As she rides by

dither to make any decisions right then and second of all, I couldn’t possibly make any business decision of such magnitude without baring all to my silent partner.”
    “No doubt nonexistent as well as silent,” I said.
    “Well, one isn’t a complete fool, is one,” he said, “if you leave such wayward emotions as love and young lust out of the picture.” Here he arched his eyebrows heavenward.
    “I take it you called the cops,” I said. “And I take it they did come back.”
    “By appointment, the following week,” he said. “Naturally they were almost an hour late, presumably to give me more time to quiver in me Guccis.”
    I grinned. “Yeah, I bet,” I said again. “Also presumably this time the boys in blue brought their own wire along.”
    “I won’t tell you,” he said, “how embarrassing it was to have to strip to the waist in front of total strangers, then have this... this machine taped to that cute little area just above one’s derriere, and from there the itchiest wires ran practically everywhere. I’ve hardly slept a wink since. I just count my blessings I’d put on clean bikini bottoms that morning, just like Mother always advised.”
    “Have you seen or heard anything since from your gentlemen callers?”
    “Please!” he said. “Callers, yes. Last night, I was just sitting down to a candlelit supper with a dear, dear friend of mine—poached turbot avec trois sauces, with a small salade endive to follow—when, wouldn’t you know, ring, ring, ring. A voice that sounded like it was talking through a filthy hankie asked me if I wanted to go on walking. Also dancing, I said, and I did take a ski holiday every year as well. Why wait for winter? he said. Now’s a perfect time for a holiday. Get me? I said I comprehended him, if that was what he was endeavoring to get across. Then he hung up, thank God; I just managed to rescue the turbot.”
    “That was lucky,” I said. “I take it your friends are out on bail until the trial?”
    “You take it correctly, sir,” he said. “That’s nice.” He pointed to an expensively framed drawing I had up on the wall next to the fire extinguisher. “A Dufy, isn’t it?”
    “A fake,” I said, perhaps unnecessarily. “So then what happened?”
    “After the Brie,” he said, “which was perhaps just the teeniest bit overripe, I called the gendarmes, and said, ‘ Au secours!’ They said they could only secours me adequately if I moved into a hotel and stayed there. I said I had no intention of moving into some third-rate flea pit surviving on room service and take-out Chinkie-chink and passing my precious time away either playing gin rummy with some beery policeman or, even worse, watching afternoon television, although I do confess a secret fondness for Queen for a Day. ”
    “Me too,” I said.
    “Besides all that,” he said, “I have thirty mixed bouquets of Duet, Honor, Bewitched, Charisma, Cathedral, Tropicana, and Angel Face to prepare for a luncheon tomorrow, to say nothing of my normal business. And of course, Lauren Hutton, that bitch, would have to choose tomorrow night to open in that depressing play of hers, you must know the one, it’s all about this humble housewife who turns the tables on her would-be violator and bricks him up in the fireplace.”
    “What’s an Angel Face?” I inquired.
    “A rose, dear, what else?” he said. “The most beautiful mauvey lavender color; highly fragrant.”
    “How many roses would you use in, say, a month? Just out of curiosity.”
    “It does rather depend on what month,” he said, “but on an average, twelve to fifteen hundred.”
    “I’m beginning to see why your callers called,” I said. “You are talking sizable sums, especially when you throw in all those carnations and mother-in-law’s tongues. Did the cops ever tell you who those guys were?”
    “One particular one did,” he said. “We were, briefly, lovers, as a matter of fact. I wonder if there are any gay private eyes?”
    “I know there’s at least one,” I said. “He hired my services once to do something he didn’t want to do himself.”
    “And what was that, I wonder?”
    “Nothing spectacular,” I said. “Run a check on his sister’s husband.”
    “What happened?”
    “He didn’t check, but at least the guy who hired me is still talking to his sister. The two; who were they?”
    “A Phil something and a Ted nothing, both originally from Pittsburgh, fittingly. My friend sent me