Like I said, that was the sixties. There was a lot of seeing among a certain crowd.

“And you like him,” I said, trying to help her out.

“His name is Stefano Lombardi.”

“Okay.”

“He’s the head of sales in P9’s Rome office.”

“Good salary. Wonderful country. I passed through on my way to France during the war. Even then you could see the beauty.”

Asiette was looking me right in the eye.

“He has asked me to marry him,” she said.

I felt something. Actually it was quite a few things. I liked Asiette’s company and I’d learned a lot from her. She was young and I cared for her at least partly the way I felt for Feather. These thoughts logjammed in my head and I found that I had no words to say.

“Well?” the Frenchwoman demanded.

“Honey . . . it’s not my call.”

The World War II survivor’s nostrils flared before she said, “You better go on upstairs, Easy. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your job.”

The main office of North American security for P9 was on the thirty-sixth floor.

The president and CEO of the company, Jean-Paul Villard, once offered me the top security position, but I turned him down because of a recent windfall and a lifelong distaste for being answerable to anyone.

I did, however, have a suggestion of whom he might hire.

The double glass doors had the words SÉCURITÉ POUR L’AMÉRIQUE DU NORD stenciled across them in gilt and scarlet lettering. Through the glass I could see the burgundy carpeting and dark wood shelving along the walls of the large reception area. At the center of the room was a big mahogany desk. Behind this sat a young man who was studying the pages of a slender, drab green file.

I didn’t knock but the young man sensed me and jumped to his feet like the soldier he was, ready for action.

I smiled and waved at the hale specimen in the thirty-dollar Sears suit.

He approached the door, took out a large ring of keys, and used one of these on a small silver disk at the far end of the left-side entry. Then he pulled that portal open maybe four inches.

“Yes?” he asked, as if talking to a stranger.

“Is he in, Edmund?”

“Major Black is working.”

“Here or elsewhere?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I don’t need one.”

Resentment filled the veteran’s eyes.

“I’ll check if he wants to see you,” Edmund Lewis said.

He closed and locked the glass door, turned away, and walked to another door at the back of the reception room. There he knocked and then passed through. No more than half a minute later the military receptionist returned and admitted me to his domain.

“He said to show you in,” Edmund informed me.

“I know the way.”