Entering, I passed a doorman in spit-shined shoes, coat, and a military cap. Down the hall, in small fussy corners, dowagers played bridge. In the men’s grill it was darker and the game was gin, played tight-mouthed, for money. A barman brought drinks. Cards slapped and were shuffled again. Dim wreaths of smoke hung over the center table where a steel company chairman, the senior federal judge, a bank president, and the owner of a newspaper held the same four chairs they’d held for years. Their heads butted forward like prows. No one else played, or asked to play.

“Mr. Shaw.” At my side was Lewis, the headwaiter. “Please follow me.”

He led me out of the grill and down a side hallway. Three years before, when the club president had collapsed on the last tee, Lewis had been a pallbearer. He had always called the dead man Mister. After the funeral, the man’s friends came to the club to drink. Lewis had served them. He motioned me through the doorway of a small private room. “In here, please, Mr. Shaw.” He made a point of not noticing my face.

The room had green walls and a worn Oriental rug. Mooring sat beneath a crystal chandelier, next to the portrait of some half-forgotten plutocrat. His table was covered in white linen. Two places were set. Lewis whisked out my chair. When he was gone I said, “Isn’t this a little baroque?”

Mooring inspected the gash under my eye. “I’ve hired a nurse for Joanne,” he finally said.

“Like with Martha Mitchell?”

He shrugged. “The result’s the same. You can’t see her.”

In the doorway a red-jacketed barman was waiting to be noticed. Mooring’s nod summoned him. “Bloody Mary,” I said. Mooring ordered Dry Sack. The waiter thanked us and left.

Mooring sat straighter, as if buoyed by the ritual of service. I sensed that he was part romantic: a man who’d redefined himself, selecting the elements of his new persona and the trappings to go with them, leaving his wife earthbound. “You know,” I told him, “I’ve sometimes wondered why I came to despise this place—besides the obvious. It’s that people like you find such comfort in it.”

For an instant someone else lived behind his eyes; vulnerable and angry. “You’re fresh from bullying my wife, Shaw, and in no position to offend.”

“I am, though. I’m an Irish Catholic whose father was a cop. Twenty-five years ago you were listening to elocution records. So forget where we are. As far as I’m concerned this conversation’s happening in the street. What you told me before was lies. Either tell me the truth about Lydia Cantwell or I go to the police.”