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he could hardly stand up. Now, strangely, he was no more than tipsy—a little loud, a little unsteady, but by no means helplessly intoxicated as he had seemed to be inside. There was no crosstown traffic. Their boisterous young voices were perfectly audible.
    Jack said, “You owe me ten bucks, Miller.”
    Danny said, “That’s your story. Let me see the evidence.”
    Jack shrugged. He reached into his pocket, then handed something white to Danny. Danny held this object up to the light, shaking it out. It was a pair of panties—the same ones that had formerly covered up the wahine’s tattoo.
    â€œYou son of a bitch,” Danny cried.
    He dug into his own pocket, then handed Jack the ten dollars he had won.
    Danny put the panties on his head like a hat, and he and Jack walked away, arms around each other’s shoulders, Danny singing a tuneless song.
    There is nothing one man admires in another so much as sexual luck. So it was with Danny and Jack. In my sour wisdom, earned by years of watching puppet shows, I knew that the girl had been under orders. But on the evidence of the look on her face after she carried out her assignment, she had enjoyed it.
    Very impressive. I knew that Peter would think so, too.

4 As prearranged with Peter, I walked uptown along Fifth Avenue. Somewhere in the Sixties, Peter stepped out of the shadows of Central Park and joined me. By now it was past midnight, a dangerous hour. As usual Peter had no bodyguards; we were alone except for a few other pedestrians, scurrying and furtive and fearful of the dark—in other words, behaving far too suspiciously to be FBI men assigned to tail us.
    I said, “I assume the girl was not an agent.”
    â€œNo,” Peter said. “A whore who specializes in fantasies. I told her my wife had been seduced by a stranger in a ladies’ room, and I wished to reenact the humiliation.”
    Peter handed me a small tape recorder. We sat down together on a bench while I listened over an earphone. The prostitute’s tone was matter-of-fact. Sex was her métier. She was used to speaking to men in language that would arouse them. She described her experience with Jack expertly, in the jargon of her trade.
    Peter had told the girl exactly what to do and in what sequence: flirt with Jack, then break it off, then give him a sign, then follow him when he left the table. She was under orders not to make the first move. Jack must do that. It was part of the fantasy.
    As she walked along the passage toward the ladies’ room, she caught a glimpse of Jack, who was just disappearing into the men’s room. She stared straight at him and, against orders, gave him a tiny sign—the tip of her tongue running sensuously over her lips.
    Minutes later, as she stood before the mirror combing her hair, there came a tap on the door. She opened it, Jack was there. She let him in.
    Here I will summarize: She had already removed her panties, which she held crumpled in her hand. She put them into Jack’s hand. He grinned, lifted them to his nose for a moment. She stripped off her dress, but not her high heels. Wordlessly, smiling, Jack lifted one of her legs, put a finger between her legs, drew it out slowly, then put it into his mouth like a boy who had stuck his finger into a bowl of frosting.
    Then he grasped her buttocks, spreading them as he picked her up—she was a small girl—and fitted her onto himself, sliding her, gasping, all the way onto his member in one deft effortless gesture.
    The suddenness of this took her breath away. “It was absolutely the smoothest move I have ever seen,” she said. “I was wet—this was a kinky situation—but he must have greased it. He’s huge. My eyes were popping. My shoes fell off. He pumped about three times and came, and I thought, Shit! Already? But he kept on going as if nothing had happened, and even though he’s just a kid he knew exactly what