Only the problem of dinner remained to be solved. Dinner at Leicester's, even without wine, was at least forty dollars per person. Fallow headed for the coin telephone on the corner. There was this Bob Bowles, the American magazine editor . . . It should work out . . . The skinny woman he lived with, Mona something, was very nearly unbearable, even when she wasn't talking. But everything in life had its price, didn't it?

He entered the booth and dropped a quarter in the slot. With luck he would be back inside of Leicester's within the hour, eating his favorite dish, the chicken paillard, which tasted especially good with red wine. He liked Vieux Galouches, a French wine that came in a bottle with an eccentric neck, the best.