“I’m sorry to hear that,” I lied. “How’s Guthrie taking it?”

“Not well, I’m afraid.”

“That’s too bad,” I said, fighting the smile.

Beth was rifling through her small red handbag.

“And Victor,” said Lauren. “You know that crack about the jealous husband, it was not so far off.”

“Guthrie?”

“He can be brutal. Violent. An absolute beast. I should have known from the first. Anyone who sweats as much as he.”

“You married him,” I said accusingly.

“I thought it was charmingly masculine at the start, those subtle beads of perspiration. He is very athletic, you know. But it kept on coming. Like Niagara Falls. Finally I had him go to the doctor about it, but there was nothing to be done.”

“And so Rodolpho,” I said.

“For tonight, at least. Have you smelled him? He wears the most marvelous scent.”

“Turn around, Victor,” said Beth. I did as she ordered and, using my back as an easel, she scratched out something on a business card. “My home number’s on the back,” said Beth as she handed the card to Lauren.

“You should have two different cards, dear,” said Lauren. “One professional, one personal. That’s what I do.”

“But you don’t work, Lauren,” I said.

“Now that I’m suddenly single, I’ve gone into fashion.”

“Ah, yes,” I said. “The destitute divorced woman, abandoned by her husband, forced to scratch out a desperate living on her own.”

“Close enough,” said Lauren. “Oh, here comes Rodolpho. If you’ll both excuse me, you’ve worried him so. I need to calm him.”

“You won’t forget,” said Beth.

“Alberto,” said Lauren, again rolling the “r,” her eyes widening with the excitement of it all. “Victor, now that things have changed, give me a call. I’ve missed you.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Oh, do, Victor. We had such fun. Ciao.” And off she swept, hips forward, right arm raised, her gold runic bracelets jangling together on her arm, off to intercept the worried Rodolpho and lead him on to another gallery.

“Alberto,” said Beth, rolling the “r.”

“Poor old Guthrie,” I said.

“Yes, Guthrie the beast. All that money,” mused Beth. “That wonderful old name. Gone.”

“But at least he had everything for a time.”

“What about you? You were with her first. What happened?”

I shrugged. “She was slumming when she met me, looking for fun. She said she found me too serious. It was his basic insincerity that first attracted her to Guthrie. And she liked the way he hit on her all the while she was sleeping with me.”

“What else are partners for?”

“Well, at least it’s working out all right in the end.”

We strolled through the rest of the twentieth-century wing, ending in a room dominated by the work of Marcel Duchamp. There were tiny surreal sculptures, a wall of cubist paintings, visual jokes on paper, a glass vial of 50 cc of Parisian air in a case by a window looking out over the front courtyard. In the rear of the room, in its own alcove, was a wooden door with a peephole. I looked. Through a hole in a brick wall I saw a faceless woman, lying on her back, naked in the straw, her vagina jagged as a wound. The woman was holding a lantern that illuminated the scene brightly. It was a wildly disconcerting view through that little hole and I was slightly off balance when I left the alcove and bumped into Veronica. Chester Concannon was with her, still playing the beard.

Veronica was wearing a short silk dress, her head purposefully facing away from us, scanning the walls, showing off her long neck and gentle gentile profile, as I made the introductions. When I mentioned her name her head slowly turned until she stared me straight in the eye. “Hello, Mr. Carl.”

“Pleased to meet you, Veronica,” said Beth with an amused voice that Veronica ignored.

“How’s that landlord of yours?” I asked.

“Still a problem,” she said. “So tell me, Mr. Carl, what do you think of this painting?”

She gestured to a large canvas on the wall. It was painted in different shades of red and brown and tan, a flurry of abstract shapes. I walked over to it and bent down to read the label. “Duchamp: Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. 1912.” I stood back and could just make out the figure on the stairs and track her movement downward and to the right.

“Interesting,” I said.

“I had a boyfriend once who told me I looked like that,” said Veronica.

I stared into her eyes for an instant and then turned back to the painting. “It’s sort of abstract,” I said. “Which makes it hard to tell.”

“It’s easier if you see me with my clothes off.”

She was smiling at me, I could tell, even with my back to her. When I faced her again I smiled back and so we smiled at each other.

“Do you want to join us after the fund-raiser, Victor?” asked Chester, interrupting our smiling. “You too, Elizabeth. We’re meeting at Marabella’s.”

“Thank you, Chester,” I said. “But I should get some sleep this week, don’t you think? Can I have a word, though?” I motioned him away from the two women so we could talk confidentially. “Tell me a little about your friend Chuckie Lamb,” I said quietly.

“Oh, Charles is all right,” he said. “He’s smart as hell, but peculiar, too. Very loyal to the councilman, very loyal to his friends, devoted to his mother. But if you catch him wrong he can be difficult to take.”

“I must have caught him wrong.”

“Then you’re in pretty good company.”

“Why wasn’t he indicted with you and Jimmy?” I asked. That was the question I was really interested in. Chuckie said it was luck that kept him out of it, but federal prisons are full of guys who thought luck would keep them out of it.

“They didn’t have any direct evidence about him at the time.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, you see, he never met with Ruffing or talked to him on the phone. It turned out Charles had only one meeting.”

“And let me guess,” I said. “That meeting was with Bissonette.”

“That’s right. And with Bissonette unable to testify they didn’t have anything about Charles they could put before the grand jury.”

“Quite the convenient little coma for Chuckie,” I said.

“You could say that,” said Chester, slowly, like an idea was starting to form. He looked at me for a moment. “Don’t get into any trouble, Victor.”

I shrugged.

Then he called out to Veronica, “Look, Ronnie, we have to go. He wants us there first.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Carl,” said Veronica as she turned to follow Chet.

“Nice meeting you too,” said Beth to her back.

I watched them go, well, actually watched her go, watched the way she shifted inside her shift, and then turned back to the Duchamp painting. I studied its lines and angles ever more closely, and found them suddenly very sensual.

“That’s a sweet little girl,” said Beth.

“The councilman’s mistress,” I said.

“Aaah,” she said. “And dangerous to boot. When’s that trial of yours scheduled?”

“A week from Monday.”

“What are you doing to prepare?”

“I have some documents to look at, but other than that, nothing, which is exactly what my client wants me to do.”

“But that would leave the whole trial to Prescott.”

“Do you think she looks like this?” I asked, still looking at the canvas, feeling an erection stir. “I’m beginning to see the resemblance.”

“Have you ever thought, Victor,” said Beth with an audible sigh, “that the reason Prescott gave you the hundred-and-twenty-thousand-dollar settlement in Saltz was so that you would take this case and then stay out of his way as he screwed your client? Did you ever consider that?”

That brought me away from the painting. “You’re saying he bought me off?”

“I was just bringing up a possibility. I mean, of all the lawyers in all the firms in this overlawyered city, why did he pick you to step in to represent Concannon?”