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established.”
     
    “Well, it’s been a long haul. Longer than I thought it was going to take. The market hasn’t been the best. The little guy just doesn’t feel much like doing anything with stocks.”
     
    “Maybe you ought to be going after the big guys and leave the little fish to someone else.” Flash . “Cal said you came out of the Army.”
     
    So, here we go .
     
    “Yes, Patricia, the infantry. Other worlds sometimes seem to offer a little more sparkle, don’t they? I felt I ought to be operating on a couple of more cylinders, so to speak.”
     
    “And?”
     
    “And I found that Army life and civilian life aren’t really that much different.”
     
    “How many cylinders are you working on right now, Louis?” Flash .
     
    “Well, I guess I’m operating on all eight, but I’m not sure that my carburetor is adjusted properly.”
     
    At that, Buck laughed, slapped the thigh, rose quickly and strode away toward the door. He refused to give her butt as much as a glance.
     
    Winifred appeared at the door and spoke quietly: “Pardon me, Miss Buck. Your daughter’s in the waiting room.”
     
    “Ashley!” Patricia roared.
     
    A bulky girl of nineteen or so, a baseball cap crushing her voluminous brown hair, strode in and hugged her mother with one arm as an enormous leather shoulder bag slid down her other arm to the floor.
     
    “Darling, this is Mr. Christopher out of the Paramus office.”
     
    “How do you do?” she asked, reaching with the back of her hand.
     
    “Hi, Ashley. Glad to meet you,” Lou said, gripping it lightly. Go on. Kiss it. Go on.
     
    “Sorry to interrupt. I’ll only be a second. Mother, I’m on my way to Bleeker and I’m really short. Could you...? Just a few bucks?”
     
    Buck went swiftly to her writing table and her bag. She pulled out a sheaf of twenties and handed it to Ashley without looking at it.
     
    “Thanks, Mom,” the girl said, kissing her mother on the cheek, slinging the bag to her shoulder again. “I’m out of here. Good to meet you, Mr. Christopher.”
     
    “Goodbye, Ashley,” Lou said.
     
    “Winifred, could we have some coffee in here?” Buck requested, following her daughter to the door. Returning, to him: “Where were you stationed, Lou?” So, now it’s Lou .
     
    “I was mostly overseas in Germany, Korea, and Panama, and two tours in Vietnam. Is that Chippendale?”
     
    “Are you interested in furniture? I know nothing about it. It’s supposed to go well with that mirror over there. They say it was made around 1760 or so.”
     
    She abruptly stood and strode to the telephone. “Winnie, get me Bud Gilhaus in Institutional, will you?” Then almost immediately she started talking in a low voice as she paced over to the window and looked down on Wall Street leaving Lou adrift in mid-conversation. He sat back and gazed around the office. The woman had not a note, not a scrap of paper lying around.
     
    Across the room, she pressed the phone to her chest and said: “So you were a field soldier?”
     
    And before Lou had a chance to respond, turned her back to him again. She was looking out the window and murmuring into the phone. Terri Garr brought in the coffee and placed it on the table in front of him: a silver coffee service and real china.
     
    We’re dancing all around it. Just go with the flow, as Cal put it. Wait her out.
     
    Lou was finishing his cup of coffee when, off the phone, Buck dropped down beside him on the sofa and reached across him for the pot. Okay, the personal touch. Very well .
     
    “Excuse me. As usual there are a number of things going on. Where were we? I think you said that most of your Army time was spent in the field, wasn’t it, Lou? I mean you didn’t get a chance to sit behind a desk.” Flash.
     
    “I didn’t say that, but that’s pretty much the way it was. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy field duty. I did.”
     
    “But you wanted to move a little faster?”
     
    “Something