The Bum Rap, where Carolyn Kaiser and I meet almost every evening for a Thank God It’s Over drink, is a neighborhood saloon with an eclectic juke box and a bartender who can’t make a gin and tonic without looking it up first in his Old Mr. Boston manual. We have our usual table, although it’s no big deal if it’s taken and we have to sit somewhere else. It was taken this evening, I noticed. There were two women sitting there. Then I looked again and saw that one of them was Carolyn.

The other was Erica Darby, who’d come into Carolyn’s life recently in a big way. Erica did something at a cable TV company. I wasn’t too clear on what it was, but I was sure it was important, and probably glamorous. You sensed that about Erica. She was smart and polished and great-looking, with long chestnut hair and bright blue eyes and a figure I had the good sense not to notice.

“Hey, Bernie,” she said. “How’s the book biz?”

“Leisurely,” I said.

“That’s great,” she said. “When my business is leisurely, that means we’re about to be driven out of it.” She pushed back her chair, got to her feet. “Gotta run, kiddies.” She leaned over, kissed Carolyn on the mouth. “See ya.”

She swept out. I sat down. Carolyn had a tall glass of ruby liquid in front of her, and I asked if it was cranberry juice.

“Campari and soda. You wanna taste it, Bern?”

“It seems to me I had it once,” I said, “and it seems to me once was enough. Anyway, it has alcohol in it, doesn’t it?”

“They claim it does,” she said, “but you couldn’t prove it by me.”

“Well, I’ll take their word for it,” I said, and motioned for Maxine. When she came over I ordered a Perrier.