Vogel said to Elaine, “The Gobi Plateau?”

“When I was writing my biography of Roy Chapman Andrews. In the Footsteps of Time: Paleobiology Then and Now. Admittedly, I was twenty-five. You ever sleep in a tent, Sebastian?”

Vogel was sixty years old. He was pale except for the hectic red of his cheeks, and he wore shapeless sweaters to disguise the awkward generosity of his stomach and hips. Elaine disliked him — he was a parvenu, she had whispered to Chris, a fraud, practically a fucking spiritualist — and Vogel had compounded the sin with his unfailing politeness. “Algonquin Park,” he said. “Canada. A camping trip. Decades ago, of course.”

“Looking for God?”

“It was a coed trip. As I recall, I was looking to get laid.”

“You were what, a divinity student?”

“We didn’t take vows of chastity, Elaine.”

“Doesn’t God frown on things like that?”

“Things like what? Like sexual intercourse? Not so far as I have been able to discern, no. You should read my book.”

“Ah, but I did.” She turned to Chris. “Have you?”

“Not yet.”

“Sebastian is an old-fashioned mystic. God in all things.”

“In some things more than others,” Sebastian said, which struck Chris as both cryptic and typically Sebastian.

“Fascinating as this is,” Chris said, “I’m thinking we should get some dinner. The PR guy said there’s a place in the concourse that’s open till midnight.”

“I’m game,” Elaine said, “as long as you promise not to pick up the waitress.”

“I’m not hungry,” Vogel said. “Go on without me. I’ll guard the luggage.”

“Fast, St. Francis,” Elaine said, shrugging her jacket on.

Chris knew about Elaine’s Roy Chapman Andrews biography. He had read it as a freshman. Back then she had been an up-and-coming science journalist, shortlisted for an AAAS Westinghouse Award, charting a career path he hoped one day to follow.