With a last, untrusting glance, Arnie turned and trudged toward the elevators.

Henry ripped open the envelope and read the document. “Bingo!!!” he yelled, and everybody in the room turned and stared at him as he sprinted toward his boss’s office. He ran into the room without knocking, startling a man who had just taken a big bite of a corned beef and chopped liver sandwich on rye with Russian dressing. “Bernie Finger came through like a champ!” Henry yelled, holding up the summons so his boss could read it without getting chopped liver on it.

The editor made a monumental effort to swallow, but required a slug of celery tonic to choke down the mass. He wiped his mouth with two napkins. “Okay,” he said, when he was finally able to speak, “run the pictures. In color.”

Henry skipped back to his desk, happy in his work.

Stone was tidying up the kitchen when the doorbell rang. He picked up a phone. “Yes?”

“It’s Celia.”

Stone pressed the button that unlocked the front door. “Straight through the house and down the back stairs,” he said.

“I’m on my way.”

Stone made a quick check of the kitchen bar, which held a collection of liquor bottles, the ice bucket and a wine dispenser with two bottles of chilled white and two of red. He went to the stairway to meet her.

She came down the stairs in a fur coat, carrying two large grocery bags. He took them from her, set them on the kitchen counter, helped her off with her coat and hung it on a peg. She accepted a hello kiss.

“I’m sorry I didn’t meet you at the door, but it would have taken me twice as long before I could offer you a drink.”

“Do you have any champagne?” she asked.

“A rhetorical question,” he said, going to the fridge and removing a chilly bottle of Veuve Cliquot Grande Dame and working on the cork. “Can you grab a couple of flutes from over there?” he asked, nodding toward the china and crystal cabinet.

She was able to reach the top shelf with no difficulty and brought back the flutes.

Stone filled them, then filled them again when the bubbles had subsided. They raised their glasses and drank.

“That’s lovely,” she said. “I like it even better than Dom Perignon.”

“So do I,” Stone said. “Why didn’t you have the groceries delivered? I hate to think of you humping those bags around.”

“One bag was delivered; it was sitting on your doorstep, waiting for some homeless person to make his day. The other bag contains some of my preparations.” She set down her drink and began unpacking a sealed Tupperware container.

“And what is that?” he asked, peering through the cloudy plastic.

“That is boned chicken thighs, marinating in port as they have been for twenty-four hours.”

“I can’t wait,” he said.