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heard of your triumph last year in the murder of Jordan Walker.”
    “It was really my brother, Tim, who solved that one.” Nor could I forget that the book we finally got out of it didn’t exactly
     burn up the charts. If you don’t have a live celebrity to tour, a Graham Farrar… well, forget publishing a celebrity tell-all.
    Almost imperceptibly,
The Queen of the Potomac
slipped away from the dock and headed upriver.
    I turned again to Harry, who by now had another bottle of beer in his hand.
    “How do you suggest we proceed, Harry? What modus operandi? Directly to Poole? Or through his agent? Who is his agent, by
     the way?”
    He mulled that over a moment. Bypassing the glass on the bar in front of him, Harry took a deep swig of his beer straight
     from the bottle, sighed, and said: “Poole will be here tomorrow signing autographs, which you would know if you read your
     convention program or the
Show Daily.”
    “I can barely manage to keep up with my
Times.”
    “And his agent, the lovely Kay McIntire, will also be here.”
    By now the line at the bar was two or three deep. I edged away from it toward the rail, beckoning Harry to follow me.
    “You really have made me the happiest of men, Harry.”
    “It would be a coup, wouldn’t it? Every major publisher in town is probably after Poole—including all those who turned down
Pan at Twilight.”
    “I’m sure.”
    “But—”
    “But what?”
    “It’s probably gonna cost you, Nick.”
    “We’ll have to discuss that with Mort Mandelbaum when we get back to the city. Can you hold up your end?”
    “I’d expect a bidding situation with the book clubs, and a paperback floor of, say, a quarter,” said Harry. Like the Richard
     Condon/
Prizzi’s Honor
/jack Nicholson gimmick, Harry liked saying “five” when he meant “five thousand,” “fifty” for “fifty thousand,” and so on.
     “A quarter” was a quarter of a million. Or maybe “250 big ones.” The habit is contagious.
    We glided up the Potomac past the Tidal Basin, built from land reclaimed from the river—so that the symmetry that inspired
     L’Enfant in his master plan for Washington could be maintained. As we moved along, the moon rose, swollen and phosphorescent
     in its brilliance, lending its glow to the floodlights shining on the Jefferson Memorial, that columned rotunda modeled after
     the Pantheon in Rome, which Jefferson so admired that he designed the University of Virginia in its style as well.
    “A lovely evening,” I said. Harry nodded.
    “Not half-bad,” he said, “as evenings go.”
    Just then I heard that familiar bray of laughter. Parker Foxcroft had somehow wangled an invitation, or had crashed the party,
     and was fast approaching.
    “Parker!” I called out. “Over here, Parker!”
    He was not alone. On his arm was one of those rare beauties that every once in a long while turn up in book publishing—when,
     if they knew better, they would go into fashion modeling or acting. Blonde, slender, and, I could see when she drew near,
     with a figure that was at once full-bodied and elegant. She was wearing light blue cotton jeans and a white button-down man’s
     shirt—from the Gap, I supposed, or was it Banana Republic? I whistled silently.
Parker Foxcroft does it again,
I thought. As Parker came near, Harry Bunter moved off, rather abruptly, it seemed to me.
    “Nick,” said Foxcroft, “I’d like you to meet Susan Markham. Assistant editor at Little, Brown. Susan, this is my boss, the
     well-known eponymous head of Barlow and Company.”
    I extended my hand. She took and pressed it gently, but firmly enough to generate the smallest amount of electricity.
    “You’re with an excellent house,” I said.
    “You’re quite a house yourself.”
My God,
I thought,
is it
that
bad? I must consider a diet.
    “Susan almost worked for us,” said Parker.
    “Oh?”
    “But you turned her down when she applied for a job,” he said.
    I turned to Susan Markham.