RICH, NEVER MARRIED, RICH

The dining room was noisy and crowded, and George Crump was not pleased.  This was not an occasion for observing the social amenities.  They did not need to preface their meeting with a gourmet feast, the attention of solicitous waiters or public exposure.  This was a secret energy conference, not the professed college reunion and not a Cherries Jubilee.  He had been a fool to listen to Harry.  George Crump looked up from his napkin to watch the charge of energy that was Harry Bellemore stride toward his table.  His anger at his friend was tempered, as usual, by his admiration of him.  In business, he acted on insufficient evidence, followed hunches, and took risks, yet his losses had consistently been on the order of a blown feather.  In his social life, even the feather remained unruffled.  A wistful twitch appeared at the corner of George Crump’s mouth.

“Phil’s flight from Paris has been canceled...strike...and Heathrow Airport’s fogged in.” Harry Bellemore sat down.

“I knew there would be complications.  When will they arrive?”

“You always expect complications.  They’ll arrive as soon as they can.  Waiter! Menu, please.”

“We can’t start without them.”

“I don’t intend to diet for the next ten or fifteen hours, and I don’t recommend you do it, either.  Drop those pounds some other time.”

“You know what I mean,” said George irritably.  “We have rehashed our positions, our options dozens of times.  There is nothing for us to discuss.  If I were back at the office...”

“...you wouldn’t be ordering one B & B, Fettucini Alfredo, coffee, mousse, and port.”

George cast an unfriendly look at the waiter.  “And I’m not.  One fruit cup, two hard-boiled eggs, a pitcher of orange juice, and coffee.”

Harry Bellemore put down the stick of celery he had absent-mindedly begun to nibble.  “What would you do with your time, George, if you knew you had just twenty-four hours to live?”

“Know of a plot to kill me?”

“A definite, premeditated, carefully planned plot.  You hatched it in infancy and you’ve been mercilessly pursuing it ever since.”

“Let’s just eat, Harry.”

The food arrived and they ate.

The dining room was crowded with halter necks, glitter, bead-choked bodices, and gathered bouffant shoulders...what matter if they were last year’s fashion...their suggestive contours catching the male eye, the disapproving female stare being of no consequence.  Harry Bellemore whet his appetite with these provocations.  At home he dined facing a copy of Modigliani’s “Seated Nude.” The real was unavailable, a part, undoubtedly a cherished part, of some man’s private collection.  The real was always closely held and unavailable, he mused.  One simply had to make do with the glamour, the sophistication, and the innocent, eager, upturned face.  The Bellemore eyes made a slow circuit of the room.  They stopped and he laughed.

“We’ve been noticed, George.”

“Wha-at?” George turned with alarm to follow his friend’s gaze.

“Only women, George,” Harry said with a touch of sarcasm.  “Three tables from the second window to the left of the entrance.”

“Betty, you must keep your hands in your lap.”

“But I’ve gotten his attention, Zanny.”

“Not his respect,” warned Nancy.

“With all the women here looking like chandeliers, how else was I to get noticed?”

“Dear Betty has been reduced to long distance flirting and to dressing like a Danskin Lady Godiva.”

“But he was looking at me.” Harry Bellemore was almost upon them.