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“Anyway, I saw the video billboards for your show, and decided to go. I was just too late tonight.”
“So, you travel a lot.”
“I do. I spend most of my life on the road. I’m either at conferences or inspecting one of our projects or meeting with investors or government officials somewhere.”
“And that’s a thing? A network security conference?”
“It is. In this case, the organization hosting it helps corporations be grown-ups and do the right thing—while protecting their assets.”
“You’re all just making the world a better place.” I was pulling his leg, but he nodded as if I had meant every word.
“I hope so,” he said.
“My sister used to help troubled”—I corrected myself—“teens in trouble do that. Do the right thing.” Bringing up my sister was a reflex since she was on the brain and I seemed to be speaking with a corporate do-gooder, if that wasn’t an oxymoron. But I wasn’t about to go further: I sure as hell wasn’t about to unleash the buzzkill of all buzzkills, by sharing the titbit that my sister was, in fact, often impulsive and irresponsible and now, it seemed, doing what I wanted least in the world, which was parachuting back into my life. At least not yet. Maybe I would in a few hours if Yevgeny and I were still together. Already I was feeling the champagne doing its job.
“What does she do? Social work?”
“Bingo. She used to work with teenage kids who were spiraling, either because of drugs or mental illness or because their families are falling apart.”
“Abuse?”
“Often a part of the equation. Learning disabilities, too. It runs the gamut. She can be proper chuffed about what she does. What she did.”
“Chuffed?”
I gave him another of my Diana smiles. “Chuffed is pride. But too much so. British expression.”
“And now she’s stopped?”
“Yes,” I said, and I left it at that. “Meanwhile, I sing Petula Clark, a little Dusty Springfield, and I quote Princess Diana. Now that, thank you very much, is how to make the world a better place—especially since some of my audience just lost next month’s car payment or rent playing blackjack, or just frittered away their Social Security check at the slots.” It may have been the alcohol, and it may have been the idea that he had a job that demanded international travel. But a question came to me. “I wonder: are you a spy? Is all this overseas investment and network security bullshit just a cover?”
He didn’t deny it. Instead he took the second flute that the bartender had brought us along with the bottle, and for the first time poured some of the champagne into it. He took a sip and said, “You think I’m with the CIA?”
“Or the KGB.”
“The KGB is new and improved. Now it’s the FSB.”
“Fine. Your cover is GEI: Global Whatever. You travel around the world under the cover of this compliance nonsense—”
“And surveying our assets.”
“And surveying your assets, and you go to Las Vegas—”
“Look, I have two homes. Not a boast, because I already told you that when you asked. I could own three, if I wanted. Working for the FBI or the CIA is a terrible way to get rich. Also? It sounds dangerous. I enjoy life too much.”
“Where is your apartment in Manhattan? I lived in Queens when I was in New York.”
“Murray Hill. It’s a nice building and I have nice views to the south and west—”
“So, it’s a spectacular corner apartment.”
“The east, too. But it’s a slender building.”
“Sure. That makes your apartment that has views in three directions less impressive. How many bedrooms?”
He paused, clearly unsure about the message he was about to send. “Four.”
“Four? And it’s just you?”
