“It’s a step up from features editor. More staff, bigger stories, a larger budget to watch over.”

“More headaches.”

“It’s a good step for me. If I ever want Magnuson’s job.” Bertrand Magnuson, the managing editor, who gave every indication that he was barely tolerating me. I’d gotten some big stories since joining the Metropolitan, but they’d had a way of falling into my lap. That didn’t count, in Magnuson’s book.

“You want that job?” I asked. “Magnuson’s?”

“Eventually, why not? The paper’s never had a woman managing editor, has it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“There’s only one little problem,” Sarah said.

“What’s that?”

“I find it hard keeping all those foreign countries straight. All those -stan places.”

“That could be a problem,” I said, rooting through the drawer for the corkscrew.

“What are you doing?”

“Where’s the fucking corkscrew?”

“It’s here on the table, Sherlock.”

I sat back down, went to work opening the bottle. Sarah said, “You’re going to have to help me. Quiz me on foreign events. I’ve been working with the Metro file so long, I don’t know what’s going on anyplace in the world other than this city.”

“Hitler’s dead,” I said. “And Maggie Thatcher? Not a prime minister anymore. Oh, and there was that guy? The one who walked on the moon? The moon counts as foreign, right?”

“You’ll help me?” She wanted me to be serious for a moment.

“I will help you.”

Sarah watched as I refilled our glasses. Then she asked, “When are you seeing Trixie?”

“We’re having coffee tomorrow,” I said.

“What’s her problem?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know. I called her up after I got back from Dad’s place. You know we’d had this lunch, she was about to tell me something when I got that call that something had happened to my father, so she never got into it. So when I called her after I got back, she said she was in some kind of trouble. She didn’t want to go into it over the phone.”

“What do you think it could be?”

I shrugged. “No idea.”

“I mean, what could she possibly need your help with? What kind of problem could a professional dominatrix have that would require your expertise?” She gave that a moment. “You’re no good at knots.”

“I told you, I don’t know. I must have insights in areas even we don’t know about.”

Sarah held up her wineglass and peered at me, as if she was looking at me through the rose-colored zinfandel. “Why are you friends with her?”

I pursed my lips. “I guess because she helped me out a couple of years back when we got into that trouble in Oakwood. I got to know her before I knew what she really does for a living. I don’t know. We just hit it off, I guess. Does it bother you? That we’re friends?”

“Bother me? I don’t think so. I mean, aside from the fact that she’s stunningly beautiful and knows how to fulfill every man’s deepest, darkest fantasy, I don’t see any reason to feel threatened by her.” She smiled. I started to say something, but she stopped me. “It’s okay. I know you, and I’m not worried about you. I know what we have.”