So, what did that mean to him, now that he was on the lam? Loss of the seven grand would be tragic. As for the Book of Names, he wasn’t sure if he was going to continue in that line. Maybe he’d done enough killing. He could write a pretty decent report, so maybe he’d interview at The New York Times. They hired out of CIA all the time . . . but mostly from the analytical divisions, not from the tough guys.

They arrived on no less than Sutton Place and pulled up—guess where—in front of the prettiest house on the whole block.

“Man,” Paul said as he got out. This was way far away from his side of the tracks. He looked up at the imposing façade. It looked damn old, but it was perfectly kept.

Miriam hurried up the steps and threw the door open. Paul joined her. “I oughta pick you up and carry you across the threshold,” he said.

“Welcome to my abode. Girls, he wants some breakfast! Caviar and eggs! Champers!”

Sarah and Leonore marched off into the back of the house.

“I don’t think they like me too much.”

“They’ll get used to you. In fact, I have a prediction. Sarah is going to totally change her opinion of you.”

Paul had big plans for bedtime, which came after a breakfast where Miriam picked and drank champagne, and he thought he must have consumed sixteen eggs at least. Sarah served table, and Leonore cooked. Sarah was awful pretty when she was mad.

Paul smoked another of the cigars in the big library. He saw all kinds of amazing books. There were also locked bookcases with really ancient looking black books in them, their spines unmarked. There were even scroll boxes, smelling of beeswax. He drew a scroll partly out, but it was real old and he was afraid to unroll it for fear he’d crack the parchment and cost her a cool million or something.

He would not have been surprised to find a Gutenberg Bible in here. What he did discover was to him equally amazing—a portfolio containing an original collection of opera libretti. These were not simply early printed copies. They were the manuscript scores.

Here was Rigoletto in what was apparently Verdi’s own hurried scrawl. Reverently, he drew the score out. Miriam came up behind him so quietly that he was startled.

She laid a delicate hand on his shoulder.“You take an interest in opera?”

“A great interest.”

She took the score and walked through to another wonderful room. The wide parquet floor was covered with a Persian rug—the real thing, undoubtedly. But Paul’s attention was taken by the Steinway, a concert grand set in an alcove all its own. The windows that framed it appeared to be Tiffany stained-glass.