"I can see the security implications," Perly agreed.

Jay dropped the roll onto its bread plate, a little disappointed in it. "Unfortunately," he said, "I was a bit impetuous. In fact, I fired the young woman in the client's presence."

"Who took the young woman's part," Perly suggested.

"Worse," Jay said. "She hired the young woman as her personal assistant."

"Oh, dear."

"Exactly."

Perly considered. "The softer sex," he suggested.

"Possibly," Jay said. "The more willful sex, in any event."

"Speaking of sex," Perly said, now studying his own roll, "is there any chance…?"

"What? No, no! That's not the issue at all!"

Fortunately, the soup arrived at that moment, and when they continued the conversation it was from a slightly different angle. "This young woman," Jay said. "Her manner of forcing herself on the client made me suspicious. What was her motive?"

"To be hired by the client?"

"I don't think so, not at first." Jay shook his head. "I doubt she could have guessed that turn of events in a million years."

"Then what did she have in mind?"

"That's the question," Jay said, fixing Perly with a meaningful stare. "That's the question in a nutshell."

"The question that brings us to this lunch."

"Exactly. What is the young woman's ulterior motive? What, if any, risk is there to my client?"

"Yes, of course. And how long ago did this happen?"

"I fired the young woman in December."

"Ah. In time for Christmas."

"That was not ad rem."

"No, of course not." Perly smiled, man to man. "A pleasantry," he said.

"It happened to be when I learned the facts," Jay said, feeling faintly defensive but firmly strangling the feeling in its crib. "As I say, I acted impetuously."

"And what has happened in the three months since?"

"She — the young woman — is ensconced in my client's apartment — not living there, working there, living somewhere else — and every time I phone my client only to hear that young woman's voice and have to leave a confidential message for my client with her, it gives me a twinge, a sense of foreboding."

"Yes."

"Finally," Jay explained, "it seemed to me I had to act on my instincts, if only to assure myself there was no real… problem here."

Perly nodded. Surreptitiously he looked around for the arrival of the entree while saying, "Just the level of attention and concern I'd expect from you, Jay. But you have no specific fears or doubts in connection with this young woman."

"I know nothing about her," Jay complained. "She filled out the usual applications and took the usual tests. I've brought copies of all that for you."

"Good."

"She has a decent education, comes so far as I know from a decent family, has no previous link that I can find with my client at all. But it was that client and no other that the young woman went after."

"Wherever there's an action, there is always a motive," Perly said. "What is her motive? That is what you want me to find out."

"Yes."

Perly nodded. "How will I be billing this?"

"To me, at the firm," Jay said. "I'll pass it on to the client's account."

"We are acting on her behalf, after all," Perly agreed. "Even if I don't come up with anything… reprehensible."

"Whatever you come up with," Jay told him, "if it at least answers my question about her reasons, I'll be content. And so will the client."

"Naturally."

From within his sleek dark jacket, Perly withdrew a slender black notebook that contained within a strap its own gold pen. Drawing this pen, he said, "I'll need names and addresses and some little details concerning these two ladies."

"Of course."

Seeing Jay hesitate, Perly leaned forward into his arriving main course, smiled, and said, "Confidentiality, Jay. It's considered my greatest virtue."

36

WHAT BRIAN MISSED most was the evenings alone. It had been fun, in those days, to come back to the apartment from the cable station before six, futz around with his music, browse in his cookbooks, prepare tonight's dinner in a slow and leisurely fashion, and know that, probably after ten o'clock, he'd get that call: "I'm on my way." He'd turn up the heat under the pots or in the oven, bring out tonight's wine and a couple of glasses and be ready when she walked in the front door.

Being fired from Feinberg had been bad for Fiona but ultimately it had been worse for Brian, because she was over it by now but he was never going to be. He'd never have those evenings to himself, ever again. Or the sense of freedom they had given him, in more ways than one.

As he well knew, it was the irregularity of her days that had made the regularity of his own easier to stand. What had attracted him to both cartooning and cooking in the first place was that both were art, not science. He could cook but he couldn't bake, because baking was chemistry; get one little thing wrong and you've ruined it. The same with cartooning; he couldn't do an exact face or even an exact building, but he could give you the feel of it, and that's what made it art.

What he liked about art was that there were no rules. He liked living with no rules. The regularity of his mornings and evenings struck him as too uncomfortably close to living within the rules, so he'd been lifted by Fiona's goofy hours; they'd freed him from the temporal rules by osmosis. But he would of course never tell her that her being fired had taken that pleasure out of his life.

Besides, he was happy for her. She had a better job now, which meant not just more money and better hours but more entertaining things for her to talk about over dinner, Mrs. Wheeler being an endlessly diverting character. He wished sometimes he could figure out a way to turn her into a cartoon and sell it to the station, or maybe some other channel further up the animation food chain. He was creative in some ways, but not in that way, and he regretted it.

Now that they had these longer evenings together, another question was what to do to fill the time between getting home and actually sitting down to dinner, which couldn't possibly happen until two or three hours later. Much of the time was spent with Fiona detailing Mrs. W's latest follies while he worked on dinner, and the rest of the time they'd been filling in with games: Scrabble, backgammon, cribbage.

But the main topic of their evenings was Livia Northwood Wheeler, who was so rich the thought of it made Brian's teeth hurt. She was also apparently as ditzy and over-the-top as any cartoon character you could think of. Brian wanted to meet her. He wanted to laugh, discreetly, at her antics, and he wanted from time to time to find some of her money in his pockets. If he could arrange the meeting, he was sure he could arrange the rest. If only he could arrange the meeting.

Evening after evening, while shifting tiles or moving pegs or arranging tiles into words, he'd drop little hints that he'd like to meet the fabulous Mrs. W Why not invite her to dinner? "I'm not that bad a cook."

"You're a wonderful cook, as you very well know. 'Quixotic' is a word, isn't it? But we couldn't ask her here, Brian."

"Why not? Maybe she'd enjoy slumming."

"Mrs. W? I really doubt that."

If it were summer, or the weather were at least decent, he could suggest a picnic, in Riverside Park, or even on the roof of this building, which had some pretty good views and which some of the tenants did occasionally use for picnics and small parties, though Frisbee had been banned after a couple of unfortunate incidents.

But now, at last, this Monday in March, he had his opportunity, or he thought he did. All day at the station the preparations had been under way, and that's where he got the idea, and could hardly wait to get home, and for Fiona to get home, so he could try it on her. Maybe this time it would happen. But he should be cool about it, not just burst out with the idea, or she'd likely be turned off.