‘You’re very sure we’re going to get along,’ said Esmeralda.
‘Of course I’m sure. Here’s me, the famous art writer, and there’s you, the beautiful gallery lady. It’s a match made in Heaven, or someplace quite close. Perhaps a suburb of Heaven.’
‘Heaven has suburbs?’
‘Of course it does. Where do you think the people from Queens go when they die?’
Esmeralda laughed. She found Charles Thurston an inch too elegant for his own good, and an obviously incurable smartass, but there was something about him she really liked. He was, after all, very good-looking, and he gave the impression that when he got a woman into bed, he would lavish a great deal of time and athletic energy on exotic forms of stimulation. Esmeralda liked that.
‘Well?’ she said, reaching for her chrome cigarette-box. ‘Have you come to buy a painting? Bronowski is young and vital and, most important of all, he’s still quite cheap.’
‘Is that because nobody’s discovered him yet, or because he’s been discovered and nobody wants him?’
‘Don’t be so cynical. He’s the new wave in gouache. Go on – buy one.’
‘If I buy one, will you come out to lunch with me?’ Esmeralda lowered her eyelashes provocatively. ‘Is that a condition of sale?’ she asked him.
Charles Thurston laughed. ‘How much is this young and vital and cheap artist of yours?’
‘To you, five hundred.’
Esmeralda didn’t look up. This was a favorite test of hers. It immediately weeded out the unsuitable suitors from the genuinely enthusiastic, because if a man wasn’t prepared to toss away five hundred bucks for the sake of getting to know her better, then in Esmeralda’s opinion he couldn’t be really sincere.
Charles Thurston III flipped open his checkbook and scribbled a check with a handmade gold pen. He blew it dry, and passed it over with a flourish. It was for one thousand dollars.
‘This is too much,’ said Esmeralda, raising an eyebrow.
Charles Thurston shrugged. ‘What’s the use of buying just one painting? I have a couple of blank spaces either side of my living-room door, and Mr. Bronowski will liven them up nicely.’
He stood up, and tucked his pen back in his pocket. ‘Perhaps you could show me some more sometime,’ he said. ‘My bedroom could do with livening up, too.’
Esmeralda smiled. ‘I’m afraid Jacob Bronowski is into landscapes – not erotica.’
‘We can’t all be perfect,’ said Charles. ‘Now why don’t we find ourselves a bite to eat?’
She took off her smock. Underneath she was wearing a simple but beautifully cut blue dress, with a Victorian pendant and lots of bracelets. She brushed her hair, and then pronounced herself ready.
‘Have you heard any more about the plague?’ asked Charles Thurston, as they rode across town in a taxi.
‘Nothing very much. Father’s furious about it.’
‘Oh?’
‘Haven’t you read the case of the plagiarized bacteria? Father’s suing some Finnish character in the Federal District Court, but the Finnish character’s got himself a sneaky adjournment, on the grounds that all public-spirited bacteriologists should be off fighting the plague.’ Charles Thurston nodded. ‘I see. I wondered what you were doing in that district. This plague’s pretty serious, though, isn’t it? They’ve got cops on the Lincoln Tunnel and the 59th Street Bridge, and they’re turning back everyone with a southern license plate.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘No, it’s true. I saw it myself this morning. They had some guy in a pick-up with a Maryland plate, and they were making him turn right around and go back to Maryland. They said on the news that there’s a contingency plan for sealing off the whole of Manhattan.’
Esmeralda crossed her legs. ‘Well, I don’t know. It sounds to me like they’re exaggerating the whole thing.’
Charles Thurston laughed. ‘I’m glad someone’s optimistic. Especially the daughter of the nation’s leading bacteriologist.’
‘Step-daughter.’
‘Does it make any difference?’
‘You bet it makes a difference. Where are you taking me for lunch?’
‘There’s a unique little bistro I know. The prices are astronomic, but the food’s terrible.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘Chez-moi.’
‘You mean the same chez-moi that has a couple of blank spaces either side of the living-room door, and has a bedroom that also needs livening up?’
‘You guessed,’ said Charles Thurston, with a winning smile.
Esmeralda didn’t look amused. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘you’d better get this hack to turn itself around and take me right back to the gallery. I’ve heard of fast workers, but this is ridiculous.’
‘What you’re really saying is that you haven’t even had time to clear my check.’
‘I’m saying, Mr. Thurston, that I’m not a painting. I can’t be conveniently bought with a paltry thousand dollars to fill a blank space on one side of your bed.’
‘Don’t you like me?’
‘Like you? I don’t even know you.’
Charles Thurston sighed. ‘Well, if you want to skip lunch, you can. But at least come and look at it. I’ve prepared it myself – cold soup, smoked fish, salad, and chilled vintage champagne.’
Esmeralda looked at him curiously. He was very self-assured, and very handsome, and somehow she couldn’t imagine him going to the trouble of spending the morning in the kitchen, just to make lunch for a girl he hardly knew. He was either very innocent or very devious, and right now she wasn’t quite sure which. But he was intriguing.
‘Okay,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll come and look at it. But that’s all.’
The cab dropped them on the corner of a faded but still-elegant street. It was one of those tired enclaves of wealthy old widows who were too set in their ways to move away from encroaching slumdom, and there was a mingled smell of decay and expensive perfume in every lobby.
‘This is a strange place to live,’ she said, looking around the street.
‘I like it,’ said Charles Thurston. ‘It reminds me every day that style is never permanent, and that today’s lounge lizards are tomorrow’s drawing-room dinosaurs.’
They ascended five floors in a dingy wrought-iron elevator that shuddered and groaned at every floor.
‘You speak in riddles,’
