Walking into Jil’s apartment that night, Frankie half expected to find him in the forest green living room. She hadn’t been to the apartment for so long, but it seemed very much the same—with the exception of a brown velvet deco couch replacing the brocade in the living room and a large art deco mirror over the fireplace. Jil had predicted that Judy Tremont would be slashing her brocade and replacing her elaborate Chinese mirror with sleeker ones resembling the deco Radio City powder room. Obviously he had practiced what he predicted.

Frankie didn’t recognize many of the people milling about the apartment inspecting Jil’s trophies of decades of exquisite taste and a cultivated eye. She expected to see Clarice or Grey Navez but they were decidedly not present.

There were one or two women with helmet hair, the kind that, Jil had explained to her, bubbles around the head and stays put until the next visit to Kenneth. But mostly the small gathering of around thirty of Jil’s closest friends were men in suits and older relatives.

A young man in his thirties approached Frankie. “You must be Dr. Weissman. Jil talked about you all the time.”

Frankie sized him up. If this was the stripper in Hoboken, he seemed perfectly comfortable with his clothes on.

“Oh I loved Jil. He was such a lovely man.” She didn’t want to ask who he was until the young stranger offered it.

“I’m Dennis Shaloub. I was Jil’s partner for the past ten years.”

His partner? Frankie thought to herself. Jil supposedly had just met him.

“Of course.” She smiled at him. “Jil mentioned you work in New Jersey.” Frankie assumed he would cover up the stripping by admitting he was in show business.

“Actually I live here in New York on 101st and West End, but I commute to Newark. I’m an architect with the downtown redevelopment plan there.”

“You’re an architect?” Frankie blurted. So either Jil or Judy Tremont or someone else had come up with the go-go boy. “Isn’t Jil’s daughter an architect, too?” she asked, trying to hide her confusion.

“Jil didn’t have a daughter.”

“Did you go to Harvard to architecture school?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. I must have it confused. Of course he mentioned you.”

“Jil very much wanted you to have something. He thought of you as family.”

Frankie kissed his cheek. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

As Frankie walked through the apartment a waiter offered her a blinchiki with caviar. Because of her friendship with Jil she immediately noted that the waiters were wearing formfitting black T-shirts and Helmut Lang jeans. Clearly, Jil had been his own special events coordinator.