“Rood screens? I can’t stand this. Pour me another drink.”

“Okay. Let’s think.”

Light came to Markov’s face. “That’s it. Books! I’ve hit on it. You said he reads. You said he reads all the time. Tolstoy. Updike. Proust. Heavy-brigade stuff—you mentioned that. Darling, it’s simple, I see it now. A poetry reading. Or, you borrow his Tolstoy, then say, ‘How about we go out to dinner, Rowland, and you talk me through Anna Karenina, War and Peace?’ Tutor into lover. No man can resist it, Lindy.”

“Last week,” Lindsay said in a small voice with dignity, “I borrowed a novel from him. It was there on his desk. I knew he’d been reading it, and I thought… Anyway. I borrowed it. I took it back, two days later—and it was a long novel, Markov. I thought he’d be impressed I was so quick. I gave it back, and I made a speech. It was a good speech too, straight out of all the best cribs. It was astute. It was sensitive, Markov, so damn sensitive, I nearly wept—”

“What novel?”

“Never mind. It was French. During my speech he took three phone calls and sent four faxes. I was wearing a new dress too. I’d had my hair cut.”

“Nada?”

“Oh, he was kind. He did listen a bit…” Lindsay gave a shaky sigh. “The kindness hurt most of all, I think. I mean, he doesn’t dislike me, I can see that. But he’s not remotely interested. Whereas—I can’t sleep at night for thinking of him. I go over and over everything he says to me—just in case it might suggest he’d actually noticed me. I’m so damn inventive, it’s pathetic, Markov. He says, ‘Good morning, Lindsay’—and I think, maybe there’s a double meaning in that.”

Markov removed his dark glasses. He looked at her small, tense, boyish frame, at her short, curly hair, and at her pale, wide-eyed face. She was about to cry, or perhaps laugh; he could not have said which.

“—If I see him, it feels like spring. If I don’t, there’s no point to the day. I contrive all these meetings—anything just to spend three minutes in his office. I’m so ashamed, Markov. I know I’m making a fool of myself, a woman my age chasing a man like him. But it’s as if he’s locked in somewhere, and sometimes I think I might be able to give him a key. So it’s much worse than it was before. The harder I try—I think it’s because I can see he’s not happy, and I’d so like to—Oh, shit. I’m going to cry. I’m sorry about this. You see, the trouble is… Oh, hell. Now my mascara will run. I’ve had too much wine, I think.”

Markov pressed her hand and made encouraging noises. After a moment, the brief tears stopped.

“Right,” he said forcefully. “I’ve had enough of this. As of now we stop pissing around. This is serious—so we switch to red alert. Full mobilization. We activate the Stealth bomber, Lindy my love. And we fly right in, over that fucker’s radar defenses.”