The office that Carter occupies—his father’s old law office—is too stately and too pretentious for Phoenicia. Its walls are of thick paneling, the carpets are lush and deep, expensive and large furnishings are placed with a decorator’s touch, the artwork is splashy, and Carter knows I find it offensive. It is the office of a corporate executive or of a well-supported politician, and perhaps that is why Carter is comfortable in it. If he cannot be the politician, he can live like one. Still, I have always suspected that Carter’s office is a liability, that he has lost business because it has the appearance of richness and, therefore, exorbitant fees. The truth is, his first wife was wealthy and it was she who decorated the office. She willingly surrendered its contents to Carter in the divorce after he discovered the affair she was having with one of his former partners.

“Bobo, they used to ball on top of my goddamn desk,” he once declared to me. “I mean, right on top of it. I wondered why she bought one that was so goddamn big you needed an intercom to talk across it. But what goes around comes around. She later caught the son of a bitch humping her own sister. I had him disbarred.”

Carter was waiting for me in his reception area, talking to a young woman I had never met. He introduced her as Libby Blister, his new secretary-receptionist. I did not have to ask if there was more than a professional relationship between them. The look on Libby Blister’s face was an announcement.

In his office, with the door closed, Carter poured coffee from a silver service and announced with pride that he had, at last, met someone he truly loved.

“Isn’t she a little young?” I asked.

He handed me the coffee. “Christ, Bobo, you could be decent enough to let me keep you in suspense a few minutes. Does it show that much?”

“On her,” I said. “And you don’t look too unhappy.”

He plopped into a chair near me. “Yeah, I guess you’re right on both counts.”

“How serious is it?” I asked.

“It’s getting there, And, by the way, before you ask, she’s twenty years younger than I am, but she thinks it’s fifteen. I lied and you’re not to give me away. We worked together in 1960, not 1955.” He lifted his cup in a salute. “To love, in all its glory, Bobo.”

“To love,” I said.

We drank from our coffee.

“And are you learning anything about love up at the Inn?” Carter asked lightly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The word’s out.”

“What word?”

“The stockbroker and the judge’s wife,” Carter said. “They’re back.”

“You know about them?” I asked in surprise.

Carter laughed. “We may be humble mountain folk, Bobo, but we’ve got our little underground, our little network of gossip.” He grinned. “A little like you rednecks.”

“I always knew we were alike,” I told him. “So, what should I learn from the stockbroker and the judge’s wife?”