The editor made a monumental effort to swallow, but required a slug of celery tonic to choke down the mass. He wiped his mouth with two napkins. “Okay,” he said, when he was finally able to speak, “run the pictures. In color.”

Henry skipped back to his desk, happy in his work.

Stone was tidying up the kitchen when the doorbell rang. He picked up a phone. “Yes?”

“It’s Celia.”

Stone pressed the button that unlocked the front door. “Straight through the house and down the back stairs,” he said.

“I’m on my way.”

Stone made a quick check of the kitchen bar, which held a collection of liquor bottles, the ice bucket and a wine dispenser with two bottles of chilled white and two of red. He went to the stairway to meet her.

She came down the stairs in a fur coat, carrying two large grocery bags. He took them from her, set them on the kitchen counter, helped her off with her coat and hung it on a peg. She accepted a hello kiss.

“I’m sorry I didn’t meet you at the door, but it would have taken me twice as long before I could offer you a drink.”

“Do you have any champagne?” she asked.

“A rhetorical question,” he said, going to the fridge and removing a chilly bottle of Veuve Cliquot Grande Dame and working on the cork. “Can you grab a couple of flutes from over there?” he asked, nodding toward the china and crystal cabinet.

She was able to reach the top shelf with no difficulty and brought back the flutes.

Stone filled them, then filled them again when the bubbles had subsided. They raised their glasses and drank.

“That’s lovely,” she said. “I like it even better than Dom Perignon.”

“So do I,” Stone said. “Why didn’t you have the groceries delivered? I hate to think of you humping those bags around.”

“One bag was delivered; it was sitting on your doorstep, waiting for some homeless person to make his day. The other bag contains some of my preparations.” She set down her drink and began unpacking a sealed Tupperware container.

“And what is that?” he asked, peering through the cloudy plastic.

“That is boned chicken thighs, marinating in port as they have been for twenty-four hours.”

“I can’t wait,” he said.

“It’ll be on the table in forty minutes,” she said. “Starting from when we finish this glass of champagne.”

“I take it we should drink a red?”

“A full-bodied red, preferably a cabernet.”

“I have just the thing,” Stone said, going to the bar and bringing back a bottle. “I brought it up from the cellar in anticipation of your request.”

She peered at the label. “Phelps Insignia ’94; that should do nicely.”

“Can I help you do anything?”

She downed the rest of her champagne. “You can best help by keeping my glass full and otherwise staying out of my way.”

Stone refilled their glasses and sat down on a bar stool. “Proceed,” he said, retrieving a decanter for the wine.

And she did.

Forty minutes later they were dining on something she called poulet au porto, chicken in port with sliced green apples, saffron rice and haricot verts.

“God, this is good!” Stone enthused. “I can’t remember when anyone cooked for me, and I can’t remember ever eating anything as wonderful as this.”

“You say all the right things,” she replied. “You keep doing that.”

“I intend to.”

“You get to do the dishes,” she said, putting a last bite into her mouth and taking a sip of the wine.

“My housekeeper gets to do that in the morning,” Stone said.

“Does she serve breakfast in bed?” Celia asked.

“She does, on request.”

Celia smiled at him. “Good,” she said. “But first, we have to find the bed.”

Stone showed her where it was.

18

The night passed in a fog of champagne and mad love, with mouths employed voraciously and plenty of good, straight sex: sitting, standing, kneeling and reclining. Stone woke, exhausted, with a hand on his penis, and to his alarm, it was responding yet again.

“This time I’ll die,” he said.

“There are worse ways to go,” she replied, then used her tongue to help her hand. She threw a leg over him and settled down, guiding him in.

Stone emitted a pitifully gratified noise.

“Why didn’t they print the pictures?” she asked offhandedly.

“Huh?”

“I saw the mention of Bernie and Marilyn on Page Six, but they didn’t use the photographs. Why?”

Stone stopped helping, but Celia continued to slowly move up and down on him. “What?”

“Oh, come on, Stone. Don’t be coy. When I told you about the penthouse exhibitionism I expected you to use the information, but didn’t you give the Post the pictures your man took?”

“You flabbergast me,” Stone said.

“It doesn’t seem to be affecting your erection,” she said, giggling.

“How on earth do you know…what you think you know?”

“Didn’t you used to be a detective?”

“Yes, but…”

“Then figure it out.”

Stone thought for a minute. “Okay, you got me. I can’t figure it out.”

“I’m living, temporarily, in the building directly across the street from Marilyn, and the doorman, Tim, is my buddy. He saw the piece in the Post, too, and he told me about the man with all the cameras on the roof.”

“I’m relieved to hear that,” Stone said, “because I had begun to think that you were some sort of psychic.”

“Oh, I’m pretty psychic, too; how do you think I knew you would use the information I gave you?”

Stone began to help with the sex again. “I think I’m just going to stop thinking, at least when you’re around.”

“Well, you’ve been thinking with your cock all night, and that’s all right with me. You don’t need a brain to make me happy in bed.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place,” Stone said.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“There was a question?”

“Why didn’t they use the photographs?”

“I was thinking about that-this was before we got into bed together-and I think they’re playing it very smart.”

“Hang on a minute.” She began moving faster and making little noises, then she came all in a rush, followed closely by Stone.

She rolled off him and lay on her back, panting. “Okay, you can have your brain back now. How is the Post playing it smart?”

Stone took a few deep breaths and handed her the box of tissues from the bedside table. “This is how I figure it: Bernie doesn’t know they have the pictures; he thinks they’re operating on nothing more than a rumor. So they run what he thinks is a rumor the first day, then Bernie sues them immediately, denies everything, claims slander. They wait for the suit to be filed, then the next day-that’s today-they run the pictures, thus blowing Bernie’s lawsuit out of the water and making him look even more like the ass he is. You could call that humiliating him, legally, and Bernie prides himself on knowing how to manipulate the law, so he’s hoist with his own petard.”

“What’s a petard?”

“Some sort of medieval weapon, I think, but the phrase means, if I’m right, that the Post will pretty much fuck Bernie with his own dick.”

“How very appropriate,” Celia said, laughing.

“Just what is your interest in all this?” Stone asked. “Do you have an axe to grind?”

“You might say that,” she replied. “Right after Bernie had started seeing Marilyn, when we were both working at the day spa, he made a big pass at me. She never even knew that, but somehow she got the idea that I was interested in him, and she took delight in telling me all the details of their affair, as if she were making me jealous. I got really tired of it, but she wouldn’t stop, even when I asked her to. I quit the job, just to get away from her.”

“God, I hope I never make you angry with me,” Stone said.