restaurant in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. The bouillabaisse alone is worth the trip. Fat black clams and assorted shellfish and other sea critters make it a meal in itself, although we managed to do justice to a coq au yin and a bottle of sauterne as well. I was too well fed and pleased with the world to let Gino bother me when he joined us later in John's room.
Gino had been taking his Hugh Heffner pills and had made some pretense at a toilette for the occasion. He wore a nice tan camel's-hair coat, not his usual parka. The trousers of his blue polyester suit had a crease, and he wore a shirt and a tie. I think some color of socks other than yellow would have been an improvement, especially when his tie was red, but what the heck. The fumes of the sauterne were still with me, and I greeted him politely.
“You look great, Newman,” he said, running his shifty little eyes up and down my body. “This is a real class lady you're lending me, John. Too had she's such a beanpole, or I might decide to cut you out entirely. Heh heh."
John reminded me of a German shepherd, patronizing a smaller mongrel. He just grinned good-naturedly and said, “That'd learn me."
“Is there any of that Johnnie Walker left?” was Gino's next sally. “I need something to take the smell of that garlic off my breath. Ma uses about a cup of garlic in her spaghetti. She crushes it to get the oils out."
Mrs. Parelli's trick works very well. I could smell the fumes across the room. The Scotch didn't help a bit to hide it either. I insisted on sitting in the back seat for the trip to the museum. “You and John probably have things to talk about,” I said magnanimously.
“You really got your lady trained,” Gino said approvingly to John.
“Cassie knows her place,” he grinned. “Where else would a backseat driver sit?” His baleful expression as he tried to avert his nose from Gino's breath told me he understood my ploy.
The elite of Montreal were swarming into the museum when we arrived. Montreal is one of the few cities where furs are not only ornamental but also useful. Even the men wear them. There was a lot of fur climbing the steps—mink, ocelot, wolf, a few leopards, and beaver, the latter mostly on the men. Once the furs were stashed, I ogled what the women wore beneath them. If I thought my red dress was going to rate a second look, I was mistaken. In the Christmas season, three-quarters of the women opted for red and rhinestones, or diamonds, depending on the bank balance. The men were all as carefully groomed as TV evangelists, with their blow-dried hair and expensive tailoring.
A tall, gray-haired man in formal black evening wear headed up the reception line. I recognized Mr. Dupuis, the manager of the museum, from the newspapers. My eyes did not linger long on Dupuis. The fantasy beside him, also in black, was straight out of a French film. Had they imported Alain Delon for the evening? The man was tall, with a glossy head of black hair and that pale skin that suggests poetry and perhaps decadence, rather than ill health. His eyes were black and lustrous, fringed with lashes an inch long.
I was so smitten with his beauty that it didn't register for a minute when he introduced himself as Mr. Bergma. When it finally sank in, I pictured him in his red and black and white house and thought t was the wrong setting for him. He should live on the boulevards of Paris. It should be perpetually spring, with the lime trees in bloom, scenting the air. If he insisted on having a house, Versailles would do. A man who looked like that deserved to be surrounded by mirrors, the better to see him from all angles.
His hand that held mine in warm embrace was also pale, with a masculine smattering of dark hair. An ornate gold ring with a green stone bedizened one finger. A glimmering wafer of gold watch peeped out from under his white shirt cuff. It came as no surprise that his accent was delightfully cosmopolitan, more French than anything
Gino had been taking his Hugh Heffner pills and had made some pretense at a toilette for the occasion. He wore a nice tan camel's-hair coat, not his usual parka. The trousers of his blue polyester suit had a crease, and he wore a shirt and a tie. I think some color of socks other than yellow would have been an improvement, especially when his tie was red, but what the heck. The fumes of the sauterne were still with me, and I greeted him politely.
“You look great, Newman,” he said, running his shifty little eyes up and down my body. “This is a real class lady you're lending me, John. Too had she's such a beanpole, or I might decide to cut you out entirely. Heh heh."
John reminded me of a German shepherd, patronizing a smaller mongrel. He just grinned good-naturedly and said, “That'd learn me."
“Is there any of that Johnnie Walker left?” was Gino's next sally. “I need something to take the smell of that garlic off my breath. Ma uses about a cup of garlic in her spaghetti. She crushes it to get the oils out."
Mrs. Parelli's trick works very well. I could smell the fumes across the room. The Scotch didn't help a bit to hide it either. I insisted on sitting in the back seat for the trip to the museum. “You and John probably have things to talk about,” I said magnanimously.
“You really got your lady trained,” Gino said approvingly to John.
“Cassie knows her place,” he grinned. “Where else would a backseat driver sit?” His baleful expression as he tried to avert his nose from Gino's breath told me he understood my ploy.
The elite of Montreal were swarming into the museum when we arrived. Montreal is one of the few cities where furs are not only ornamental but also useful. Even the men wear them. There was a lot of fur climbing the steps—mink, ocelot, wolf, a few leopards, and beaver, the latter mostly on the men. Once the furs were stashed, I ogled what the women wore beneath them. If I thought my red dress was going to rate a second look, I was mistaken. In the Christmas season, three-quarters of the women opted for red and rhinestones, or diamonds, depending on the bank balance. The men were all as carefully groomed as TV evangelists, with their blow-dried hair and expensive tailoring.
A tall, gray-haired man in formal black evening wear headed up the reception line. I recognized Mr. Dupuis, the manager of the museum, from the newspapers. My eyes did not linger long on Dupuis. The fantasy beside him, also in black, was straight out of a French film. Had they imported Alain Delon for the evening? The man was tall, with a glossy head of black hair and that pale skin that suggests poetry and perhaps decadence, rather than ill health. His eyes were black and lustrous, fringed with lashes an inch long.
I was so smitten with his beauty that it didn't register for a minute when he introduced himself as Mr. Bergma. When it finally sank in, I pictured him in his red and black and white house and thought t was the wrong setting for him. He should live on the boulevards of Paris. It should be perpetually spring, with the lime trees in bloom, scenting the air. If he insisted on having a house, Versailles would do. A man who looked like that deserved to be surrounded by mirrors, the better to see him from all angles.
His hand that held mine in warm embrace was also pale, with a masculine smattering of dark hair. An ornate gold ring with a green stone bedizened one finger. A glimmering wafer of gold watch peeped out from under his white shirt cuff. It came as no surprise that his accent was delightfully cosmopolitan, more French than anything
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