Old Mrs Adletsky liked Amy. The matriarch, too, was in her nineties, small and light – something like a satin-wrapped pupa. Anything but dormant, however. She had a crackling mind. And of course she knew – she was bound to know – Amy’s story. Amy, thinking of the old woman’s values, dated them back to the beginning of the century. Mrs Adletsky would judge a woman’s behavior by standards from the days of Franz Josef and still more or less observed by nonagenarians. Amy rightly considered that Mrs Siggy’s idea of a lady was the traditional one. But even these ancient trillionaires had to come to terms with things-as-they-were.

I have no dough, so it can’t matter how dirty my private life is, Amy thought.

She was hard on herself. Her policy was to condition, to train herself not to give ground under the worst that could be said about her. Old Mrs Adletsky had come to like her. She recommended her to friends. She would say, ‘You can trust this woman’s taste, and she won’t rip you off.’

In the warm limousine, Adletsky was watching news and weather on three television sets. Dame Siggy, as some of the Adletsky staff, the personnel, referred to her, welcomed Amy with what Amy called her ‘from the next world’ sweetness. Her bird legs, aslant, were laid together or set aside until they should be called upon to move. Her short fur jacket was thrown back. She was sipping her coffee as if there were no such thing as morning traffic on the Outer Drive.

‘Good morning, Mrs Adletsky. Good morning, Sigmund.’

‘Maybe today at last we can wrap up these negotiations with Heisinger.’

The Adletskys were buying Heisinger’s great duplex apartment on East Lake Shore Drive. The bargaining had gone on for two whole weeks. Heisinger and his wife had insisted that the Adletskys buy their furniture. Amy’s role was to appraise the value of the chairs, sofas, carpets, bedsteads, dressers – the drapes, even. ‘Of course, we have no use for their stuff,’ Dame Siggy said. ‘It’ll go to the Michael Reese Hospital Thrift Shop, and we’ll get the charitable IRS deduction.’

Old Bodo Heisinger, not nearly so old as Adletsky – Amy estimated him to be in his mid-sixties-clearly felt challenged to hold his own as a moneyman against Siggy Adletsky. Heisinger, a successful toy manufacturer, had made things very hard for the buyers.

‘I wish my wife hadn’t set her heart on this joint,’ said old Adletsky. ‘What are we, young home-makers, starting out in life? But Florence just has to have it – to redecorate and so forth. It’s a gorgeous view of the lake, sure enough. But as a bargainer this Bodo Heisinger takes himself much too seriously. Too much so …’

‘He has to prove to his wife …’

‘Oh, his wife. Of course he does. But he never will. He’s frightened to death of her.’

‘She was one of Jay’s clients, years ago,’ said Amy.