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“Felix …”

“It still works. We could have it fixed up better than new with scrubbers, state of the art … Okay, okay. That’s pushing it.”

“The whole thing is pushing it.”

He calmed down. He said quietly. “Okay. But I think you’re making a big mistake. And remember, old Warwick is on the Board of Governors. And we need everyone on our side if we’re going to keep Wainscott from taking us over and, not incidentally, save your institutional neck.”

He was right about Warwick and the board. I agreed readily enough to that and stretched my imagination to consider his take on Warwick’s proposal. I couldn’t do it. Even if we charged outrageous prices to keep it a dignified arrangement, it would become a circus.

“So fake coins, huh?”

“You’ve seen what the Bugle did with this?”

“Nobody takes the Bugle seriously. Nobody serious, anyway.” He stood up to go. “Beat them to it. Set up an exhibition using real fakes.”

“Instead of what, counterfeit fakes?”

“Hey, don’t think they don’t exist. Those Lipanov replicas get knocked off all the time.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, but one I had little appetite for right then. I merely looked at him and silently shook my head.

“Cheer up,” he said at the door. “Tonight’s your big night. I’ll see you there.”

• • •

It had completely slipped my mind that there was to be a private screening, a premiere so to speak, of the documentary based on Corny Chard’s account of his amputational adventures in South America. The invitation, which had arrived some weeks before, was for drinks, large hors d’oeuvres, and A Leg to Stand On at the Seaboard Players’ Little Theater. It’s located in a refurbished waterfront warehouse of some vintage judging from its small size and the eight-by-eight posts and beams they’ve left in place.

Diantha had not forgotten, and it lifted my spirits to find her wearing a fetching summer dress and keeping on ice a perfect martini, which she knew I would need. After a quick shower, I put on my off-white linen suit, faintly striped shirt, and silk tie of muted paisley pattern. What, after all, does one wear to a film about cannibalism?

Rather than finish my drink, I sat on the living room floor with Elsie and Decker to teach one of her dolls, the one with lifelike hands, a few new words. I swear that my toddler already has a larger signing vocabulary than I do. In the midst of all this I realized that, whatever happened to the museum, I was a profoundly lucky man.

Diantha drove us over in her powerful motor car. We arrived at a gala scene, a party of more than a hundred clustered around tables on the side deck of the building lit by paper lanterns. I was greeted like the star of the show by the star of the show, Corny himself, who led me through a scattering of applause to the bar.

Ah, to have friends. Korky Kummerbund, looking a bit haggard, arrived just behind us with a new friend named Merwin. Korky, who was very close to my late wife, has gone national with his upscale food pantry called Best Leftovers, and I think the strain is starting to tell.

Izzy and Lotte were there for a handshake and kiss. He suggested a wine he described as “a quite good if complacent little Bordeaux.” Father O’Gould or “S.J.,” as he likes to be called when wearing mufti, came with his aging mother. Aging, but in no way decrepit, Theresa O’Gould ordered bourbon, a double shot, from the busy bartender.

Soon, Harvey and Felice Deharo were adding to the buzz of conversation along with Corny’s wife, Jocelyn, who, I suspected, had been looking forward to widowhood when it seemed her husband wasn’t going to make it back from the Rio Sangre. Felix introduced me to his new wife, Flora, a sloe-eyed beauty of Filipino descent. (Asked once about his taste in wives, Felix replied he was taking a swim in the gene pool.)

I was surprised when Merissa Bonne showed up with Max Shofar in tow. I expected her to make at least a pretense of mourning in public. But then I am inclined toward the old decencies even at the expense of hypocrisy.

I was more surprised and quite delighted when Lieutenant Tracy