“Yeah, are these guys the best? I mean the best.”

“Yes,” Susan said. “They are.”

The waiter came to announce the specials. We listened and looked at the menu and ordered. We had a second round of drinks, except Susan. After that flurry of activity, Susan turned and smiled at Gary.

“I know it’s none of my business,” she said. “But I’ll try not to let that inhibit me. Why are you so, ah, unmonogamous?”

“Unmonogamous,” Gary said. “You got a way with words, huh?”

Susan waited.

“Unmonogamous.” He laughed. “Well, I guess I’d answer why would I be unmonogamous. I mean, if you got a whole orchard full of peaches, why would you eat just one?”

Susan smiled and nodded.

“So,” Gary said, “lemme turn it around? Why would I be monogamous?”

“I’m not necessarily arguing for monogamy,” Susan said. “Just why in your case that nonmonogamy is so all-consuming.”

“No, no,” Gary said. “You didn’t answer my question, you did one of those shrink tricks, turn it back to me. First you need to answer my question.”

“Very astute of you,” Susan said. “Did you know I was a shrink?”

“No.”

“But you’ve had experience with shrinks.”

“Enough to know bullshit when I hear it,” he said. “No offense.”

“None,” Susan said.

“So. Why are you monogamous?” Gary said.

“Because unlike peaches, whose consumption is all there is-they taste good and that’s the end of it-persons have a variety of meanings and dimensions, and surprises, and feelings. I like those things, too.”

“And not sex?” Gary said. “You don’t look like somebody would not like sex.”

Susan smiled.

“Notice the too,” she said.

“Oh, yeah,” Gary said. “That’s good, I was thinking, What a waste.”

“Nothing is wasted,” Susan said.

“Love to find out someday,” Gary said.

Hawk glanced at me. I shook my head.

“Why?” Susan said.

“Why?” Gary said. “For crissake, look at you.”

“Thanks, but that’s it, I look good?”

“Of course.”

“No other reason?” Susan said.

Gary looked at me and winked.

“Be fun to see the look on his face,” he said, and tipped his head toward me.

“Not for me,” Susan said.

“You love him,” Gary said.

“I do,” she said.

“À chacun son goût,” he said.

HAWK TOOK GARY home after dinner. Susan and I lingered in our booth while Susan had a cup of coffee and I didn’t. A cup of coffee at night would keep me awake until after the summer solstice.

“I know you brought me to meet Gary and see what I thought,” she said.

“And what do you think?” I said.

“Wow,” Susan said.

“Wow what?” I said.

“A clinical wow,” she said. “He’s absolutely fascinating.”

“In a clinical way,” I said.

“Absolutely,” she said. “He flirted with me the entire evening.”

“I know.”

“And he was very aware of you all the time,” Susan said.

“I noticed that,” I said.

“Sometimes you’ve been known to intervene,” Susan said.

“Not this time,” I said. “I’m kind of clinical myself.”

“Well,” Susan said. “He’s no simple matter.”

“You mean he’s not just a womanizer?” I said. “Who’s turned a hobby into a business?”

“Maybe he is,” Susan said. “People aren’t usually just one thing, though.”

“So a new theory wouldn’t necessarily replace the old one,” I said.

Susan nodded and gave me a big smile.

“So you’ve been paying attention all these years,” she said.

“I’m more than one thing, myself,” I said.

“You certainly are,” Susan said. “But think about Gary Eisenhower for a minute. What is his pattern?”

“Good-looking women with rich husbands,” I said.

“And where did Clarice Richardson fit into that pattern?”

“She’s good-looking,” I said.

“And she had a husband,” Susan said. “But not a rich one.”

“Maybe he was still perfecting his craft,” I said.

“Probably,” Susan said. “But we’ve been looking at rich, when perhaps we should be looking at husband.”

“You mean it matters to him that they’re married?’

“And maybe it matters to him that he can cuckold the husbands.”

“Which would explain why he flirted with you in front of me,” I said.

“You’re not exactly a husband, but you’d fill the role.”

“And if that’s what he’s doing,” I said, “how much more fun if he can extract money.”

“Exactly,” Susan said. “Particularly in these circumstances, when the money comes out of the husband’s pocket. Whether the husband knows it or not.”

“I’m not clear quite where Clarice fits in to this,” I said.

“No,” Susan said, “I’m not, either. There are, of course, many men whose sexual fantasies are directed at successful women, or women in authority.”

“Schoolteachers, doctors, lawyers.” I grinned at her. “Shrinks.”

“Yes.”

“Take them down a peg,” I said.

“Men like Gary often use sex to humiliate.”

“Into which need the blackmail would also pay,” I said.

“Yes. Plus, of course, the money is good as money.”

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?”

“Or sometimes it’s a cigar as well as several other things,” Susan said.

“You think the women are humiliated?” I said.

“Not necessarily,” Susan said. “It may only be in his fantasy.”

“You think all this is true of Gary?”

“I don’t know,” Susan said. “It’s a theory of the case.”

“Or several,” I said. “But they’re worth testing, I think.”

“There’s no reason to avoid the scientific method,” Susan said.

I pretended to take notes on the palm of my hand.

“Whoops,” Susan said. “I’m slipping into a lecture.”

“But gracefully,” I said.

Susan smiled.

“Anyway, it might pay off to go back over Gary’s, ah, career, and see what patterns you can find, and see if they support our theory,” she said.

“Your theory,” I said.

“Okay. What is your theory?”

“That you may be right,” I said.

“I will also make a small bet with you,” Susan said.

“Which is?”

“He’ll call me for a date,” Susan said.

“No bet on that,” I said. “But I’ll bet you don’t accept.”

“I only date you, snookums,” Susan said. “But if I were to go out with someone else, it wouldn’t be Gary Eisenhower.”

“Because?”

“I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be about me,” Susan said.

“Is that an informed guess?” I said.

“It’s a woman’s-intuition guess,” she said.

“Good as any,” I said

She finished her coffee. I paid the check. Susan got her coat. And we left. On the stairs I put an arm around her shoulder. She looked up at me and smiled.

“ ‘Snookums’?” I said.

“I’m the only one who knows,” she said.

I MET BETH JACKSON for lunch in a restaurant in the Chestnut Hill Mall. She had a salad. In the spirit of the season I had a turkey sandwich.

“You’re still seeing Gary Eisenhower,” I said.

Beth was wearing a fur hat like a Russian Cossack, and she looked cuter than a body has a right to. She speared a cherry tomato from her salad and popped it into her mouth and chewed and swallowed.

“So?” she said.

“Didn’t you hire me to get him out of your life?”

“That was then,” she said. “This is now.”

“What caused the change?” I said.

She ate a piece of lettuce and pushed her plate away. She blotted her lips with her napkin. Then she folded the napkin and put it down on the table. She took some lip gloss out of her purse and touched up her lips using a small makeup mirror. Then she put that away, put her purse on the floor beside her chair, and smiled at me.

“A girl’s got a right to change her mind,” she said.