Prologue

I guess you could say it began this way, but it’s a hell of a prosaic beginning.

We were having dinner at Twit-Twit’s.

There had been smoked salmon, soft as butter and sprinkled with capers and finely chopped onion. Then stuffed chicken breasts, the stuffing touched with dill and fresh parsley. Pouilly Fumé with that, in well-chilled glasses. Endive salad, and then a kind of tangy Scandinavian cheese that I can’t remember the name of, but Twit-Twit likes, and that tastes wonderful with crusty French bread. Then espresso and Armagnac.

The four of us were out on Twit-Twit’s terrace. It was April, and the New York night was warm and soft and lovely. And you thought of Paris.

Naturally.

Twit-Twit looked fantastically, inhumanly beautiful. In her vixenish way.

Tom Dolan said, “God damn everything.”

His wife Betsy, who has blue eyes if ever there were blue eyes, said, “Here we go again,” and splashed a little Armagnac in everyone’s glass.

I was holding Twit-Twit’s hand and looking up at the night sky. There was no moon, and thank heaven for that; it would have been too theatrical. But you could see stars. I thought how nice it was to have everything go right occasionally and the dice throw a seven at the right time, by themselves.

I sipped the brandy, chuckled at Tom’s remark, and said, “Of course. Nuts to the universe.”

But Tom can be moody. He’s Irish, of course. Who isn’t?

He said, “I mean it. Betsy and I are all loused up.”

That’s the kind of remark that could disturb you, coming from most people when they have had a couple of drinks. Not the Dolans. They seem to fight all the time, they really never do, and they’re awfully nice. Also, they are deeply in love. After many years.

I said, “Now what? But why don’t you tell us about it somewhere else? We’ve had a wonderful dinner. So let Twit-Twit and I take you out. Like to the belly dancers.”

“Which belly dancers?”

“Any belly dancers. Any anything. There are the joints at Twenty-eighth Street. There are other joints nearby, in midtown.”

“No,” Tom said. “I’m serious. For a moment.”

Suddenly I knew he was. Tom is a tall, serious-looking guy who is seldom serious. So when he is, it is really impressive.

He said, “I had lunch today with a man who made me think.”

“Beginner’s luck,” said Betsy. But she looked at him appraisingly. We all know Tom.

“We got talking,” Tom said. “And after a while this guy raised an interesting question. He said to me, ‘If you had only one day left to live, but you could arrange it so that you could spend the day doing anything you wanted—anything—what would you choose to do? How would you arrange that day?’”

“Well, how would you?” I said.

Tom looked up at the darkly glowing Manhattan sky. “You could do or have anything you want. Anything. Your last day on earth.” He fell silent.

“I can tell you how I’d spend it,” said Twit-Twit. “Paris. I’d spend the morning at Dior, buying clothes. And I’d spend the afternoon wearing them.”

“And the evening?” Betsy said.

“Cocktails at the Ritz bar. Dinner at Lapérouse, at one of the tables on the second floor, overlooking the river. Then a walk up the river to see Notre Dame lighted at night.”

Tom was studying her. “And then?”

“Then—I don’t know.” She looked at me and blushed a little, which is a lot for Twit-Twit, because she doesn’t blush easily, and it was nice to notice that she had looked at me before she did.

“So your choice would be Paris,” said Betsy. “What’s yours, Deac?” She was still worried about Tom.

“It’s an interesting idea. It tells you something about yourself, doesn’t it? Like a Rorschach test. I’d spend the day working on a story I liked a lot, preferably a murder. Then I’d pick up Twit-Twit and take her for a little stroll around the Place Vendôme to the Ritz bar and buy her all the Martinis she wanted. Then the Left Bank, as she said. Then—”

Betsy laughed; she has a nice laugh. “Okay, your choice would be just to be with Twit-Twit. Tom?”

“God damn it,” said Tom. “But I said that before.”

“You certainly did,” his wife told him.

“Here’s what’s bugging me,” and I knew that whatever was coming, he would mean it. “Today we filmed the last show for the season. I’m free until August—no more TV shows, stars, cameramen, or anything to worry about. So suddenly Bets and I decided we’d blow ourselves to a little holiday. France. Paris. Le Cote d’Or. And we would sail on the Montmartre. So we call up and discover we can’t get on the Montmartre. She’s booked solid for the sailing the day after tomorrow, and she’s also booked solid for the next sailing, two weeks from now.”

His fingers rapped the table.

“That’s why I got going on how to spend a day perfectly. Suddenly Bets and I want to have a nice relaxing trip on a nice ship. That would be my idea of how to spend your last day perfectly. We have the time and for once we have the money, which is always a sometime thing. But we can’t get on the only ship we really want at the moment. So God damn it. What else can I say?”

“That’s a shame,” said Twit-Twit. “I know how you feel. Because I’m free for the next two weeks, and I was thinking only this morning of a fast trip to Paris. I was dreaming of a plane. But the Montmartre would be even better.”

I began to consider something. I suppose what Tom had said about spending the last day of your life happily had a little to do with it, even though I’m not exactly at the three-score-and-ten stage. I’m only about halfway there, as a matter of fact. Nevertheless—

Twit-Twit said, “Betsy, how about you? What would your perfect day be like?”

Betsy took a cigarette, accepted Tom’s light, inhaled deeply, and leaned back.

“Let me see,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve never planned this kind of thing before. But I’d wake up about ten in the morning and have breakfast in bed. The breakfast would be brought to me by Cary Grant. In slacks and baby-blue sports jacket. Then, after a tub and clothes, I’d go out in my Rolls—”

“Driven by Gregory Peck,” said Tom.

“And Richard Burton. One would drive and one would be footman. I don’t care which is which. I’d drive to Harry Winston’s and shop for diamonds. Then—”

Betsy went on. But I didn’t listen, amusing as it was.

Like Tom, I’d, had lunch that day with a guy, and he had said some things that had made me think, too. Quite different kinds of things. And sometimes you go a little nutty.

Maybe it was just the Armagnac. Anyway, I got quietly up and went to the phone, which is in the bedroom, well out of earshot. I called the guy I’d had lunch with. We spoke a few minutes.

I came back.

“...night flight to Copenhagen,” Betsy was saying. “I might be a little tired at this point, so they would have put a tub aboard the plane for me. Filled with perfume, of course. No water. Then I’d read a first folio of Hamlet while my maid spoon-fed me a little caviar. And just outside, a string quartet would be playing...”

I sat down and found Twit-Twit’s hand.

“Do you really want to go to Paris’?” I asked her.

“Do you know anyone who doesn’t want to go to Paris?”

“I said ‘really.’” Her eyes gave me one of their blue-green looks.

“What the hell do you mean really? You stumble-tongued Irish bum?”

“Because if you want, I think we’re all going. In a good suite in the Montmartre. All together. You and I and the Dolans here. They’ll chaperone us, of course. Everything will be very proper.”

“You had too many Negronis before dinner.” But Tom knew I meant it. We understand each other.

“I always have too many. But I’ll know for sure in a minute.”

“You’re really beginning to worry me.”

The phone rang.

I answered it.

The answer was the right answer. I came back.

“I hope your passports are in order,” I said, “because we’re all sailing the day after tomorrow on the Montmartre. For Le Havre. And in case you care, we have the biggest suite on the boat deck”

Tom said, “How the hell did you do that?”

“I won’t explain until we’re all sitting at one of those sidewalk places on the Champs-Élysées, preferably Fouquet’s. The truth is, I can’t explain right now. But this is all on the level. We’re booked. Start packing.”

Twit-Twit said, “He’s as nutty as a fruitcake. He can’t get time off from the magazine like that.”

“Of course he can’t,” said Betsy. “But just in case he can, I’m going to start packing.”

“On the level,” said Tom. “Who did you call?”

“On the level,” I said, “I can’t tell you. I don’t have influence like this, usually. But right now I do. And so we sail the day after tomorrow. After that, nothing but fun and frolic—and Dior and Balenciaga, and Maxim’s.”

That is how it started. Nothing but fun and frolic.

Oh, brother!