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concern regarding —”
    â€œNot on the phone, David,” warns Fox. “Meet me at seven — no, make that six-thirty — in my office. Let’s see where we stand.”
    It’s Saturday and it’s my fiftieth bloody birthday, he wants to shout, but lets it go — anything beats midsummer reruns and Chinese takeout.
    The heat drives Bliss off the tube at Charing Cross, but the flowing river has a cooling effect as he retraces his steps to the Yard along the wide Thames embankment. It’s relatively quiet — even the tourists are flagging — but the impending royal visit has forced the extremists out of the shadows, and Bliss is repeatedly accosted by evangelists of all colours pressing pamphlets on him.
    â€œThe rapture is upon us …” begins one leaflet, and before he can screw it into a ball and bin it, an earnestsixteen-year-old disciple is on his arm, pleading, “Please, sir. You must have faith and repent now or you’ll be left behind.”
    â€œLeft behind where?” queries Bliss, and he stops while the wide-eyed young girl warns of the impending eschato-logical moment when God will take all his believers to heaven while leaving all the skeptics to suffer the hellish nightmare of life on earth.
    â€œYou go and enjoy yourself, dear,” laughs Bliss as he walks away. “I’ve got more chance of being taken out by an alcoholic Santa on a powered lawnmower than being whisked off to heaven on a fiery chariot.”
    â€œBut, sir …” she is still begging as another leaflet is thrust at him.
    â€œOnly through Jehovah can you find true salvation,” yells the girl’s competition, so Bliss shoves his hands into his pockets and picks up his pace.
    â€œChief Inspector,” calls the duty desk clerk, stalling Bliss as he heads for the elevator. “Message for you.”
    â€œ7:00 p.m. La Côte d’Or on Park Avenue — Fox,” reads the note, and Bliss would ignore it and go home to bed if it weren’t for the possibility of wrangling a steak out of his senior officer’s platinum expense account.
    â€œHow old are you?” he asks the young clerk, but doesn’t wait for a reply. “Do yourself a favour, mate,” he says as he walks to the door. “Don’t wait till you get old to enjoy yourself.”
    A cruising cab screeches to a halt. “What a way to spend your birthday,” he grumbles. “Lugging a bloody briefcase all round London on a Saturday night.”
    â€œWhere to, guv’nor?”
    â€œLa Côte d’Or,” he says and sees an uncertain look on the cabby’s face. “Park Avenue,” he adds, before he catches on and takes a look at himself — golfing shirt,walking shorts, and a pair of rope-soled sandals; so much for the steak.
    The gatekeeper at La Côte d’Or has a pencil-thin greased moustache and slicked-back hair. He wishes he could speak French but contents himself with a heavy accent as he gazes through Bliss, saying, “
Bonsoir
, Monsieur. Have you zhe reservation?”
    Bliss is tempted to produce his warrant card and muscle his way in, but he hasn’t the energy. “I’m meeting a friend — Mr. Fox.”
    â€œPerhaps he is expecting you,
oui
?”
    Bliss rolls his eyes, telling himself,
This is crazy. It can wait till Monday
.
    â€œHave you zhe tie and zhe jacket, sir?” continues Greasy as he focuses into the space above Bliss’s head.
    â€œDoes it look as though …” Bliss starts, then mellows. “Never mind. Please tell Mr. Fox that I’ll see him on Monday morning as scheduled.”
    â€œJust one moment, sir,” says Greasy, dropping the accent, then he snaps his fingers at a skinny youth who is trying unsuccessfully to fill the pants of his predecessor. “John will find something suitable for you if you’d care to follow him.”
    â€œThese look brand