“It sounds like a terrible problem,” she agreed. “Are you asking me to help you solve it, sir?”

“I certainly am,” he said eagerly. “I’m so glad you understand.”

“Yes, indeed,” she replied.

“What I’m doing,” he said, “is inviting you to dinner, say, at Armand’s, and then to Mr. Hackman’s party. I have a car, so it will be no trouble getting you home afterward, unless-”

“Unless I happen to live in some ungodly place like Brooklyn? I’m afraid I do.”

“You wouldn’t put me on!”

She shook her head gravely. “Brooklyn,” she said, drawing her lips back and pronouncing it with a conspiratorial leer. Then, with her face screwed up brokenheartedly, she whispered, “You see, that’s my terrible problem. You can’t imagine how many men have broken dates with me as soon as they found out I lived in Siberia. So I’m being very honest with you and giving you this chance to withdraw gracefully.”

“I’ll risk it,” he said staunchly. “Neither fire nor flood nor sleet nor Brooklyn streets could stay me from making my appointed rounds with the most beautiful young lady of my acquaintance on my arm.”

He saw the lift of her breath; she smiled. “Honest to God, I thought you’d never ask me.”

Steve Wyatt took her arm like a true gentleman and walked her out.

7. Russell Hastings

Russ Hastings sat at the curve of the bar pushing his ice cubes around with a swizzle stick, looked at his watch and wondered if she had decided to stand him up-she was twenty-five minutes late now. Waiting laid a frost on his nerves, and he ordered another Scotch. Sunset midtown traffic crawled by outside the window. His fresh drink came and he demolished half of it at a gulp and looked at his watch again, thinking of Carol McCloud. A glamorous woman with a mysterious source of income-his lips made a lopsided wry smile, but as he began to feel the pervasive ease of the whiskey, her image came to him like a photograph printed on the insides of his eyelids.

When he looked up toward the door, she was there.

He gave a start and went to her. She smiled a little and said, “I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t think I’d forgotten. The phone rang just as I was leaving-someone I had a hard time getting rid of.”

They waited by the door until the captain took them in tow and guided them to a small table. She wore a sexy black dress, sleeveless and cut low beneath lovely arms and shoulders. She moved with grace and pride.

They were seated and a waiter hovered until they ordered drinks. There was small talk, the awkward maneuverings of strangers-the traffic, the heat, the elections. Her voice had a resonant low smoky quality, and when Hastings remarked on it the girl dipped her head with an inturned smile-her hair swung forward, swaying with silken weight. She said with a small laugh of admission, “I spent a good many boring hours at home with a tape recorder correcting my voice level. That was a few years ago-you wouldn’t have recognized the old Carol McCloud. I had a God-awful twang.”

When he responded, she said, “That’s a nice laugh.” Her eyes smiled at him over the rim of her martini glass.

He tipped glasses with her. “To a long and happy life.”

“By all means,” she replied, with an inverted twist to her tone. It puzzled him, and he said, “What sort of twang was it? Texas?”

“Kentucky.”

“No kidding.”

She laughed. “You know-where they have pretty horses and fast women. I’m a refugee from a one-drugstore town in the back hills.”

“In that case,” he announced, “you certainly have got no right to look so beautiful.”

She only shook her head, giving him the same amused look she had given him at her apartment this afternoon. She said, “Some men are afraid of beautiful women.” But when that remark only elicited his amiable smile, she laughed again. “Was that a trite old saw, or did I make it up?”

She seemed fully at ease. He couldn’t tell if she was flirting with him, and for the moment it didn’t matter: it suited him well enough merely to look at her. Her only jewelry was a huge amethyst clip set in gold. Her elegance was all in her luxurious simplicity. She had the kind of firm-muscled, high-boned beauty that wouldn’t fade.

They smoked and drank and ordered dinner. After a stretch of silence, he said, “I suppose we could play the old game of who do you know that I know.”

Her eyes widened a little, and she pursed her lips. “I don’t think so.”

“No? You keep taking me by surprise.”

“I was born this afternoon when you met me. No past, no associations-let’s just leave it that way.”

“Now you’re really making me curious.”

She made no answer of any kind. A waiter took away the ashtray and replaced it with a clean one. Carol said, “You look older in this light than you did this afternoon. You’ve got a touch of snow around your temples.”

He nodded. “My gray hair’s a little premature, but I prefer it to no hair at all. Early gray runs in my family.”

“It must be nice to know things like that.”

“Come again?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Only, you haven’t volunteered much about yourself.”

“Not much to volunteer.”

“Now you’re being demure,” she said. “It doesn’t suit you. You do interest me, you know-you caught me off guard this afternoon and I pegged you all wrong.”

“I know. You said you took me for a-And then you stopped. Took me for a what?”

“It doesn’t matter, does it? I jumped to conclusions, which I don’t ordinarily do. But you didn’t seem to fit into the image you were trying to create for yourself. I mean, you just don’t match the ink-stained bureaucratic hack picture, the gray-faced civil-service type tangled in the typical government delirium of red tape. You’re too-I hate the word, it’s so damned emasculating, but you’re too sensitive. That’s what intrigued me.”

His lips slowly twitched into a little smile. “I can’t tell if you’re flattering me or insulting me. The truth isn’t nearly as mysterious as you seem to think. I’m a lawyer, I used to work for a politician named Speed, and when he died I had to find a job, so now I’m with the SEC.”

“Jim Speed?”

“Did you know him?”

“I knew him to-to talk to,” she said. “He was a very nice guy, compared to most.”

“Most politicians?”

She opened her mouth, thought better of what she had been about to say, closed it, and nodded.

He said, “As for not fitting the image, what can I say? At least my work’s less dull than sitting in an office drawing up corporate charters.” The dinner came-filets mignon with sauce bearnaise.

He regarded the girl from under lowered brows while she began to eat; he said suddenly, “If I ask you a direct question, will you answer it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who are you?”

“Try another one.”

He said, “We’re skating around each other. I don’t like it much.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, with an edge on her voice.

He matched her tone. “If you didn’t want to know me, you didn’t have to accept my invitation.”

“Can’t we just enjoy each other’s company? Why do we have to pry up rocks and see what’s under them? Have I asked you about your wife?”

It took him aback. He bridled. “I haven’t got a wife.”

“No? You don’t act like a bachelor-you act like a man with a home who doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m divorced,” he said. “A few months ago. Does that satisfy you?”

“If you say so.” She was eating; her eyes lifted to meet his. She had his anger up now, and he glared at her; they began to scowl at each other, silently, jaws set.

It went on, a grim contest of wills, until abruptly Carol’s eyes began to sparkle. Hastings’ nose twitched. Suddenly they were both laughing helplessly.

He said, “Okay-okay. I apologize.”

“No, don’t. It was my mistake.”

“Mistake?”

“I thought I could try something. I can see it’s no good.”