Soft lighting came from crystal wall sconces and a crystal and brass chandelier above us that was turned to dim. They weren’t needed; the natural light was strong enough even for reading.

Glancing around, I saw four deep club chairs and two sofas, all upholstered in warm earth tones and separated by sparkling glass and brass coffee tables and antique-looking mahogany end tables.

The walls were covered in a pale green fabric and formed the background for several large modern paintings. I’m only minimally familiar with twentieth-century artists, but I did recognize two David Hockney canvases because I’d seen them reproduced in a decorating magazine of Liddy’s.

If those were original Hockneys, and the other canvases were genuine and by celebrated artists, then the six paintings in Long’s living room were probably worth more than my house in Santa Monica. His chandelier had surely cost more than my Jeep.

“Please sit down,” Long said, indicting one of the club chairs. Next to it was a lovely arrangement of fresh tulips in a green crystal bowl.

I sat and he perched on the edge of the sofa positioned at an angle to me. On either side of the living room were golden oak doors. The one on the left side of the room, facing me but behind Long, was slightly ajar. Across the room, the door on the right was closed. Although that one must have led to the billionaire’s corporate offices, I couldn’t hear any activity. I realized this room must be soundproof.

“May I order you breakfast?” Long asked. “They can make anything you want down in the kitchen.”

“Actually,” I said, giving a nervous laugh and feigning shyness, “it’s Happy Hour in Australia, so do you suppose I could have a little drink?”

In anticipation of this meeting, just before I left the house I’d had a huge breakfast: three eggs scrambled in butter, three pieces of bacon, and four big slices of ciabatta bread that I dipped into a dish of olive oil. This wasn’t at all my usual morning meal, but I needed to line my stomach. And it wasn’t my idea-it was Benjamin Franklin’s. Somewhere I’d read that when he was asked why he thought he’d been such a great success as a diplomat, he’d replied that he owed it to his ability to drink every other diplomat under the table, and his secret was consuming olive oil before getting together with them. After what I’d forced down, I hoped Mr. Franklin had been serious and not joking.

Long aimed a huge smile at me. “Della, you are a woman after my own heart.” He stood and headed for a mahogany cabinet below one of the paintings. “ Australia just became my favorite continent.” He opened the cabinet to display a bar with an impressive array of bottles. “What will you have?”

“I hate to drink alone,” I said. “I’ll have whatever you’re going to have.”

“Scotch. The nectar of the gods.”

“That’s perfect,” I said. “My ancestors came from Scotland. But I thought the nectar of the gods was nectar.”

“Depends on where you worship.” He took two glasses from a shelf and started to pour.

He returned with our drinks and handed one of them to me. This time he didn’t perch on the edge of the sofa; he settled back against the big, puffy cushions.

Long raised his glass and toasted: “To that rare woman who knows how to live. Cheers-and may we good people outlast all the bastards.”

I tipped my glass in his direction. He took a swallow and I took a sip. While he added a second sofa cushion to the one behind his back, I moved the bowl of flowers closer to me.

“When you called, you said you wanted to talk about my being a guest on your cooking show.”

“Yes. You’re such an enormous success in so many fields I thought it would be interesting for the public to see a more relatable side to you,” I said. “My thought was that you and I would prepare a dish together-any dish you chose-and as we did that, you could talk about what you like to do when you’re not out conquering the world.”

He chuckled at that; I suspected he liked the image of himself conquering the world.

“The viewers already know Eugene Long, the titan,” I said. “I’d like to show them Gene Long, the man.”

“What gave you that idea?”

I made a show of looking uncomfortable. “I hate to say this, because it might sound as though I’m taking advantage of a tragedy, but it occurred to me last week at your gala. After the-after the terrible thing that happened to Keith, the way you took charge of the people there and kept everyone calm. I was tremendously impressed with how you handled things in a crisis.”

He took another swallow while I touched the rim of my glass to my lips.

“And, too,” I said, “it moved me how sensitive you were to your daughter’s feelings.”

“My baby doll… the love of my life.” He finished his drink and got up. “Can I get you another?”

“Not quite yet,” I said, taking another tiny sip.

He refilled his glass and came back to the sofa. “My Tina’s the one you should have on your show. She can cook. I don’t know a toaster from a toilet.”

“I think you’d learn pretty quickly if you ever tried to make toast.”

He either ignored my attempt at humor or he didn’t hear me, because he went on as though I hadn’t spoken. “Yvette taught her to cook. Now she’s a wonder in the kitchen.”

“Having Tina as my guest. That’s a fascinating idea.” I smiled at him over the rim of my glass. “How is she doing? What happened must be especially hard on her. I heard she and Keith were engaged.”

“She’s okay. Cried for three days, but it’s winding down.”

“Tina and Keith would have made a handsome couple. Did you like him?”

Long nodded as he swallowed. “I could talk to him-not like some of those male model types she used to bring around. He’d have made a good first husband.”

Looking thoughtful, and a little sad, he swallowed more scotch.

I pretended to take another sip before I said, “Tina’s such a beautiful girl. Do you think she’d be willing to cook with me on camera?”

“My baby doll never met a camera she didn’t like. She-”

He was interrupted by the ringing of the cordless phone on the end table between us, on the other side of the bowl of flowers.

Scowling, he snatched it up. “Georgie, I told you to hold my calls.” He took another swallow as he listened briefly. “That’s not my idea of a crisis. Tell him to go-” Long glanced at me. “Tell him to go do something anatomically impossible to himself. And don’t ring this line again until I say so.” He disconnected and tried to put the phone back in its charger, fumbled, but managed to get it set correctly on the second try.

Eugene Long was getting drunk. A couple more glasses of scotch, and I’d have him in the right state to answer my real questions.

41

An hour later, Long had refilled his glass a few more times and was clearly inebriated. He returned to the sofa with his whichever drink and my third. I’d continued to take only sips, and to pour most of my scotch into the bowl of flowers when he turned his head away from me, but I was getting a bit of a buzz.

Drinking had never been a part of my social life. Enjoying a glass of red wine at dinner in a restaurant or if I had guests at home was the extent of my alcohol intake. In spite of my attempt to cushion the hard liquor with a Benjamin Franklin breakfast, my stomach was reacting with mild displeasure. I realized that I had to get the information I needed before it surged into violent rebellion.

As we drank, I kept him talking about what interested him, mostly himself and his daughter. The one possibly relevant tidbit he’d revealed so far was that he and Yvette Dupree had never had a romantic relationship.

“Not that I didn’t want to at first, years ago, but she was seeing somebody an’ wouldn’t play naked with ole Gene.” He sighed and drank. “Better this way. If we’da done the nasty an’ then broke up, that would have hurt my baby doll. Angel loves Yvette like a mamma. My wife died, ya know.”