“At the moment.”

“At the moment.”

She shook her head and smiled. “You’re hopeless, Bruce. A hopeless flirt, philanderer, and book thief.”

“True, and I’ll also sell more copies of your book than anyone else. You gotta love me, Mercer.”

“I wouldn’t call it love.”

“Okay. How about adoration?”

“I’ll try that. Changing the subject, is there anything I should know about tonight?”

“I don’t think so. Everyone is excited to see you again. There were some questions when you disappeared three years ago, but I covered for you, said you had some family drama back home, wherever home might be. Then you got a couple of gigs teaching and just haven’t had the time to get back to the island.”

“Same characters?”

“Yes, minus Noelle, as I said. Andy will probably stop by for a glass of water and a hello. He asks about you. And there’s a new writer you might find interesting. Name’s Nelson Kerr, a former lawyer with a big firm in San Francisco. He ratted out a client, a defense contractor who was illegally selling high-tech military stuff to the Iranians and North Koreans, nice guys like that. It was a big stink about ten years ago, now it’s long since forgotten.”

“Why would I follow that?”

“Right, anyway, his career flamed out but he collected a ton for blowing the whistle. Now he’s sort of hiding out. Early forties, divorced, no kids, keeps to himself.”

“This place attracts the misfits, doesn’t it?”

“Always has. He’s a nice guy but doesn’t say much. Bought a nice condo down by the Hilton. Travels a lot.”

“What about his books?”

“He writes what he knows, international arms smuggling, money laundering. Good thrillers.”

“Sounds awful. Does he sell?”

“So-so, but he has potential. You wouldn’t like his stuff but you’ll probably like him.”

Thomas returned and the conversation switched to the latest publishing scandal.

5.

Bruce lived in a Victorian home ten minutes by foot from Bay Books. After the obligatory post-lunch siesta in his office at the store, he left midafternoon and walked home to prepare for dinner. Even in the depths of summer, he preferred to have his fancy meals on the veranda, under a couple of creaky old fans and next to a gurgling fountain. His favorite cuisine came from south Louisiana, and for the evening he had hired Chef Claude, a bona-fide Cajun who’d been on the island for thirty years. He was already in the kitchen, whistling as he hovered over a large copper pot on the stove. They bantered for a moment but Bruce knew better than to hang around. The chef was a big talker and when fully engaged often forgot about his food.

The temperature was in the low nineties and Bruce went upstairs to change. He peeled out of his daily seersucker and bow tie and put on grungy shorts and a T-shirt, no shoes. Back in the kitchen, he opened two cold bottles of beer, gave one to the chef, and took the other one to the veranda to set the table.

At these moments he really missed Noelle. She imported antiques from the South of France and was a master at decorating. Her favorite chore was preparing a table for a dinner party. Her collection of vintage china, glasses, and flatware was astonishing and still growing. Some she bought to stock her store, but the rarest stuff, and the most beautiful, she kept for their private use. In Noelle’s book, a gorgeous table was a gift to their guests, and no one could do it like her. She often photographed them both before and during the dinners, and framed the best ones to hang for her customers to admire.

The table was twelve feet long and for centuries had been used in a winery in Languedoc. They had found it together a year earlier when they spent a month on a shopping spree. Flush with ill-gotten cash, they had virtually raided Provence and bought so much stuff that they rented space in a warehouse in Avignon.

On a sideboard in the dining room, Noelle had carefully laid out the perfect dishes. Twelve vintage porcelain plates that had been hand-painted for a minor count in the 1700s. Lots of silverware, six pieces for each setting. And dozens of glasses for water and wine and digestifs.

The wineglasses were often problematic. Evidently Noelle’s French ancestors didn’t drink as much as Bruce’s American writers, and the old glasses held barely three ounces when fully loaded. At a rowdy dinner party years earlier, Bruce and his guests had become frustrated with the need to refill the dainty glasses every ten minutes or so. Since then, he insisted on more modern versions that held eight ounces of red, six for white. Noelle, who drank little, had acquiesced and found a collection of goblets from Burgundy that would impress an Irish rugby team.

Next to the dishes was a detailed diagram of the proper setting that she had prepared three days earlier when she left town. Bruce went about the business of arranging the linen placemats, the silk table runners, the candelabras, and then the dishes and glasses. The florist arrived and fussed over the table as she rearranged things and bickered with Bruce. When the table was perfect, according to her, Bruce took a photo and sent it to Noelle, who was somewhere in the Alps with her other companion. It was of magazine quality and ready for a dozen guests, though with their dinners the exact number was never certain until the food was served. Strays often materialized at the last moment and added to the fun.