Evil Breeding

probably shaped up by now.”
    The incident was this: On July 2, 1964, when Mrs. Dodge was in her eighties, Elmira College, located in upstate New York, sued her guardians for ownership of her art collection. According to Elmira, in 1958 Mrs. Dodge had agreed to give the college her paintings, tapestries, jades, bronzes, and other items in her collection at Giralda and in her Fifth Avenue town house. Here’s the sneaky part: The objects were to become Elmira’s when Mrs. Dodge “could no longer continue to enjoy them.”
    “Listen to this!” Rita brandished the copies of the articles from the Times as if representatives of the college had materialized in my living room and were about to be whacked across their greedy faces with the evidence of their misconduct. “Listen!” She read, “ ‘On the strength of the agreement, a large estate in Elmira was purchased, to be named the Geraldine R. Dodge Center.’ It goes on. I can’t believe it. ‘Mrs. Dodge, who became a trustee of the college in 1961, gave two hundred thousand dollars toward a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar pledge for the purchase and maintenance of the center, and gifts of porcelains and bronzes valued at about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars.’ The nerve of those people! She’d given them three hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and they couldn’t wait until she was dead to get their hands on more!”
    “A lot more,” I said. “The stuff they were after was valued at a hundred and seventy-five million. And at first, the court went along with that. But in the end, they got what they deserved. The New Jersey Supreme Court really let them have it. Did you read that part?” I took the photocopies from Rita. “Here,” I said. “Here’s what the court said. ‘Her age, loneliness, insidiously progressive arteriosclerotic disease, and the loss of her trusted advisor’—that means her husband—‘made her respond with friendship and confidence to the synthetically effusive attention and appearance of friend-| ship pressed upon her by representatives of the college.’ ”
    “It really is a sad story,” Rita said. “And that a college would have tried to pull something like that! The poor woman.” She paused. “Well, the unfortunate woman, anyway.”
    “More wine?” I offered.
    “I’m going to nurse this,” she answered. “Thanks. I don’t want to look tipsy when he gets here.”
    The he who was due to arrive any minute was the leader of Rita’s birding group. His name was Artie Spicer, he lived on Belmont Hill—fancy!—he owned a company that manufactured paper products—money?—and, obviously, he watched birds. Oh, and he was an outdoor type. If topics like hiking, backpacking, canoeing, and snowshoeing arose, Steve and I were not to give even the slightest hint that Rita was other than an outdoor type, too. Steve, who actually is an outdoor type, was also supposed to arrive soon.
    “Now, remember—” Rita began.
    “What you liked best about the summit of Everest was the lack of oxygen,” I said. “When you did the Appalachian Trail, I mailed freeze-dried food to you at designated points on the route. There’s no one I’d rather have along on a wilderness adventure in winter camping, provided that there are facilities for a hot shower every morning and that we pack a generator so you can use your electric blanket.”
    Rita lifted her chin. “I am not asking you to lie. I just don’t want a lot of smirking if the topic comes up.”
    “I’ll behave! So will Steve.”
    “Of course he will. It’s you I’m worried about.”
    “Relax. Steve and I know the rules. No dog talk or almost none. No jokes about you and the outdoors. No disgusting details about animal illnesses. Nothing about bird hunting. Really, we’ll be good.”
    “Artie is not very psychological,” Rita said, as if confiding that the new man in her life spent his spare time dressing in garter belts, black stockings, and stiletto heels.
    “Neither is Steve. They can talk about... oh, raptors, I guess. Parakeets. Canaries. Parrots. Steve knows a lot about cage birds.”
    “I’m not sure Artie...”
    “Well, what are we allowed to talk about? Books?”
    “He isn’t very intellectual,” Rita confessed.
    “That’s why you picked us. You knew we wouldn’t scare him off. But we can’t just sit there chewing in silence until the dessert arrives. Am I allowed to ask him if he has a key to Mount Auburn?” According to a persistent