to put The New York Times ' Man of the Week column under his pillow. "I was very preoccupied about being successful for my parents." At 68, he is already a living example of one of his maxims: never retire.

"A lot of people feel defeated when they see a problem," he said in the lingo his loyal clients admiringly described. "I tell them how powerful they are.… I try to put them in charge of their lives." Holding his hands over his ears to indicate his head, he explained that "the secret is to get out of here" because "this is a bad place to be in, it's a bad neighborhood for a lot of us."

"He's just a really empowering guy," said Harris Salat, a former TV news producer who met Mr. Pollan at CNBC. Mr. Salat said he received an abundance of advice from Mr. Pollan, free of charge. "He has a whole radical way of looking at careers," Mr. Salat said, referring to Mr. Pollan's notion of being a free agent. "Instead of saying, 'Harris Salat of CBS News,' it's, 'Harris Salat, a TV producer, currently on contract with CBS News.'"

Clients said Mr. Pollan helps them move forward with decisions they may already have made but haven't acted on. Lee Hunt, president of a TriBeCa company that launched MSNBC, recalled that when he felt nervous about expanding his company, "He said, 'Look, you grew the company this far by trusting your gut. You're not showing me one reason not to, so do what your gut says.'" Mr. Hunt, who has been to Mr. Pollan's annual fall family barn dance at his country home in Sharon, Conn., said, "I go to see him twice a year, if not more often." (Mr. Pollan, married to New York magazine columnist Corky Pollan, is often described as very close to his children, who include actress Tracy Pollan and author Michael Pollan.)

Mr. Danner first went to see Mr. Pollan when he was buying two apartments, but said "the specifics [of why I hired him] are less important than his general philosophy of life." For instance, Mr. Danner said, Mr. Pollan strongly encourages people to buy property and advises that "this fear of owning is foolish.… His general philosophy is there are almost these canards, like buying is something you get to at a certain point, these rigidities that make no sense."

Indeed, Mr. Pollan's current success is owed, at least in part, to a smart packaging of contrarianism. Though some of what Die Broke offers is common sense that doesn't live up to the book jacket's promise of "a radical, four-part financial plan," the book, which was published in October by Harper Collins Publishers, offers the provocative idea that dying penniless is good. (One of Mr. Pollan's oft-quoted lines is that your last check should be to the undertaker, and it should bounce.) Stop worrying about amassing an estate, writes Mr. Pollan. Instead, live well, buy annuities and give your children money while you're alive. "To hear thanks for a gift is wonderful. You can't hear thanks from the grave," he said.

Although Mr. Pollan and his collaborator, Mark Levine, have written other books-among them Lifescripts , which played out scenarios for asking for a raise and other touchy situations; The Field Guide to Home Buying in America (which was co-authored by Michael Pollan); Your Recession Handbook -none but Die Broke have gotten Oprah -level exposure-such a sure ticket to success that Harper upped publication of the book to fit Oprah Winfrey's schedule. As of Dec. 1, Die Broke was No. 4 on USA Today 's list of business best sellers, just behind Donald Trump's Trump: The Art of the Comeback .

"There will no doubt be some people who find this attractive, and bully for them," said Andrew Tobias, author of The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need , who noted that the book was engagingly written and that it would be "fun" to argue with Mr. Pollan. "But it sure would make me feel nervous and helpless to have nothing but annuities to count on for what might wind up being the last 20 years of my life." William Zabel, a Manhattan trusts and estates lawyer who represents George Soros, added that most of what Mr. Pollan suggests does not seem to require dying broke, and some of his advice could be dangerous. "I think it's a new packaging of a simple concept, which is to enjoy life and to leave less in inheritance. That's not new," Mr. Zabel said. He also asserted that, contrary to what Mr. Pollan says, "there is no national obsession with inheritance."

That may be because most of the nation-most of the viewers of Oprah , for that matter-can't afford to die broke, according to Ginger Applegarth, a financial adviser who appeared on the show with Mr. Pollan. "It's gimmicky. It appeals to people who want to spend money. The luxury of deciding to die broke," she added, "is the luxury of the rich."

Mr. Pollan said that after he contracted tuberculosis in his late 40's, his perspective on success changed. "I was climbing Mount Olympus," he said of his former self. "That was when I was most influenced by my parents' ambition."

Some of his ex-clients would quibble with the idea that Mr. Pollan has lost his former killer instinct. Although none would go on the record, five of them complained to The Observer about what they viewed as his aggressive billing, and his suits against several of them. "I find it so unseemly and hideous behavior," said one man. He added that after spending two hours with Mr. Pollan, who said he would look into his problem, "I started getting these huge bills, 1,200, 1,400 bucks. I had no choice but to pay."

Mr. Pollan said it was hard to comment on a given case without knowing more information. He said that obviously this client wasn't aware of all the work done on his behalf.

One former client, who said she ended up the target of a suit when she refused to pay a portion of the bill, said it came to well over $5,000, even though she had already negotiated the purchase price on the house. "I didn't freak out until it went over $4,000, and we weren't even to contract," she said, adding that she was billed for meeting with Mr. Pollan to discuss the disputed bill. "I can't believe I paid as much as I did," she said. "I'm not Donald Trump." Mr. Pollan replied that if the cost exceeded $5,000, a complication must have arisen.

Another woman said that after she had an initial consultation with Mr. Pollan, he referred her matter to another lawyer. She then called his office to say thank you and to make sure her file had been closed. "I did that specifically because I found him to be an aggressive biller," she said. But the woman she spoke with on the phone began asking her questions, "and I thought, 'I'm going to be billed for this call.'" Sure enough, she claims she was. "I called to question that, and they kept sending me bills." Eventually, the matter was turned over to a collection attorney whom this woman called "a pit bull." The woman said that after trying in vain to speak with Mr. Pollan, she decided to pay up. "It was not worth my time and energy to take it further. What was contested was $350, perhaps." Another former client gave similar reasons for deciding not to fight the suit brought against her, even though she believed she was sent bills "that couldn't possibly be legitimate."

"He talks a good game," this former client said bitterly. "He makes you feel that he can work miracles and do anything for you."

To be sure, Mr. Pollan's firm is hardly the only one to sue over unpaid bills, and other clients interviewed by The Observer did not mention such problems. Kevin Goldman, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and now an author of nonfiction books, said getting sued by Mr. Pollan did not affect his warm feelings for him; in fact, he didn't even consider himself sued. "You know that expression, 'It's not personal, it's business.' That was what it was," said Mr. Goldman, who paid up.

"No one is ever overcharged, that's impossible," Mr. Pollan said, adding that a percentage of his business is done for no fee. He said that he gives clients as long as it takes to pay, and would never charge for discussion of a bill. As for suing over a mere $350, Mr. Pollan said it would be foolish. "Sometimes I'm not even aware," he said, noting that he does not handle accounts receivable and had never met the collection lawyer. "We tell people to call us if they have a problem."

Mr. Pollan, who has written 13 books-and who has every intention of dying broke himself, saying he and his wife have already given his children one of their homes on Martha's Vineyard-said he hopes "to sell a personal Lifescripts soon. I'd really like to get involved in relationships.… I can tell you how to seduce a guy. I can tell a guy how to seduce a girl. He said he would like to do a script so that you know how to talk to the person next to you on the plane, or if you don't want to talk to the person, a script about [that]."

His immediate plans, however, are about money, which he calls "the way we measure the value of everything and everyone, including ourselves," in a chapter of Die Broke. Mr. Pollan has a working title for his next book: Live Rich .

The funny thing was that hundreds of miles away, at an outdoor doo-wop concert at Camp Washington Carver way out in the middle of nowhere in West Virginia, a man in his late 60's was giving a similar performance that very same day. His group's name? The Coasters.

The man wasn't just any singer, he was Carl Gardner, an original Coaster and, by his measure, the only one with the right to use the name that he says he came up with back in the 1950's. But now, instead of living out his later years in peace, Mr. Gardner struggles to overcome his bitterness at what he sees as fake Coasters popping up everywhere he looks: Harrah's in Atlantic City, The Today Show , even President Clinton's inaugural celebration last January. Plucked from Broadway, these Coasters are not the ones who made the original hits or got inducted into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame. In fact, they're young enough to be Mr. Gardner's sons-or even grandsons.

"Nobody gives you credit where your credit is due," he said, speaking from his home in Port St. Lucie, Fla. "I'm very angry with people doing me like this."

Apart from fighting his anger, Mr. Gardner has been fighting back, adding a sad song to his repertoire. Along with some original members of other groups, Mr. Gardner has been enmeshed in a vast and tangled web of litigation over name rights that his lawyer promises will grow only vaster in coming months. Most recently, Mr. Gardner's booking agent, JP Productions, has sued Billboard Productions Inc. for putting together the White Plains concert, as well as CBS Inc., whose New York oldies station, WCBS-FM, helped with promotion. Claiming false advertising, the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, seeks to keep any Coasters or Drifters groups (another JP Productions client) that lack original members from performing.

The CBS lawsuit is the latest salvo in a bigger war that centers around a man named Larry Marshak, a fast-talking, fast-faxing music manager out of Long Island. It was Mr. Marshak who provided the Coasters, along with the Drifters and Platters, for the White Plains concert. Mr. Marshak claims he has the rights to these groups' names, and he is not shy about protecting them. "They call me Litigating Larry," he told The Observer , claiming that he has filed more than 250 lawsuits in his time. Sounding like a 33 r.p.m. record playing at 45, he reeled off other claims: that he once testified on behalf of the Beatles, has spoken on musical rights before Congress and was affiliated with "the committee on counterfeiting attached to the F.B.I."

"All the cases are decided," Mr. Marshak said of lawsuits involving Mr. Gardner and other originals, like Bill Pinkney of the Drifters and Herb Reed of the Platters. "We never claimed to be original. It's a concept show. It doesn't matter who's in the group as long as the performers are great."

But Jerry Dunne, Mr. Gardner's lawyer, scoffed at the notion that Mr. Marshak is in the clear. "The man shouldn't be allowed to breathe the same air I breathe," charged Mr. Dunne, who represents Mr. Gardner and JP Productions on contingency. "Larry Marshak is going to see more litigation in the next six months than any other individual in America." Already, the litigants are hurling nasty accusations at each other-about smashing car windows in parking lots, making physical threats and, not least of all, playing bad music. At one performance in Atlantic City where a "phony" Coasters group was performing, Mr. Gardner said he grew so angry that his wife, Veta, "had to hold me down." In addition, there have been charges of racism and anti-Semitism; indeed, in conversation with The Observer , Mr. Gardner made pointed reference to Mr. Marshak's Jewish background.

'I Was a Prodigy'

The name Carl Gardner may be as obscure to most Americans today as it was when he was born in 1928 in Tyler, Tex., and Mr. Gardner has a palpable hunger for recognition. "I was a prodigy," he said, describing how he began singing at 5 years old and how, later on, he ran an elevator in town and was fired after singing tunes to a white woman on the job. Mr. Gardner struck out for Hollywood in 1951, leaving behind a wife and child, and joined the group the Robins when its lead singer landed in jail for 10 days. The Robins made a song called "Ten Days in Jail," and Mr. Gardner's temporary gig lasted two years.

Mr. Gardner was one of two Robins who formed the Coasters in 1956, when fabled rock-and-roll songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller made a deal with Atlantic Records. The group's first recording was "Down in Mexico," and its sound became a winning formula, at times comic and raunchy-rhythm-and-blues with mass appeal. In 1958, "Yakety-Yak" hit No. 1 on the U.S. pop charts, followed by hits like "Charlie Brown" and "Poison Ivy."

Despite the success, Mr. Gardner, who was lead tenor, recalls some hard times. "We had to travel throughout the United States by car or bus promoting the records to live, one-night-stand audiences," he recalled in an affidavit, "sleeping and eating in those years in segregated environments under tough conditions while giving as many as 300 performances a year."

In court papers, Mr. Gardner said he has continuously performed with the Coasters since their heyday in the late 50's, though along the way, the group was eclipsed by the Motown sound and evolved into an Oldies phenomenon. Like other old-time groups, its roster of singers changed over the years as members left or died, spurring confusion over who could perform under whose name. In Mr. Gardner's case, one of the first lawsuits came about 10 years ago, when a man named Billy Richards, at the suggestion of Mr. Marshak, filed suit claiming rights to the Coasters name in Federal court in California. Mr. Richards had been performing with Bobby Nunn, who was an original Coaster but left the group after a few years. Mr. Gardner said he enlisted his co-defendants, who were in California, to defend the suit, but they failed to show up in court and Mr. Richards won a default judgment in 1990.

Several years ago, Mr. Gardner faced Mr. Richards and Mr. Marshak in court again, this time in Brooklyn. That suit started when WWOR-TV in New Jersey planned to feature Mr. Marshak's Coasters on an Oldies show. Mrs. Gardner called the station herself and said that the Coasters it was putting on air were fake. As a result, WWOR canceled Mr. Marshak's group and put on Mr. Gardner's. A mess of litigation ensued. Mr. Marshak claims he won the rights to the Coaster name, but the Gardners dispute this. They say Mr. Gardner is being shut out by Mr. Marshak's cheaper competition. (The promoter admits to booking more than one group of Coasters at different venues on the same night.) Mr. Gardner's income used to be in the six figures, they say, but the knockoff groups have knocked those earnings down to about $40,000 a year, which must cover performing expenses. Mrs. Gardner said she's so stressed that "if I showed you my doctor bills just for heart checkups, you'd be shocked."

Litigating Larry And the Free Market

Theirs is not the only mess. Indeed, it is nearly impossible to catalogue all the litigation surrounding the use of the Platters name, which has cropped up in courts in different states involving a host of characters. Herb Reed, the only original Platter still performing, is still in litigation with Mr. Marshak. "Things are slow in America, as you know," Mr. Reed said of his journey through the courts.

Lawsuits over the Drifters name are just as complicated. Bill Pinkney has an agreement with Mr. Marshak that he can perform only as an "original" Drifter, said John Villano, his booking agent at JP Productions. (Mr. Marshak currently holds the trademark to "the Drifters.")

Yet Mr. Dunne, Mr. Gardner's lawyer, claims that Mr. Marshak does not legitimately own rights to the names of the Coasters or Drifters-and even if he does, he said, it's irrelevant. The suit against CBS, said Mr. Dunne, is for false advertising-for putting out groups as if they were the originals. As evidence, Mr. Dunne points to surveys taken by JP Productions at the Westchester concert, which show that many concertgoers expected "to see the artists who recorded famous oldies." CBS denies any wrongdoing in helping to promote the Westchester Oldies concert. In a letter to Mr. Dunne before the concert took place, one of its lawyers wrote that "nothing in our promotion of the event suggests that the members of these groups are the original recording artists."

Mr. Marshak has his own lawsuit pending against Mr. Villano and JP Productions, claiming that the company harasses his customers, who have every right to book his performers. "The public chooses who should be working. That's what they call the free marketplace," Mr. Marshak said. "The public doesn't want to see originals from that era-they're too old."

Mr. Marshak faxed The Observer a copy of an affidavit filed by an executive of Billboard Productions, which put on the Westchester concert, accusing Mr. Villano of having his employees show up in the parking lot, making threatening remarks to concertgoers and even smashing their windows. Said Mr. Villano: "If anybody was throwing rocks through windows, it was the fans because they got ripped off."

Mr. Dunne said he plans to continue fighting for the rights of Mr. Gardner. "He doesn't mind that people glorify his music," said Mr. Dunne. "He wants everyone in America singing 'Yakety-Yak.' They can have all the Las Vegas shows they want. Just say, 'Tribute to the Coasters.'"

A born-again Christian, Mr. Gardner said he prays for those he has opposed in court. But he vowed to keep fighting. "I think it's ignorant to give up my name," he said. "It is my thing. Why should I give it up?"

To hear Mr. Stout tell it, those earnings have no place in a $200 million defamation lawsuit he has brought against Christie's Inc. over comments made in 1993 by its president, Patricia Hambrecht, concerning an appraisal of Mapplethorpe's art. But you might not know it from the way the case is currently unfolding in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. In a turnaround strongly backed by Christie's and its lawyers, Mr. Stout is finding himself in the hot seat over his multiple roles in matters Mapplethorpe. His own lawyers have had to struggle to keep Christie's alleged wrongdoing front and center in the case, and Mr. Stout is far from having his day in court.

Though he told The Observer he has no intention of dropping his suit, it is hard to imagine that Mr. Stout doesn't regret, at least a little, bringing it in the first place.

"Defamation cases are fits of pique," observed Jeremy Epstein, a specialist in art law at Shearman & Sterling. "Generally, I advise clients to let the rage pass.… You're hanging your reputation out there for everyone to see."

The latest blow to Mr. Stout was the appointment in May of an independent counsel in the case. The counsel was necessary, according to an order by Stuart Cohen, the acting judge, to protect the interests of the Mapplethorpe Foundation's charitable beneficiaries, whom he identified primarily as AIDS sufferers. In essence, Mr. Stout would have someone looking over his shoulder, an obviously unappealing prospect that he is now fighting in the state's Appellate Division. Mr. Stout contends that the foundation's beneficiaries are being taken care of just fine, and that Christie's is merely trying to shift attention from its own bad behavior.

"They're preposterous, they're irrelevant and they're insulting, given what I have done," said Mr. Stout of Christie's pointed comments about his substantial Mapplethorpe earnings.

The story of Mr. Stout's lawsuit, complete with accusations of greed, deceit and betrayal, is, on the one hand, about the arcane and inexact science of art appraising. But it is also about the combustibility of relationships when hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of art are at play.

"They're each strong-willed and they're each successful," said one art-world observer about Mr. Stout and his adversary at Christie's, Ms. Hambrecht. "Get these two people together with a shrink."

"The record must be corrected," said Mr. Stout, who worked for Salvador Dali and has counted among his clients the Keith Haring Estate and Foundation, and the estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. "What do you have as a lawyer in New York City if you don't have a reputation?"

'An Enormous Martini'

Now 54, Mr. Stout said his relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe goes back to the heady days of New York in the 1970's, when both men were hanging out at Max's Kansas City. As his lawyer, Mr. Stout helped Mapplethorpe set up his foundation before his death in March 1989. "He was very devoted to me and I to him," he said.

Mr. Stout's defamation claims lie in a completely different case. It was late 1993, and well-known New York lawyer and man-about-town Ed Hayes was in Surrogate's Court in Manhattan, trying a case he had brought against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Mr. Hayes, who claimed he was owed a legal fee equal to 2 percent of the value of the art in the Andy Warhol estate, accused the estate of deliberately low-balling its worth. As part of his case, Mr. Hayes introduced the fact that Christie's had appraised the Warhol and Mapplethorpe art differently.

In the case of Warhol, Christie's applied what is known as a "blockage" discount, a calculation based on the notion that if a large body of artwork is released on the market at the same time, prices tend to go down. Christie's did not apply a blockage in its appraisal of the Mapplethorpe art. The auction house appraised Mapplethorpe's photos and negatives at approximately $228 million-based on that figure, Mr. Stout received an advance on his fee of about $2 million from the estate's assets. (By comparison, Warhol's art was appraised at approximately $103 million.)

When Mr. Hayes made an issue of the Mapplethorpe appraisal in court, Christie's "decided not to defend both appraisals on their merits," according to Mr. Stout's complaint, but instead launched "a false and defamatory attack against Stout." That "attack" was contained initially in an affidavit filed on Nov. 11, 1993, by Ms. Hambrecht, who was then Christie's general counsel. Perhaps most damning to Mr. Stout was Ms. Hambrecht's contention that he had explicitly told her he would not be taking a commission based on the Mapplethorpe appraisal. Had the appraisal been done for such a purpose, Ms. Hambrecht would have insisted on a blockage discount, she later told The New York Times . (Ms. Hambrecht, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment for this article.)

When Mr. Stout learned of Ms. Hambrecht's affidavit, he was "absolutely shocked," he remembered, and had "an enormous martini." He disputes ever saying that he would not be taking a commission and said he was stunned that "Patty, a lawyer of some intelligence, could allow herself to take such an untenable position in writing."

The shock continued as Ms. Hambrecht reiterated her claims in The Times and Art & Auction magazine, Mr. Stout claimed. Court documents show that Christie's consulted the public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton Inc. about how to deal with the press, at one point learning that "it might be beneficial if Mr. Stout and perhaps others know that we have a supply of mudballs to fling if they want to start that sort of thing."

One mudball Christie's may not have seen coming was another affidavit, this time from Andrea Krahmer Cross, a former assistant vice president at Christie's who oversaw the Mapplethorpe appraisal. Ms. Cross said that the Hambrecht affidavit contained "erroneous statements" that needed to be set straight. According to Ms. Cross, Mr. Stout never said he would not take a commission.

Nonetheless, Ms. Hambrecht's affidavit prompted the State Attorney General's office to take an interest in Mr. Stout's commissions, and eventually he agreed to a total fee of $3.7 million-a 30 percent reduction that Christie's calls an admission by him that blockage should have been applied.

Mr. Stout made no such concession, according to his lawyer, Michael Spencer. "They are the appraisers, I'm not," Mr. Stout said. "I don't have responsibility toward their calculations."

The Greed Thing

Among Mr. Stout's claims against Christie's, Ms. Hambrecht and another senior officer, Stephen Lash, is the charge that Christie's sold him out to protect its business relationship with the Warhol Foundation. According to an internal memo from Christie's acquired by The Observer , the auction house had a relationship with the Warhol Foundation. The memo, dated January 1991, referred to future Warhol business as an "annuity."

Bill Maher, a lawyer for Christie's, said Mr. Stout's questioning of the auction house's motives was unfair. "Christie's believes it acted properly in both the Warhol and Mapplethorpe matters," he said.

Mr. Stout claimed that both he and the estate had been harmed, offering one novel theory having to do with his role in signing Mapplethorpe prints. "Because Ms. Hambrecht's affidavit effectively charged me with being a liar and a fraud," Mr. Stout explained in an affidavit, "I believed that the photographs I authenticated might depreciate in value significantly."

His complaint claimed his personal reputation was also harmed. "There were two years when I could barely go to a museum cocktail reception because I could see people talking and whispering about me," he said.

But Christie's is using some of Mr. Stout's own claims to open a door onto his conduct. At a series of meetings last spring before Justice Cohen, Mr. Maher, of Roberts, Sheridan & Kotel, hammered away at the idea that Mr. Stout had a conflict of interest and that he and his "cronies," as Mr. Maher put it, were receiving "humongous" fees. According to Christie's, Mr. Stout has already received at least $1.8 million in legal fees from the estate on top of advances on his executor's fee. They also assert that Mr. Stout received more pay in the five years after Mapplethorpe's death than the foundation donated to AIDS charities.

In court papers, Mr. Spencer called that comparison "pure demagogy." Executor's commissions are set by statute; while Mr. Spencer did not dispute the amount of Mr. Stout's legal fees, he said they have been "carefully scrutinized" by the Attorney General's office and were "very reasonable."

"I felt strongly about promoting the foundation before promoting myself, so it's quadruply outrageous that they've gone after me with this greed thing," said Mr. Stout.

In court papers, he points out that in addition to donating $5 million in cash and photographs to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the foundation (which draws its funds from the estate) has helped create the Robert Mapplethorpe Residential Treatment Facility at Beth Israel Hospital, as well as AIDS-related centers at Harvard University and St. Vincent's Medical Center.

But Christie's isn't alone in voicing concern about Mr. Stout's multiple roles. As Justice Cohen stated in one court session in March, "This makes me feel very, very uncomfortable because … it may be that Mr. Stout cannot wear so many hats." In his May 12 order appointing an independent counsel-Lesley Ann Skillen of the law firm Getnick & Getnick-the judge said pointedly that the Mapplethorpe Foundation's beneficiaries "have been given little, if any, consideration or deference by the plaintiffs to this massive, ever-growing and increasingly bitter litigation." The judge has even touched on whether Mr. Stout should step aside as foundation president. (Pending Mr. Stout's appeal, Ms. Skillen has been told not to start working.)

"My personal, personal feeling is, I think, 'Great, let them come in and look at everything,'" Mr. Stout said of the independent counsel. But, he added, "the perception of it is very bad for the Mapplethorpe Foundation."

The Attorney General's office, which oversees nonprofit organizations, filed a brief stating that Justice Cohen's move was "unprecedented and without legal or factual basis," as well as a "usurpation" of its duties. However, that does not necessarily mean that the Attorney General's office sees no conflict. At one court session, an attorney from the office suggested that Mr. Stout had a "slight conflict of interest" and should perhaps stop signing Mapplethorpe prints. The other three members of the Mapplethorpe Foundation board-Mr. Stout's former partner Burt Lipsky, photographer Lynn Davis and photographic stylist Dimitri Levas-back Mr. Stout.

Christie's, of course, backs the judge. "What Stout really fears" about an independent counsel, it says in court papers, "is a loosening of his iron grip on this charitable foundation (with the prestige and access it provides him to the arts)."

A 'Campaign of Defamation'?

The two sides' growing battle over what, exactly, they should be battling over has made for further delays as each resists giving documents to the other. Christie's, for instance, wants to get its hands on the foundation's recent tax returns. Mr. Spencer, Mr. Stout's lawyer, has said in court papers that what Christie's really wants to do is "carry out a campaign of ongoing defamation." Last year, Mr. Stout filed a motion for a protective order to keep Christie's nose out of Mapplethorpe business affairs.

For his part, Mr. Stout wants to see internal Christie's documents concerning preparation of the Hambrecht affidavit, among other things. Christie's has objected. Because of all the wrangling, there hasn't been a deposition in the case for about a year.

To some in the art world, the entire affair seems a waste of money (although, at least in Mr. Stout's case, his lawyers at Milberg, Weiss, Bershad, Hynes & Lerach, are handling it on contingency). Justice Cohen, for one, does not seem to have much hope that it will be resolved soon. At one court session, he observed: "It's going to be of infinite fascination for many, many, years to come."