The place was crowded. He heard stray words in French and Somali seeping through the ambient noise. That was the disposition of this end of 47th Street. Dark women in ivory robes walking in the river wind toward the UN secretariat. Apartment towers called Mole and Octavia. There were Irish nannies pushing strollers in the parks. And Elise of course, Swiss or something, sitting across the table.

"What are we going to talk about?" she said.

He sat before a plate of pancakes and sausages, waiting for the square of butter to melt and run so he could use his fork to swirl it into the torpid syrup and then watch the marks made by the tines slowly fold into the soak. He realized her question was serious.

"We want a heliport on the roof. I've acquired airrights but still need to get a zoning variance. Don't you want to eat?"

It seemed, the food, to make her draw back. Green tea and toast untouched before her.

"And a shooting range next to the elevator bank. Let's talk about us."

"You and I. We're here. So might as well."

"When are we going to have sex again?"

"We will. I promise," she said.

"We haven't in a while now."

"When I work, you see. The energy is precious."

"When you write."

"Yes."

"Where do you do this? I look for you, Elise."

He watched Torval move his lips thirty feet away. He was speaking into a mouthpiece concealed in his lapel. He wore an ear bud. The handset of his cell phone was belted under his jacket not far from his voice-activated firearm, Czech-made, another emblem of the international tenor of the district.

"I curl up somewhere. I've always done this. My mother used to send people to find me," she said. "Maids and gardeners combing the house and grounds. She thought I was dissolvable in water."

"I like your mother. You have your mother's breasts."