FORTY-FOUR.

They had gone to the Old Hotel for dinner to celebrate the fact that both Ned and Saul had finished their novels. Sally insisted this was a cause for celebration. Saul had added, "Or cause for alarm."

"Saul, Saul, Saul, don't be ridiculous."

"Sally, Sally, Sally, you haven't read the ma.n.u.script."

"You look about as hopeful as my last romance," said Jamie, stabbing the tiny fork toward Sally that she'd received with her clams and refused to surrender to the waiter when he'd cleared the plates away.

Jamie meant, of course, her last Mardi Gras Publications romance, but Sally thought the phrase quite lovely. "My Last Romance." Had it been a popular song at some point? Then Sally started thinking about Jamie's books and felt the alarm Saul had hardly been serious about. Sally didn't feel up to being the only person at the table who wasn't even working on a book, much less finishing one, much less about to publish one.

"Haven't you finished another book?" Sally asked.

Jamie answered, "No. G.o.d, but I only wish I had. It's one of the mysteries. I can't solve it."

Sally frowned. "Don't you know the solution when you start, though?"

"You mean, how it ends? Christ, no. It's boring enough as it is, but at least I have the advantage of not knowing what's going to happen so I can surprise myself."

"But . . . how's that an advantage? I'd think you'd be on tenterhooks." For some reason, Jamie's not knowing worried Sally. "And what about all those loose ends?"

Jamie shrugged. "Life's full of loose ends. Every day looks like it's been through a paper shredder. And not knowing what's going to happen is an advantage because you don't have to do all that thinking and making up family charts-you know, who belongs where and when; and you don't have to make up character descriptions and that sort of junk."

"But, Jamie, you've got to do all that sometime."

"Yes, but you can keep putting it off. You look shocked," Jamie said and laughed. "Look: you should write a book and see where it goes. You just keep writing and writing and try not to think too much. Half the writers in Manhattan have writer's block because they don't hew to that simple rule."

"What rule? The way you put it there is no rule."

"Well, not if you're looking at it in some Henry Jamesian way."

Sally looked at her, utterly perplexed.

Ned came out of the stupor brought on by Nathalie, a stupor augmented by two bourbons and two bottles of wine, not to mention the grilled clams, the duck, and now this dessert of baked figs Grand Marnier, asking, "Why Henry James? What Jamesian way?"

Jamie said, "Don't you think he had his books all plotted out and drowning in detail before he started? All of those perfectly carved paragraphs, all of those sentences as taut as piano wire. Pluck one and it resonates, right?"

"Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean his plot was set before he started." Ned took a bite of fig lathered in whipped cream and thought what a comfort food was, and why all of those diet books failed.

"Anyway, Sally," Jamie went on, "you've been around writers long enough you surely can't think there's some mysterious something about book writing. Some trick, some trick to it that maybe Saul or Ned could tell you and then you could do it, too?"

Sally's face flamed up. She had to admit to herself that that's exactly what she'd been thinking. Of course, she got defensive. "Talent. You have to have talent."

"Whatever the h.e.l.l that is. This dessert-wow!" Jamie went on, "You take out your yellow legal pad and pen and just start." Her hand scribbled in air.

"Oh, come on, Jamie." Anxiety was building in Sally. "A person has at least to have some idea."

Jamie chewed her figs Grand Marnier while she looked at Sally, swallowed, and said, "About what? I never started a book with an idea in my life. If you want to write a mystery, just start with a body draped over a gate. If it's set in England, make it a dry stone wall."

"You make it sound so d.a.m.ned easy."

"I didn't say it was easy, for G.o.d's sakes. Try describing a body thrown over a dry stone wall and you'll see it isn't easy. My new one begins with a dismembered body in a rowboat. Only I'm afraid I might have stolen that from P. D. James. That would be a b.u.mmer."

"What's up with you? Or down?" Saul said to Ned, who'd slipped back into his fugue state.

"Nothing."

"Ned can't stand ending a book. Unlike you-" Jamie pointed the little devil's fork toward Saul.

Saul just gave her a look and turned to look down into the Lobby. His chair was closest to the railing. "I'll be d.a.m.ned," he said. "Guess who's here?"

"Who?"

"Who?"

"The two suits. Well, I guess that description doesn't fit anymore. They were here the other night, too. Maybe they come every night, who knows? The moving business must be lucrative."

Ned got out of his chair to have a look at the Lobby. "You know you live your entire life without seeing a person, and then he's everywhere. What the h.e.l.l were they doing in Pittsburgh? And there's that other guy, too. What was his name? Alfred?"

"Arthur," said Saul, who was leaning farther over the black iron railing. "Yeah, that's him. He's a friend, isn't he?"

Now Sally and Jamie were out of their chairs, leaning over the railing.

Jamie frowned. "Do I know them?"

"You weren't in Pittsburgh or you would."

"Thank G.o.d I wasn't."

"You saw them in Swill's. In the last couple of weeks they seem always to be there."

Now, Candy and Karl looked up, and then Arthur did. The three of them waved to the ones on the mezzanine.

"Oh, yeah," said Jamie. "The two goons."

Three pairs of eyes stared at her. "You know, hit men."

The other three burst out laughing. Saul said, "In the Old Hotel? Hit men? Somehow I don't think that exactly meets the Duffian criteria, do you?"

Ned sat down and ate his dessert. "I told you yesterday, didn't I tell you, I had this feeling I was being watched, I mean all the while in Shadyside and Schenley Park. And that whole business going on in the street, the guns, the red Porsche?"

Sally and Saul had returned to their figs.

Jamie asked, "What whole business? Wait! Are you talking about what's been on the news? Are you talking about the missing baby? You mean you were actually there?"

Irritated by this whole idea, Saul tossed down his napkin. "There's no missing baby, for G.o.d's sakes." He exhaled cigar smoke. A veil of it hid his eyes.

"How do you know? Were you there, too?"

"No. I was in the Hilton. Having a nap," said Saul.

"Well, then, you wouldn't know. They think the baby was kidnapped by someone in a red Ferrari."

"Porsche," said Saul. When she gave him another look, he added, "Well, that's what these idiot TV newspeople are saying."

Jamie turned again to Ned. "You saw it all go down?"

"Not really. By the time I'd turned back and wondered what was going on, it had all happened."

"But you'd still be considered a material-my latest is a police procedural-witness."

"They did question me, or at least one cop. But I couldn't give him any information except for seeing the red car driving away."

"Didn't you get the plate number?"

Ned was getting irritated. "Of course not. Why would I? How was I to know the car would be important?"

"How do we know it actually was important?" said Saul.

"Because they're saying the baby was probably handed over to the driver of the Porsche."

Saul dropped his demita.s.se spoon on his saucer. "Do you know how insane that sounds, Jamie?"

Jamie gave him a look. "It's not my-"

"Very, very, very insane. I mean we might be able to conceive of the baby's being s.n.a.t.c.hed from the carriage, but from there to the Porsche is just too much of a stretch."

"But then what happened to the baby? And what about the mother? Where was she?" Jamie turned to Ned.

Who shrugged. "Gone. Vanished."

"The ten o'clock news had an interview with a behavioral psychologist who said he thought the mother's disappearance was more shocking than the baby's kidnapping, that it was just one more example-"

"Who knows if there was a f.u.c.king kidnapping?" Saul said.

"-of the sort of throwaway lives we continue to lead. But wait a minute! If the mum disappeared and the baby did, too, why wouldn't they have gone together?"

"Why would she leave without the carriage?" said Sally.

"Maybe there was evidence-exculpatory evidence."

"What?"

"My book's a courtroom drama, too. Maybe the baby carriage was filled with cocaine? Maybe Saul's right and there wasn't any baby! Cocaine and heroin stashed under the baby blanket."

"Remind me," said Ned, "not to read this book."

Saul dropped his head in his hands, washed them down over his face, and brought them to rest in a prayerful position over his mouth. "This conversation is crazy." He tilted his chair back, motioned to the waiter several tables over, then mimed the signing of the check.

The waiter came toward the table, scribbling on a check, which he presented in its dark blue holder to Saul. Was there anything else? There wasn't.

Jamie s.n.a.t.c.hed the blue holder away, saying Saul was one of the celebrants and he couldn't pay for this dinner.

Saul thanked her and asked, "Are we all through?" in a tone that suggested they'd better be, especially Jamie. "Let's go to Swill's."

The four rose and trailed down the vast staircase, at the bottom of which stood Candy and Karl and Arthur. They all said h.e.l.lo, Candy and Karl being especially effusive at their chance meeting here.

Saul said, "You guys seem to be turning up everywhere. It doesn't look exactly like chance anymore, you know?"

Candy laughed. "That's just what Larry here was saying about you. He said he wondered if maybe you were following us." The three laughed heartily.

Arthur frowned. "Larry? Who the h.e.l.l's Lar-"

Karl shut him up by stepping on his foot and introducing him to Jamie. And reintroducing him to the others. "You know Art-"

"Arthur." Arthur scowled.

"Sorry, Arthur. Anyway, you remember him from Pittsburgh?"

"I feel," said Ned, "I've known him all my life."

The four of them-or was it the seven of them?-left the Old Hotel and headed for Swill's.

FORTY-FIVE.

Five minutes after they got there, Johnnie Ray was belting out "Please, Mr. Sun," which meant that Jamie had made a beeline for the jukebox and that "Please, Mr. Sun" would be followed by "Cry" with, possibly, a lettuce-leaf palate cleansing of an old Bobby Darin speciality, something slow, like "What a Difference a Day Makes."

"Your Johnnie is the only singer I know who can spread a word like 'please' over the course of four syllables," said Saul. "No? Just listen."

And Johnnie sang: "Pul-ul-ul-eeeez Mi-is-ter-uh Sun . . ."

"Oh," said Jamie, "stop exaggerating."

"I'm not exaggerating; Johnnie is. Not even Elvis stretched a syllable that far, and he could really beat up on a syllable. It's a kind of tuneful stutter," Saul added.

They were standing at the bar, politely waiting for a group of strangers to surrender their table in the window. That is, Saul and Sally were politely waiting. Candy and Karl were about to remove the little group of four and were deciding on the best way to do it.