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bonding, like a father cuffing his son for‐:" errant but minor mischief. And as we head for the door, in hand, my concerns turn to matters mom economic‐to Hinds and my open bar tab. 0 get to my office I use an elevator from before the time of Moses, a contraption with a flexing metal gate that slams, emitlg.‐the fury of a sonic boom. It's like hell's portal closing on its [email protected]. Clients who've done time always take the stairs. This lift empties its cargo into a small lobby on the second the first being occupied by a bank with roots in the Gold Mo. The building itself dates to the last century, but has been 711@ maintained. It has touches of elegance in the moldings and umiq,% The pressed‐tin tiles set into the ceiling, original with ,.g office, are again in demand, used to authenticate the metalt,T#=Trz,. high‐toned restaurants of Fashion Square. I share a two‐room suite down a common ball with Dee, my Mnpi and receptionist, a hire I made on the recommendation a friend to whom I no longer speak. I have learned in my time with Dee to become master of I things electronic: answering machines, copiers, the fax, Mr. most of all the small personal computer which I from her desk to my office when I found her using its ro@. screen like some mystic high‐tech looking glass, to comb liair and apply makeup. I spend my evenings, before the usual 71# k W i 0, I j F@ ‐ @=A ng some blameless way to fire Dee.
    secretary is not unattractive, in her early twenties, assertive, and eager. But on an intellectual plane she is heavily (s, hairstyles and panty hose. She excels at clerical foreplay. All 1%& typing paper is stacked'in neat piles. The plastic cylinders Zaf various sizes of paper clips are perpetually fondled like Buddhist prayer wheels, and the desk is endlessly '4osio7 any object that might be out of place. I have learned by experience that anything beyond sealing an envelope or a stamp severely taxes her secretarial skills. She sports ,fingernails longer than claws on a saber‐tooth tiger; from them dangles a minuscule gold chain stretching from the tiny star embedded in the half‐moon, above the ‐1wmrw0W ... as attractive as a bone through the nose. She wears 17M declaration of independence‐it reads: "You really don't me to type."

    Y As I enter the office she greets me enthusiastically. morning, boss"‐diis latter to ensure that we both know in charge. The tasks we each perform during the day have to muddy these distinctions. In the inner reaches of r, MY issue a psychic growl like some snarling hound. I respond with a flat, indifferent
    "Hello." In recent become increasingly
    abrupt in my manner toward her, 1_@ cryptic message that she might look elsewhere for qo,4104,11@ But each day when I arrive for work she's there, door like some warm puppy, to greet me. The thought i pull the trigger myself on this coup de grace is not so it waits. "Do me a favor," I say. ure. 4, "Call Susan Hawley and remind her we have avoiliowrim' tomorrow."

    I reach into my briefcase and pull out the M, "Then find the points and authorities that I did the AAW put them in the file. When you're done,"
    I say, " t PU briefcase." I drop the file onto the center of her desk ponderous plane belly‐flopping on the deck of an ‐.iwaoo@ Before it can bounce she has it in her hands and is Fe place it in one of ‐die file drawers behind her chair. "Done," she says. "Sure," I say as I watch the thing disappear into the of Calcutta. I make a mental note to retrieve it when for lunch. As I enter my office I'm surprised at this hour to comfortably reclining in my swivel chair with his feet my desk, reading a newspaper. Harry is bow ties and silk gauze socks and wing tips, a bulbous nose and iivr# sixty, his career behind him and no signs of retirement ‐1) . log zon, he has a give‐a‐damn attitude that one in my find refreshing. It is perhaps that sine 'e my fall from grace, i;74i I look at Harry I see myself in twenty years. 'just?"