“You could start anywhere; obituaries, for example.” He drained his third martini. “I believe you were doing research on death for Chatterton—some sort of exploration into the valley of the shades. You write them in advance, the obits, keeping them up to date, for all our executives all over the world. So when the inevitable time comes, as to all men it must, the media will not lack appropriate copy.”

“What does it pay?”

“Exceedingly well.” He settled back in his chair, poised to send me a sparkling flash of congratulations as soon as I said yes. I hesitated. Something was ass-backwards. I should have been begging for such a plum, yet I felt that he was pleading for my complicity in accepting it. “A career in public relations is as demanding as scholarship,” he went on, “and possibly a great deal more significant.” He shared a solemn smile with me. “If Jesus Christ had got good press, he probably wouldn’t have lost the big one.”

“When do you want an answer?”

“Now,” he said. “I’ll have to arrange for your using a company flat in New York, until you can find a place of your own.”

“You say New York?”

“UGH headquarters.”

Well. So there it was. The meeting did indeed have something to do with Val, if only indirectly. The idea of finding her in the phone book had its appeal. But when I did, I knew, she’d wear another hole in me.

I glanced out the window at the signs of spring. The sky was almost blue, the trees were almost budding, the sun was almost bright. Springtime in the Rockies. Somewhere over the almost green mountain was my newfound female friend, galloping through the knic-knic. No complications there, just a favorable shift in my life situation; I’d be wearing a hole in her, so to speak. Thoughts of Valerie receded and lost their talent to intoxicate. I wasn’t even curious to explore what might develop, one way or another, if I were to see her again. Hell with her.

“No,” I said, “I don’t think I want to live in a place where all the trees are cut down.”

“There’s always Central Park,” he said. And he added, just in case I hadn’t made the connection, “What about Miss Chatterton? Not interested in renewing a beautiful relationship?”

“No, but thanks for the offer.”

I thought for a moment that he might debate the issue, but he shrugged it off, smiling that solemn smile. “You’re a promising young man. I’m convinced you have talent.”

Here we go again, another unspecific allusion to my endowments. But this time I said bluntly, “For what?”

“That’s something only your destiny will determine. A destiny we might share if you were to change your mind.”