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“You’re kidding! Who?”
    Fred had felt his stomach tighten while Marion reproved Tony—he wished briefly she was dead and he had Patty hosting the party—but Tony’s response, completely ignoring the criticism and enjoying the facts, calmed him. Not only calmed him, but impressed Fred once again with Tony’s social skills. Tony deflected his wife’s crabby middle-class criticism into an anecdote in which other people were the villains and Tony became a partner in her disapproval.
    “We don’t know who,” Marion answered. “Yesterday we came in and somebody had thrown out all the old stuff and bought new things.”
    “Incredible,” Tony agreed, shaking his head. “It’s incredible how primitive people’s reactions are. An actor I went to Yale with got it and I visited him in the hospital last week …”
    Fred met Marion’s eyes, his look telling her what a fool she’d made of herself. Marion returned the glance defiantly and looked back to Tony.
    “… and even though I argued with close friends of his who refused to visit, I must admit it, when I walked in I was scared to even sit down, much less shake his hand.”
    “You didn’t shake his hand!” Patty said.
    “Patty!” Marion warned.
    “Well, we don’t know. They don’t know how people get it.”
    “Oh, for God’s sake—” Marion started.
    But Tony cut her off. “Patty,” he said gently, “if AIDS could be communicated by a handshake, millions of people would have it. And not only that, there would be no way to protect against getting it. The world would have to sit back, let those who die, die, and like the Black Plague, only those with natural resistance would survive.” Tony leaned close to Patty. “Nevertheless, I didn’t shake his hand.”
    At this Fred and Patty laughed hard. Marion leaned back with a disgusted look, as if giving up on all of them.
    The intercom buzzed. Marion got up and answered it. They all heard the amplified voice of the doorman. “Bart Cullen to see you.”
    “I didn’t know you had a new agent.” Tony said to Fred.
    “Yeah, Bart Cullen. He handles Fredericka Young.”
    Patty whistled.
    “Who’s Fredericka Young?” Tony asked.
    “You don’t know?” Fred said, amazed. “I guess she doesn’t go to Elaine’s.”
    “Maybe she does,” Tony said dryly. Fred, envious of Tony’s ability to be seated at Elaine’s (the renowned show-business, literary, and amorphous-celebrity restaurant), often teased Tony about his regular attendance there. The kidding irritated Tony because he knew Fred’s real complaint was that Tony didn’t invite him along. “Doesn’t mean I know her. Who is she?”
    “She wrote All My Sins.”
    Marion, at the door, called into the hallway, “This way, Bart.”
    Tony, recognizing the title as the number-one bestseller of last year, said in a whisper, “My God, and he got ten percent?”
    Fred nodded solemnly.
    “Fred!” Patty said with excitement. “He’ll make you rich.”
    Fred guffawed nervously, getting up to greet Bart, who at that moment appeared at the front door. “That’s the idea,” he said to Patty and Tony.
    They turned to look at Fred’s hope for success. Bart was the opposite of the caricature of the agent: he was tall, thin, with a full head of red hair. His long nose, pale blue eyes, and thin unsmiling mouth made him look like a Flemish painting: a mournful, industrious, and religious man. But his companion fit the image of a wheeling-and-dealing agent: she was a tall blond model with the perfect features of modern surgery and the brilliant white teeth of industrial enamel.
    While Fred introduced them (the model’s name was Brett, which Tony thought was probably acquired at the same time as her teeth), the intercom buzzed again and soon they were joined by Karl Stein. Karl was also represented by Bart— indeed. Karl had provided the introduction that led to Fred becoming a client. Karl was a short, sad man with black and gray hair that hung from