'Some artist down on his luck,' Tony said. 'He painted it in exchange for fifty free dinners.'
'Only fifty? Michael got a bargain.'
They talked about films and books and music and theater. The food was nearly as good as the conversation. The appetizer was light; it consisted of two stubby crepes, one filled with unadulterated ricotta cheese, the other with a spicy concoction of shaved beef, onions, peppers, mushrooms, and garlic. Their salads were huge and crisp, smothered in sliced raw mushrooms. Tony selected the entree, Veal Savatino, a specialita of the house, incredibly tender white-white veal with a thin brown sauce, pearl onions, and grilled strips of zucchini. The cappuccino was excellent.
When she finished dinner and looked at her watch, Hilary was amazed to see that it was ten minutes past eleven.
Michael Savatino stopped by the table to bask in their praise, and then he said to Tony, 'That's number twenty-one.'
'Oh, no. Twenty-three.'
'Not by my records.'
'Your records are wrong.'
'Twenty-one,' Michael insisted.
'Twenty-three,' Tony said. 'And it ought to be numbers twenty-three and twenty-four. It was two meals, after all.'
'No, no,' Michael said. 'We count by the visit, not by the number of meals.'
Perplexed, Hilary said, 'Am I losing my mind, or does this conversation make no sense at all?'
Michael shook his head, exasperated with Tony. To Hilary he said, 'When he painted the mural, I wanted to pay him in cash, but he wouldn't accept it. He said he'd trade the painting for a few free dinners. I insisted on a hundred free visits. He said twenty-five. We finally settled on fifty. He undervalues his work, and that makes me angry as hell.'
'Tony painted that mural?' she asked.
'He didn't tell you?'
'No.'
She looked at Tony, and he grinned sheepishly.
'That's why he drives that Jeep,' Michael said. 'When he wants to go up in the hills to work on a nature study, the Jeep will take him anywhere.'
'He said he had it because he likes to go skiing.'
'That too. But mostly, it's to get him into the hills to paint. He should be proud of his work. But it's easier to pull teeth from an alligator than it is to get him to talk about his painting.'
'I'm an amateur,' Tony said. 'Nothing's more boring than an amateur dabbler running off at the mouth about his 'art.''
'That mural is not the work of an amateur,' Michael said.
'Definitely not,' Hilary agreed.
'You're my friends,' Tony said, 'so naturally you're too generous with your praise. And neither of you has the qualifications to be an art critic.'
'He's won two prizes,' Michael told Hilary.
'Prizes?' she asked Tony.
'Nothing important.'
'Both times he won best of the show,' Michael said.
'What shows were these?' Hilary asked.
'No big ones,' Tony said.
'He dreams about making a living as a painter,' Michael said, 'but he never does anything about it.'
'Because it's only a dream,' Tony said. 'I'd be a fool if I seriously thought I could make it as a painter.'
'He never really tried,' Michael told Hilary.
'A painter doesn't get a weekly paycheck,' Tony said. 'Or health benefits. Or retirement checks.'
'But if you only sold two pieces a month for only half what they're worth, you'd make more than you get as a cop,' Michael said.
'And if I sold nothing for a month or two months or six,' Tony said, 'then who would pay the rent?'
To Hilary, Michael said, 'His apartment's crammed full of paintings, one stacked on the other. He's sitting on a fortune, but he won't do anything about it.'
'He exaggerates,' Tony told her.
'Ah, I give up!' Michael said. 'Maybe you can talk some sense into him, Hilary.' As he walked away from their table, he said, 'Twenty-one.'
'Twenty-three.' Tony said.
Later, in the Jeep, as he was driving her home, Hilary said, 'Why don't you at least take your work around to
