"A photograph of who?" he exclaims.

"Shhh, shut up. Jesus." I look around. "Okay, eventhough you think Erasure is a good band, I think I can still trustyou."

"They are, Victor, and—"

"Someone's got a, let's just say,incriminating photo of me and a certain young"— Icough—"young lady, and I need you to find out if it's, um,going to be printed sometime in the near future and maybe eventomorrow in one of the city's least respectable but still most widelyread dailies or if by some miracle it will not and that's about it."

"I suppose you could be more vague, Victor, but I'm used to it,"JD says. "Just give me twenty seconds to decode this and I'llget back to you."

"I don't have twenty seconds."

"The young lady I'm supposing—no,I'm hoping—is Chloe Byrnes, your girlfriend?"

"On second thought, take thirty seconds."

"Is this a That's Me in the Corner /That's Me in the Spotlight moment?"

"Okay, okay, let me clarify: acompromising photo of a certain happening guy with a girl who . . .and it's not like that bad or anything. Let's just say this girlattacked him at a premiere last week in Central Park and someoneunbeknownst to them got a, um, photo of this and it would look . . .strange since I am the subject of this photograph . . . Ihave a feeling that if I make the inquiry it willbe—ahem—misunderstood. . . . Need I go on?"

Suddenly Beau screams down: "Chloe will see you at nine-thirtyat Doppelganger's!"

"What happened to Flowers? I mean eleven-thirty at Metro CC?"I yell back up. "What happened to ten o'clock at Cafe Tabac?"

A longish pause. "She now says nine-thirty at Bowery Bar. That'sthe end of it, Victor." Then silence.

"What horrible thing do you want me todo?" JD pauses. "Victor, would this photo—ifpublished—screw up this guy's relationship with a certainyoung model named Chloe Byrnes and a certain volatile club owner of .. . oh, let's just say, hypothetically, this club, whose nameis Damien Nutchs Ross?"