Bodo the intended murderee was tremendously proud of her. And of himself, an aged manufacturer and worldwide distributor of muscular, horrendous, laser-armed space aliens for small boys and girls. He was now affirming to press and television how strong his love was. And declaring for the record that he, too, was a subversive, not a bourgeois but a nihilist, part of the ‘counterculture,’ in (or almost in) with the criminal class. Again I saw parallels between Bodo and Jay Wustrin, my friend from childhood. It had always meant much to them to be looked up to by women.

I suppose it had occurred to Madge – in jail, where she had plenty of time to think – that Bodo hadn’t many years to live and that it hadn’t been necessary to put out a contract on him. Then he wrote to say that he could arrange to have her released – he wanted her back.

Well, here she was, being agreeable to the Adletskys while studying Amy in side glances.

Was it a blizzard? No, it wasn’t. Only a snow squall. The water brightened as the sky cleared.

Amy was round-eyed, soft-cheeked, with a slight hook to the nose. Those eyes in a somewhat flattened face at times gave her a silly look. Such would certainly be Madge’s summary.

‘So you’re Mrs Wustrin. Your late husband –excuse me, ex-husband – handled a legal matter for me long ago.’

‘I think we had dinner together at Les Nomades,’ said Amy.

‘Yes, come to think of it. And now you’ve made a name for yourself as a decorator …’

‘Yes. Mr and Mrs Adletsky retained me to do an estimate of your things.’

‘This stuff is all top quality. The Chinese pieces are genuine, authenticated by Gump’s of San Francisco. Our adviser on some purchases was Dick Erdman –’

Adletsky said, ‘I’m not going to involve myself with the inflated fees paid to professional decorators like Erdman. If your pieces are so wonderful, you should keep them. My wife will refurnish to her own taste.’

Madge worked her painted fingers, as if to rid them of some invisible thread or stickiness. ‘In a case like yours, Mr Adletsky –’

‘I’m an intending buyer and you’re the seller. Never mind my case. That’s all there is to the deal.’

‘Yes, but we don’t start from scratch,’ said Madge. ‘We’re not exactly anonymous parties.’

‘What do you mean – that we’re all in the papers? That your furniture will become a conversation item? Like the Kennedy auction? We’re not interested in buying topics to talk about.’

Madge crossed her arms and walked back and forth. She was extremely restless. She went between the glass doors, passing into the long living room as if she were inspecting the sofas, the settees, and the Persian carpets, putting something of herself into them again. Something sexual? Something criminal? She asserted her significance. She wasn’t about to let you forget it. She spread, she scattered, she sprinkled it. She hadn’t done time for nothing. When I met her, she made me think of a course in field theory, and I mean psychological field theory – for which I registered in my student days – having to do with the mental properties of a mental region under mental influences that resembled gravitational forces. Adletsky, however, was not about to grant her any field. There was many a corporate executive, a Treasury official, and more than one foreign prime minister with anecdotes to relate about Adletsky’s total refusal to accept the other party’s bargaining premises.