“Frankly I’m not pleased about any of this,” Laurie said. “What prompted me to ask about the nature of your work was that I had been told you were in the arms business.”

“By whom?” Paul demanded.

“I don’t think that’s relevant,” Laurie said. “But from the same source, I was told that you were convicted of cocaine possession. Is there anything you’d like to say about that?”

Paul’s eyes blazed in the reflected glow from the candle on the table. “This truly is an inquisition,” he snapped.

“You can call it what you like,” Laurie said. “From my perspective, it’s clearing the air. These are issues that I should have heard from you, not someone else.”

Without warning Paul stood up. His chair tipped over backward and crashed to the floor. Other diners looked up from their quiet meals. Several waiters rushed over to right the chair.

“I’ve had just about as much of this as I can take,” Paul snarled. Angrily he reached into his pocket and yanked out his billfold. He took several hundred-dollar bills and tossed them contemptuously onto the table.

“This should cover the entertainment,” he said. Then he walked out of the restaurant.

Laurie was mortified. She’d heard about such scenes occurring in public but certainly had never been involved in one herself. Timidly she picked up her cappuccino and took a few sips. Intellectually she knew it was silly for her to pretend that she wasn’t bothered by what had transpired, but she couldn’t help herself. She felt bound to maintain a charade of calm decorum. She even waited until she finished her coffee to request the check.

When she emerged from the restaurant fifteen minutes later, she was mildly concerned that Paul might be waiting for her. She was relieved when he wasn’t because she didn’t want to talk to him, at least not for a while. She stood at the curb to get her bearings. The restaurant was on Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side. She was about to raise her hand to flag down a taxi to take her downtown when she realized she was only twenty or so blocks from Jack’s. She decided to pay him a visit. More than anything else, she needed a friend.

When she got into a cab and gave Jack’s address, the driver, who was a born and bred New Yorker, turned around and asked her to repeat it. After she had, he raised his eyebrows as if to say she was crazy, and they were off.

With little traffic, the ride went quickly. The driver turned left off Columbus as soon as he could and headed north on Central Park West. Laurie had to point out Jack’s building because there was no number.

“You gonna be all right, miss?” the driver inquired after she’d paid. “This is a rough neighborhood.”