“Well, I’m sorry, Pixie,” she said, “but for once Tony has it wrong. I told you—I was with them. Gini certainly has not been fired.”

“Oh, she got reinstated.” Pixie gave her a sidelong glance. “I mean, that was obvious to everyone in the lobby last night. But he did fire her. And he didn’t mince his words. She’d screwed up in Amsterdam, Tony says, and McGuire was going wild. Then he started in on Pascal Lamartine. Tony said he’d have died if he’d been on the receiving end. Tony said that was the worst he’d ever heard him. Then he slammed down the phone, he’d fired her by then, several times, and then he came storming out of his office with his green eyes flashing fire. Then he left, and before he left he went suddenly quiet and—” Pixie gave a sigh. “I just wish I’d been there, that’s all. I told you he was gorgeous. Can you imagine how totally gorgeous he’d be in a rage? I love tempestuous men…”

“Pixie, for God’s sake!”

“Well, I do. Show me the woman who doesn’t. I’m just honest, that’s all. Just the thought of McGuire in a rage makes my nipples go hard.”

“That’s enough, Pixie.”

“It’s his eyes, mainly…” Pixie, always irrepressible, gave a small shiver of delight. “And that black hair. And the voice. And the muscles. And the fact that he’s so tall. Also I hear he’s incredible in bed. I mean like seriously incredible, so you can hardly walk the next day. Walk? I can tell you, I wouldn’t be walking anywhere, I’d just be lying there, waiting for more…”

“Pixie, stop this right now. I’m not interested in these fantasies.”

“They’re not fantasies. All this is well documented. There’s this girl I know…”

“Pixie!”

“She scores them, all right? And her top mark is twenty-five. She gives them marks for invention, stamina, intuition, size, tendresse, output, concern—”

“Intuition? Who is this girl?”

“And you know what McGuire scored? One hundred. He went right off the charts. She was floored. Also, and this is corroborated, because she checked, and it wasn’t just her—also, he has these rules…”

“Rules?” Lindsay said faintly.

“Yes.” Pixie lowered her voice to a more confidential tone. “Like—before, right—he always makes the situation crystal clear. It’s sex, maybe friendship—and that’s all. The relationship isn’t going to have any future, there’s going to be no commitments on either side. Those are his terms. And he sticks to them too. I mean, not even any endearments, no ‘darlings,’ no personal revelations of any kind. This girl said she didn’t know one thing more about him when he ended it than she did the day it began. It drove her totally wild.”

Pixie gave Lindsay a long, significant look. Lindsay had a brief battle with her own most vulgar instincts; the instincts won.

“How long did she—”

“Two months. I gather the all-time record is two and a half. This was some years back, just after he returned from Washington. She said he went through women like a machine. She said that when it began, when he spelled out his statute of limitations, as it were—well it was fatal. She fell in love with him before he’d finished the first sentence. And then, the next morning, when she got out of bed and, like I say, she could hardly stand, she made herself this promise. She was determined, but determined, to be the one who changed his mind.”