"To tell you the truth," said Sherman, "this really surprises me. Maria—Maria's not the cautious type. She's an adventuress. She's a gambler. This little Southern girl, from nowhere, who makes it to 962 Fifth Avenue ... I don't know . . . And this may sound naive, but I think she genuinely . . . feels something for me. I think she loves me."

"I bet she loves 962 Fifth, too," said Killian. "Maybe she figures it's time to stop gambling."

Vogel had managed to find a waiter and order some beer. He also asked for some chopsticks. The Huan Li was so frankly commercial and unconcerned about authenticity, they set the tables with ordinary hotel silverware. How very American it was to assume that these unsmiling Chinese would be pleased if one showed a preference for their native implements . . . How very American it was to feel somehow guilty unless one struggled over rice noodles and lumps of meat with things that looked like enlarged knitting needles. While chasing some sort of slippery little dumpling around a bowl, Vogel said to Fallow, "Well, Pete, tell the truth. Didn't I tell you? Didn't I tell you this was gonna be a great story?"

A Bronx jury . . . And all at once Kramer was no longer thinking of the same cluster of dark faces that Ray and Jimmy were thinking of ... He was thinking of those perfect smiling teeth and those sweet full lips glistening with brown lipstick and those shining eyes across a little table in the very heart of ... the Life . . . which existed only in Manhattan . . . Jesus ... He was broke after he paid the bill at Muldowny's ... but when he hailed her a cab out in front of the place and he held out his hand to thank her and say goodbye, she let her hand stay in his, and he increased the pressure, and she squeezed back, and they stayed that way, looking into each other's eyes, and1—God!— that moment was sweeter, sexier, more full of—goddamn it!— love, genuine love, the love that just hits you and . . . fills up your heart . . . than any of those slam-bang first-date scores he used to pride himself on when he was out prowling like a goddamned cat ... No, he would forgive Bronx juries a lot. A Bronx jury had brought into his life the woman he had been destined to meet all along . . . Love, Destiny, How Full My Heart . . . Let others shrink from the meaning of those terms . . . Ray whaling down his super-sub, Jimmy grousing morosely about Willie Francisco and Lester McGuigan . . . Larry Kramer existed on a more spiritual plane . . .