Nightwork

12

The next morning I was in the lobby at eight-thirty. Two hours later she came through the lobby and went out. In Florence I had never seen her in daylight. She was more beautiful than I remembered. If ever there was a lady made for an American’s dream of a wicked weekend in Paris, it was Lily Abbott.

I made sure she didn’t see me, and after she was gone I went up to my room. There was no way of my knowing how long she would be gone from the hotel. So I moved quickly. I had packed Fabian’s bag, with all his belongings, the hounds-tooth jacket on top, as I had found it. I called down to the concierge’s desk and asked for a porter to come to my room and pick up a suitcase to take to Mr Fabian’s room.

I had the stiletto letter-opener in its leather sheath in my pocket. The adrenalin was pumping through my system and my breathing was shallow and rapid. I had no plan beyond getting into Fabian’s room and confronting him with his valise.

There was a knock on the door and I opened it for the porter. I followed him as he carried the valise to the elevator. He pushed the button for the sixth floor. Everything happens on the sixth floor, I thought, as we rose silently. When the elevator stopped and the door opened, I followed him down the corridor. Our footsteps made no sound on the heavy carpet. We passed nobody. We were in the hush of the rich. The man set the bag down at the door of a suite and was about to knock when I stopped him. “That’s all right,” I said, picking up the bag myself, “I’ll take it in, Mr Fabian is a friend of mine.” I gave the porter five francs. He thanked me and left.

I knocked gently on the door.

The door was opened and there was Fabian. He was completely dressed, ready to go out. At last we were face to face. Myself and SIoane’s nemesis, riffling cards, afternoon and evening, at home in the haunts of wealth. Thief. He squinted slightly, as though he couldn’t see me clearly. “Yes?” he said politely.

“I believe this belongs to you, Mr Fabian,” I said and bulled past him, carrying the valise down a hall that led into a large living room which was littered with newspapers in several languages. There were flowers in vases everywhere. I dreaded to think of what he was paying each day for his lodgings. I could hear him closing the door behind me. I wondered if he was armed.

“I say,” he said, as I turned to him, “there must be some mistake.”

“There’s no mistake.”

“Who are you anyway? Haven’t we met somewhere before?”

“In St Moritz.”

“Of course. You’re the young man who attended to Mrs Sloane this year. I’m afraid I don’t remember your name. Gr – Grimm, isn’t it?”

“Grimes.”

“Grimes. Forgive me.” He was absolutely calm, his voice pleasant. I tried to control my breathing. “I was just about to go out,” he said, “but I can spare a moment. Do sit down.”

“I’rather not, if you don’t mind.” I gestured toward the suitcase, which I had deposited in the middle of the room. “I’d just like you to open your bag and check that nothing’s missing…”

“My bag? My dear fellow, I never…”

“I’m sorry about the broken lock…” I kept on talking. “I did it before I realized I had the wrong one.”

“I just don’t know what you’re talking about. I never saw that bag before in my life.” If he had rehearsed a year for this moment, he couldn’t have been more convincing.

“When you’ve finished and you’re satisfied that I’ve taken nothing,” I said, “I’d be obliged if you brought out my bag. With everything that was in it when you picked it up in Zurich. Everything.”

He shrugged. “This is absolutely bizarre. If you want, you can search the apartment and see for yourself that…”

I reached into my pocket and took out Lily Abbott’s letter.

“This was in your jacket,” I said. “I took the liberty of reading it.”

He barely glanced at the letter. “This is getting more and more mysterious, I must say.” He made a charming, deprecating gesture, too much of a gentleman to read another man’s mail. “No names, no dates.” He tossed the letter on a table. “It might have been written to anyone, by anyone. Whatever gave you the idea that it had anything to do with me?” He was beginning to sound testy now.

“Lady Abbott gave me the idea,” I said.

“Oh, really,” he said. “I must confess, she is a friend of mine. How is she anyway?”

“Ten minutes ago, when I saw her in the lobby, she was well,” I said.

“Good God, Grimes,” he said, “don’t tell me Lily is here in the hotel?”

“That’s enough of that,” I said. “You know what I’m here for. Seventy thousand dollars.”

He laughed, almost authentically. “You’re joking, aren’t you? Did Lily put you up to this? She is a joker.”

“I want my seventy thousand dollars, Mr. Fabian,” I said. I made myself sound as menacing as possible.

“You must be out of your mind, sir,” Fabian said crisply. “Now I’m afraid I must go.”

I grabbed him by the arm, remembering the wall-eyed man in the arcade in Milan. “You’re not leaving this room until I get my money,” I said. My voice rose and I was ashamed of the way I sounded. It was a situation for a basso and I was singing tenor. High tenor.

“Keep your hands off me.” Fabian pulled away and brushed fastidiously at his sleeve. “I don’t like to be touched. And if you don’t get out right away, I’m calling the management and asking for the police…”

I picked up a lamp from the table and hit him on the head. The lamp shattered with the blow. Fabian looked surprised as he sank slowly to the floor. A thin trickle of blood ran down his forehead. I took out my paper knife and knelt beside him, waiting for him to come to. After about fifteen seconds he opened his eyes. The expression in them was vague, unfocused. I held the sharp, needle-like point of the stiletto to his throat. Suddenly, he was fully conscious. He didn’t move, but looked up at me in terror.

“I’m not fooling, Fabian,” I said. I wasn’t, either. At that moment, I would have happily killed him. I was trembling, but so was he.

“All right,” he said thickly. “There’s no need to go to extremes. I took your bag. Now let me up.”

I helped him to his feet. He staggered a little and sank into an easy chair. He felt his forehead and looked apprehensively at the blood smeared on his hand when he took it away. He pulled a handkerchief from his breastpocket and dabbed at his forehead. “Good God, man,” he said weakly, “you could have killed me with that lamp.”

“You’re lucky,” I said.

He managed a little laugh, but he kept looking at the stiletto in my hand. “I’ve always detested knives,” he said. “You must be awfully fond of money.”

“Average fond,” I said. “About like you, I guess.”

“I wouldn’t kill for it.”

“How do you know?” I asked. I stroked the blade of the little weapon with my left hand. “I never thought I would either. Until this morning. Where is it?”

“I don’t have it,” he said.

I took a step toward him, threateningly.

“Stand back. Please stand back. It’s … well … Shall we say that I don’t have it at the moment, but that it’s available? Please don’t wave that thing around anymore. I’m sure we can come to terms without further bloodshed.” He dabbed at his forehead again.

Suddenly the reaction set in. I started to shake violently. I was horrified at what I had done. I had actually been on the point of murder. I dropped the stiletto on the table. If Fabian had said at that moment that he refused to give me a cent, I would have walked out the door and forgotten the whole thing. “I suppose,” he said quietly, “at the back of my mind I realized that one day someone would come in and ask me for the money.” There was an echo there that I could not help but recognize. How had Drusack behaved in his desperate hour? “I’ve taken very good care of it,” Fabian said, “only I’m afraid you’ll have to wait awhile.”

“What do you mean – wait awhile?” I tried to keep my tone menacing, but I knew I wasn’t succeeding.

“I’ve taken certain liberties with your little nest egg, Mr. Grimes,” he said. “I’ve made some investments.” He smiled like a doctor announcing an inoperable cancer. “I don’t believe in letting money lie idle. Do you?”

“I haven’t had any money to let do anything before this.”

“Ah,” he said. “Recent wealth. I thought as much. Would you mind if I went into the bathroom and washed off some of this gore? Lily is likely to come in at any moment and I wouldn’t like to frighten her.”

“Go ahead.” I sat down heavily. “I’ll be right here.”

“I’m sure you will.” He got up from his chair and walked unsteadily into the bathroom. I heard water running. There was undoubtedly a door leading from the bedroom into the corridor, but I was convinced he wouldn’t leave. And if he had wanted to I wouldn’t have done anything to prevent him. I felt numb. Investments. I had imagined various possible scenes while on the trail of the man who had taken my money, but I had never thought that when I finally caught up with him our meeting would take the shape of a business conference.

Fabian came out of the bedroom, his hair wet and freshly combed. His step was firm now and there was no indication that just a few minutes before he had been lying on the floor, senseless and bloody. “First,” he said, “would you like a drink?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I believe we can both use one.” He went over to a sideboard and opened it and poured from a bottle of Scotch into two glasses. “Soda?” he asked. “Ice?”

“I’ll take it neat.”

“Capital idea,” he said. He slipped in and out of being British. White’s Club, the Enclosure at Epsom. He handed me the whiskey and I gulped it down. He drank more slowly and sat opposite me in the easy chair, twirling the glass in his hand. “If it hadn’t been for Lily,” he said, “you probably never would have found me.”

“Probably not.”

“Women.” He sighed. “Have you slept with her?”

“I’rather not answer that question.”

“I suppose you’re right.” He sighed again.

“Well, now … I imagine you’d like me to begin at the beginning. Do you have the time?”

“I have plenty of time,” I said.

“May I make one proviso before I start?” he asked.

“What’s that?”

“That you don’t tell Lily anything about… well, about all this. As you might have gathered from the letter, she thinks highly of me.”

“If I get my money back,” I said, “I won’t say a word.”

“That’s fair enough.” He sighed again. “First, if you don’t mind, I’d like to tell you a little about myself.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I’ll make it brief,” he promised.

As it turned out, it wasn’t as brief as all that. He started with his parents, who were poor, the father a minor employee in a small shoe factory in Lowell, Massachusetts, where he was born. There was never enough money around the house. He had not gone to college. During World War II he was in the Air Force, stationed outside London. He had met an English girl from a rich family. Actually, the family lived in the Bahamas, where they were reputed to have large estates. He had been demobilized in England and there, after a hasty courtship, had married the girl. “Somehow,” he said, explaining the union, “I had developed expensive tastes. I had no desire to work and no other prospects for leading the kind of life I wanted any other way.”

He had moved to the Bahamas with his new wife and taken up British citizenship. His wife’s family weren’t miserly toward him, but they were not generous either, and he had begun to gamble to eke out his allowance. Bridge and backgammon were his games. “Alas,” he said, “I fell into associated vices. Ladies.” One day there had been a family meeting and the divorce had followed immediately. Since that time, he had made do with his gambling winnings. For the most part he had lived fairly comfortably, although with many anxious moments. During part of the winter season the pickings were not bad in the Bahamas, but he was forced to keep traveling. New York, London, Monte Carlo, Paris, Deauville, St Moritz, Gstaad. Where the money was. And the games.

“It’s a hand-to-mouth existence,” he said. “I never got far enough ahead to take even a month off without worrying. I saw opportunities around me constantly that would have made me a rich man if I bad even a modest amount of capital. I won’t say that I was bitter, but I certainly was discontented. I had just turned fifty a few days before the flight to Zurich, and I was not pleased with what the future might have in store for me. It is rasping to the soul to be committed to the company of the rich without being rich yourself. To pretend that losing three thousand dollars in one evening means as little to you as to them. To go from one great palace of a hotel to another while you’re on duty, so to speak, and to hide in dingy out-of-the-way boarding houses when you’re on your own.”

The ski-club group had been particularly lucrative. Almost permanent games had been set up from year to year. He had made himself well-liked, did a minimum amount of skiing to establish his legitimacy, paid his debts promptly, gave his share of parties, never cheated, was agreeable with the ladies, and was introduced to likely prey among the abundant Greek, South American, and English millionaires, all gamblers by nature, proud of their games and careless in their play.

“There was also the possibility,” he said, “of meeting widows with independent fortunes and young divorcees with handsome settlements. Unfortunately,” he said, with a sigh, “I am terribly romantic, a failing in a man my age, and what was offered I wouldn’t have and what I would have wasn’t offered. At least,” he said, with a touch of vanity, “not on a financially acceptable basis. I know that I am not painting a very heroic picture of myself…” he said.

“No,” I said.

“… but I would like you to believe that I tell the truth, that you can trust me.”

“Go on,” I said. “I don’t trust you yet.”

“So,” he said, “that was the man who tried to open a bag that was ostensibly his in the overpriced room at the Palace Hotel in St Moritz and found that the combination didn’t work.”

“So you sent down for something to break it open with,” I said grimly, remembering my own experience.

“I had the desk send a man up. When he got the bag open, I saw immediately that it wasn’t mine. I don’t know why I didn’t tell him that the bag belonged to somebody else. Some sixth sense, perhaps. Or maybe the sight of the brand-new attaché case lying on top of everything else. People don’t usually pack a case like that in their luggage, but usually carry it by hand. In any event, I thanked the man and tipped him… Incidentally, I didn’t have the heart to throw the case away. It’s in the bedroom and of course I’ll be pleased to give it back to you.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. Without irony. “Of course,” he said, “when I counted the money, I realized that it had been stolen.”

“Of course.”

“It changes the morality of the affair a bit, doesn’t it?”

“A bit.”

“It also meant that whoever had carried it across the ocean would not go crying to Interpol to recover it. Would my reasoning seem inaccurate to you?”

“No.”

“I went through the bag very carefully. I hope you’ll forgive me if I tell you that I found nothing there to make one believe that the owner of the bag was in anything but the most modest circumstances.”

I nodded. “You can say that again, brother,” I said.

“I also found no indication of who the owner was. No address books, letters, etcetera. I even looked in the shaving kit to see if there were any medicines with a name on them.”

I laughed, despite myself.

“You must be an extraordinarily healthy man,” Fabian said, approvingly.

“About the same as you,” I said.

“Ah,” he said, beaming, “you had the same experience.” “Exactly.”

“I spent the next hour,” he went on, “trying to recall if there was anything in my bag which had my name on it. I decided there was nothing. I had forgotten about Lily’s letter, of course. I thought I had thrown it away. Even so, with her usual caution, I knew no names would be committed to the page. The next step was obvious.”

“You stole the money.”

“Let’s say I put it to good use?”

“What do you mean, use?”

“Let me go step by step. I had never been in a position before to risk enough to make any coup really conclusive. In view of the circles in which I moved, the amounts I could risk were derisive. So that even when I won, as I have more often than not, I never reaped the full benefits of my luck. Do you follow me, Grimes?” “Partially,” I said.

“For example, until now, I have never dared to play bridge at more than five cents a point.”

“Mrs Sloane told me that you were playing with her husband at five cents a point.”

“That was true. The first night. After that we went up to ten a point. Then to fifteen. Naturally since Sloane was losing rather heavily, he lied to his wife.”

“How much?”

“I’be frank with you. When I left St Moritz, I had Sloane’s check for twenty-seven thousand dollars in my wallet”

I whistled and looked at Fabian with growing respect. My own poker in Washington dwindled to a pinpoint. Here was a gambler who really knew how to ride his luck. But then I remembered it was my money he was risking, and I began to get angry all over again. “What the hell good does that do we?” I asked.

Fabian put up his hand placatingly. “All in due time, my dear fellow.” I had never expected to be called a dear fellow by a man who had grown up in Lowell, Massachusetts. “I also did quite well, I am happy to say, at backgammon. Perhaps you remember that handsome young Greek with the beautiful wife?”

“Vaguely.”

“He was delighted when I suggested raising the stakes. A little over nine thousand dollars.”

“What you’re telling me,” I said harshly, “is that you ran my stake up thirty-six thousand dollars. Goody for you, Fabian; you’re in the chips and you can give me back the seventy and we’ll shake hands and have a drink on it and we’re both on our way.”

He shook his head sadly. “It isn’t quite as simple as that, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t abuse my patience, man. You either have the money or you don’t. And you’d better have it.”

He stood up. “I believe we both could use another drink,” he said. I glowered at him as he went over to the sideboard. Having refrained from killing him when I had the chance, any lesser threats had depreciated greatly in value. It also occurred to me as I watched his well-tailored back (not my clothes, but from any one of two or three other bags he probably traveled with at all times) that it might all be a lie, a cock-and-bull story to keep me tamped down until somebody – a maid, Lily Abbott, a friend, came into the room. There would be nothing to stop him then from accusing me of annoying him, dunning him for a loan, trying to sell him dirty postcards, anything, and having me thrown out of the hotel. As he gave me my drink, I said, “If you’re lying to me, Fabian, the next time I see you I’m going to be carrying a gun.” I had no idea, of course, of how you went about getting a gun in France. And the only guns I had ever fired were .22 rifles at shooting galleries at town fairs.

“I wish you would believe me,” Fabian said as he sat down again with his drink, after pouring soda into it with a steady hand. “I have plans for us two that will require mutual trust.”

“Plans?” I felt childishly manipulated, cunningly outmaneuvered by this man who had lived by his wits for nearly thirty years and whose hand could be so steady just a few minutes after he had escaped violent death. “Okay, go on,” I said. “You’re thirty-six thousand dollars richer than you were three weeks ago and you say it isn’t simple to give me back the money you owe me. Why not?”

“For one thing, I have made certain investments.” “Like what?”

“Before I go into detail,” Fabian said, “let me outline in general what sort of a plan I’d like to suggest.” He took a long sip of his drink, then cleared his throat. “I suppose you have some right to be angry at what I’ve done…”

I made a small, choking noise, which he ignored. “But in the long run,” he said, “I have every reason to believe you’ll be deeply grateful.” I started to interrupt, but he waved me to silence. “I know that seventy thousand dollars in one lump seems like quite a bit of money. Especially to a young man like you, who, I can guess, was never particularly prosperous.”

“What are you driving at, Fabian?” I could not get over the feeling that moment by moment a web was being spun around me and that, in a very short time, I would be unable to move, or even utter a sound.

The voice went on, gentle, almost-British, confident, persuasive. “How long would it last you? A year, two years. Three years, at the most. As soon as you surfaced, you would be the prey of conniving men and rapacious women. I take it that you have very little experience, if any, in handling large sums of money. Just the primitive – and if I may permit myself a small criticism – the fairly careless way in which you attempted to transfer your hoard from the States to Europe is plain evidence of that…”

I certainly was in no position to contradict him about my ineptitude, so I remained silent.

“I, on the other hand,” he went on, thoughtfully twirling the ice in his glass and looking me frankly and directly in the eye, “have been handling considerable sums for nearly thirty years. Where you, in three years, say, would be stranded, penniless, in some backwater of Europe – I take it that you don’t think it would be healthy to return to America…?” He looked at me quizzically. “Go on,” I said.

“I, with any luck, given this start, would not be surprised if I wound up with well over a million…”

“Dollars?”

“Pounds,” he said.

“I must admit,” I said, “I admire your nerve. Still, what would that have to do with me?”

“We would be partners,” he said calmly. “I would handle the … uh … investments and we would share the profits fifty-fifty. Starting, I would like to say with the check of Mr Sloane and the contribution of the handsome young Greek. Could anything be fairer than that?”

I made myself think hard. The low, polite voice was hypnotizing me. “So – in exchange for my seventy thousand dollars, I’d get half of thirty-six?”

“Minus certain expenses,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Hotels, travel, entertainment. That sort of thing.”

I looked around at the room full of flowers. “Is there anything left?”

“Quite a bit.” He put his hand up again. “Please hear me out. To be more than fair – after one year, you would be permitted to withdraw your original seventy thousand dollars, if you so desired.”

“What if during the year you lost the whole thing.”

“That is a risk we’d both have to run,” he said. “I believe that it is worth taking. Now let me ask you to consider other advantages. You, as an American, are fully liable to the American income tax. Am I right?”

“Yes, but…”

“I know what you are going to say – you do not intend to pay it. I take it for granted that you have not declared the seventy thousand dollars that is the subject of our discussion. If you merely spend it, you would not be in any difficulty. But if you increased it, in legal or even semi-legal ways, you would have to beware of the legion of American agents all through Europe, of informers in banks and business houses… You would always have the fear of confiscation of your passport, fines, criminal prosecution…”

“And you?” I asked, feeling locked in a corner by his logic.

“I am a British subject,” he said, “domiciled in the Bahamas. I don’t even fill out a form. Just one quick example – you, as an American, are not legally permitted to trade in gold, although your government is making certain noises that indicate that will be changed eventually. But there is no such restriction on me. The gold market these days is most seductive. In fact, even while I was amusing Mr Sloane and my Greek with our little games, I put in an order for a tidy amount. Have you been following the rate of gold recently?”

“No.”

“I am ahead – we are ahead – ten thousand dollars on our investment.”

“In just three weeks?” I asked incredulously.

“Ten days, to be exact,” Fabian said.

“What else have you done with my money?” I still clung to the singular possessive pronoun but with diminishing vigor.

“Well…” For the first time since he had come out of the bathroom, Fabian looked a little uneasy. “As a partner, I don’t intend to hide anything from you. I’ve bought a horse.”

“A horse!” I couldn’t help groaning. “What kind of horse?”

“A thoroughbred. A racehorse. Among other reasons, which I’ll come to later, that was why I didn’t appear as scheduled in Florence. Much to Lily’s annoyance, I must admit. I had to come to Paris to complete the deal. It is a horse that took my eye at Deauville last summer, but which I was not in a position to buy at that time. Also” – he smiled – “it wasn’t for sale then. A friend of mine who happens to own a racing stable and a breeding farm in Kentucky expressed an interest in the colt – a stallion, by the way, and potentially quite valuable later on at stud – and I am sure he would show his gratitude in a substantial way if I were to let him know that I am now the owner of the animal. Out of friendship, I plan to indicate to him, I’d be ready to part with it.”

“What if he indicates to you that he’s changed his mind?” By now, almost insensibly, I had been swept into what just fifteen minutes before I would have considered a gambler’s insane fantasies. “That he doesn’t want to buy it anymore?”

Fabian shrugged, rubbed lovingly at the ends of his mustache, a gesture I was to come to recognize as a tic, useful to gain time when he didn’t have a ready answer to a question.

“In that case, old man,” he said, “you and I would have a fine start toward a racing stable. I haven’t chosen any colors as yet. Do you have any preferences?”

“Black and blue,” I said.

He laughed. He had a hearty, Guards’ officer kind of laugh. “I’m glad to see you have a sense of humor,” he said. “It’s a bore doing business with the glum.”

“Do you mind telling me what you’ve paid for this brute?” I asked.

“Not at all. Six thousand dollars. He broke down in training last autumn with something called splints, so he comes as a bargain. The trainer’s an old friend of mine” – I was to find out that Fabian had old friends all over the globe and in all professions – “and he assures me he’s as right as a dollar now.”

“Right as a dollar.” I nodded, in pain. “While we’re at it, Fabian,” I said, “are there any more … uh … investments that I happen to have in my portfolio?”

He played with his mustache again. “As a matter of fact, yes,” he said. “I hope you’re not overwhelmingly prudish.”

I thought of my father and his Bible. “I would say medium,” I said. “Why?”

“There’s a delightful French lady I make a point of looking up every time I come to Paris.” He smiled, as though welcoming the delightful French lady into his dreams. “Interested in films. Been an actress in her time, she says. On the producing side now. An old admirer has been staking her. Not sufficiently, I gather. She’s in the middle of making a picture at the moment. Quite dirty. Quite, quite dirty. I’ve seen some of the – I think they call them dailies in the industry. Most amusing. Have you any idea what a movie like Deep Throat has brought in for its backers?”

“No.”

“Millions, lad, millions.” He sighed sentimentally. “My delightful little friend has let me read the script, too. Most literate. Full of fancy and provocation. Essentially innocent in my opinion. Almost decorous from a sophisticated point of view, but a little bit of everything for every taste. Something like a combination of Henry Miller and the Arabian Nights. But my delightful lady friend – she’s directing it herself, by the way – she got the script almost for nothing from a young Iranian who can’t go back to Iran – but even though she’s making it on a shoestring – some of the most lucrative of these particular works of art are made for under forty thousand dollars – I think Deep Throat cost no more than sixty – as I was saying, her bookkeeping doesn’t quite match her talent – she’s just a slip of a woman – and when she told me she needed fifteen thousand dollars to complete the picture…”

“You said you’d give it to her.”

“Exactly.” He beamed. “Out of gratitude she offered me twenty percent of the profits.”

“And you said you’d take it?”

“No, I held out for twenty-five.” He beamed again. “I may be a friend, but I’m a businessman first.”

“Fabian,” I said. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“In the long run,” he said, “you’ll smile. At least smile. They’re having a screening of what they’ve shot thus far this evening. We’re all invited. I guarantee you’ll be impressed.”

“I’ve never seen a pornographic movie in my life,” I said.

“Never too late to begin, lad. Now,” he said briskly, “I suggest we go down to the bar and wait for Lily. She can’t be too long. We can cement our partnership in champagne. And I’ll treat you to the best lunch you’ve ever eaten. And after lunch we’ll take in the Louvre. Have you ever been to the Louvre?”

“I just arrived in Paris yesterday.” “I envy you your initiation,” he said.

We had just about finished a bottle of champagne when Lily Abbott strode into the bar. When Fabian introduced me as an old friend from St Moritz, she did not show, by as much as the blink of an eye, that we had ever gone so far as to shake hands in Florence.

Fabian ordered a second bottle.

I wished I liked the taste.