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watching this gorgeous thing, I began to loathe myself. Because I had to admit that I could never in my life, under any circumstances, even approximate the intensity and scope of what was going on on that stage. I loved it as much as I’ve ever loved anything that happened on a stage. But it made me profoundly depressed. Like I said, it made me loathe myself. So I never went again.”
    Like most of Tony’s exegeses, this was a bit much. And like all of his explanations, it held a kernel of shining truth—maybe.
    We were both hungry. So when the food arrived we fell upon it and ate in happy, lusty silence. Everything was excellent. We mopped up the good juices left on our plates using hunks of (very inventive) sourdough with flecks of jalapeno. Yes, it was all excellent, we agreed a little grudgingly—even the chairs and the table and the low-key Georgia O’Keeffe colors, even the track lighting, which I usually hate—it was all excellent—and expensive as hell.
    When we’d finished our desserts—I couldn’t pass up the Bananas Foster and Tony had the Mexican chocolate soufflé, then we switched—we ordered coffee and brandy. We sat back in our chairs and looked around at the other diners, soaking up the ambience of the place because we knew we’d never be back here again.
    Then I had to turn to serious matters. I told him what would happen next. “I want you to go to the Performing Arts library tomorrow. I’ll get over to the Mid-Manhattan. What I need is a biography of Peter Dobrynin.”
    “You mean somebody wrote one?”
    “No, no. I mean we have to construct one. The Mid-Manhattan Library has all the back issues of
The New York Times
on microfiche—all the news magazines, too. What you’re going to do is go through the back issues of the dance journals. We need any and all information that will help us to flesh out the obituary.”
    “I’m with you, Swede. Know the character before you interpret the role. In other words, prepare.”
    “Exactly. And we’ll meet tomorrow evening at that place on Seventy-second. You know, the one near West End.”
    “Right. At about seven?”
    The check came then. Involuntarily, I whooped. And then I sneezed.
    ***
    I spent seven heady hours at the library, armed with a large yellow legal pad and three ballpoints with different colors of ink.
    There were hundreds of Dobrynin references in the various indexes. And why not? After all, he had been a star once, in the truest sense. But information on his life—other than the roles he had danced and the parties he had attended and the women he had bedded or been seen with—was very scarce.
    When I arrived at the All-State Café, Tony was already there. He was seated at a table, not at the bar, and he seemed to be flushed, oddly excited.
    “Research turns you on, Mr. Basillio?” I inquired, joining him and asking the waitress for a Bloody Mary without ice.
    “Swede,” he said, his eyes bright, “ballet critics are mad as hatters. Real perfume-on-the-handkerchief stuff. Know what I mean? They make drama critics sound like minimalists. Just listen to this effete, mumbly-mouthed crap. It’s a description of Dobrynin by a critic who caught one of his early appearances in
Swan Lake
. Just listen!”
    He flipped open his pad and read in mock-stentorian tone:
    “‘Dobrynin was a revelation. The other male dancers displayed a pervasively forced tone that misconstrued energetic presentation for one-note pushiness. The gifted Dobrynin, however, danced like no one else onstage, gliding through long, lean, and fine
tours jetés
, and spiraling through pirouettes that stopped and finished and posed in buoyant fourth-position lunge. His moves are effortlessly silken; those of his fellow dancers, contrastingly hidebound. Fine-boned nearly to the point of slightness, powerful in his exquisite musicality, he is also blessed with a face so handsome it seems to be painted on porcelain.’ ”
    Tony paused, his face gleeful from the