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pulling the trigger until the so-called author was gone. "And haul your garbage out with you," he shouted, knocking the boxes to the floor. Shaken, he aimed the gun at his own mouth and treated himself to several tranquilizing squirts of vodka.
    lost our lease said the sign in a window down the block from the office. Lot of those signs popping up lately. On the walk back from lunch with an agent, Russell paused for a moment in front of the window to examine the sale carpets, cheery kilims, a jaded Hariz. Russell's office was located in one of those interstitial regions of the city which until recently had been nameless. It was between Gramercy Park and Chelsea, south of midtown but not properly downtown—an area of century-old eight- and ten-story office and warehouse buildings given over largely to light industry, the Oriental carpet trade and downmarket photographers. The Carpet District, he called it, but lately the rug traders had been folding up their tents. Fashion and the kind of money that traveled light—hip retail and restaurants—had found the area and named it the Flatiron District, after its most famous building. Lunch had certainly become easier. Two years before he had had to get into a taxi to find food that wouldn't offend literary agents. Now they were willing to come down to check out the latest Piedmontese trattoria they'd read about in the Times. The Corbin, Dern Building stood in the middle of its block, on real estate that had quadrupled in value since Russell had been hired, a parking lot on one side and a small brownstone on the other. The publishing house occupied the top four of nine floors. The century-old structure had been copied from a nearby McKim, Mead & White building, and had been occupied since the twenties by the trade publishing firm of Corbin, Dern and Company. For writers and readers and reviewers, Corbin, Dern was a resonant dactyl, an invocation of the muses, a top-shelf cultural brand name.
    After lunch Russell stopped in on Washington, who was conducting business in his habitual fashion, leaning back in his ergonomic Italian chair, stretched full length, cowboy boots on the edge of his desk, hands clasped behind his head. He put Russell in mind of a big cat, speed and claws concealed beneath a tropical manner. You seldom saw him run or pounce, but in the dry seasons he brought back prey. Just when it seemed there was no choice but to fire him for some radical breach of decorum, he dragged in a best-seller or one of his obscure Eastern European novelists suddenly won the Nobel Prize.
    Waving to Washington's assistant, Russell did not wait for permission to clump in and lie down on the couch; unconsciously he mimicked his friend's position, picking up a copy of the Post from the coffee table. Homeless MAN attacked by giant CAT. He glanced up at Washington, then turned to page three, where he learned that a leopard or possibly a cheetah was terrorizing the Lower East Side, mauling winos and other street people.
    "Yeah, man, let me get back to you."
    Lee's manner was always furtive, as if engaged in clandestine business or tryst-making. Russell wondered whether Washington really wanted to get rid of this phone call or just didn't want him to hear it.
    "Yo, it's my man Russ."
    "I gotta get some heat on this Nicaragua book."
    "You talk to Harold?"
    "I thought he was already behind me." Washington had occupied the office next to Harold Stone's for a year before Russell had come along. They were contemporaries, though Washington had been moving up the ladder while Russell was still in graduate school. Being the only senior editor who fully qualified as a member of a minority group, and fluent in several important languages, Washington was virtually fearless. "I have tenure," he told Russell one night over many drinks. A Harvard scholarship man like Harold, he'd grown up in Harlem, like almost no one else in the publishing industry, and the few people who had the power to fire him felt