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fifty-nine, going on sixty, he still turned heads when he entered a room, not because he was one of the most famous
     journalists of his era, or certainly the most handsome,but because he exuded energy, power, and a word overused to describe him—magnetism.
    At the 21 Club in New York, one of the most famous restaurants in the world since its days as a speakeasy back in the 1920’s,
     Quentin Peet eschewed the much sought after first-floor restaurant just off the foyer, with its racy red-checkered tablecloths,
     sporting memorabilia covering much of the ceiling, and brass plaques announcing where the rich, famous and infamous had sat
     over the years. Most people clamored to sit there, and be seen, squeezed together in some discomfort and no privacy, but not
     Quentin Peet. He had never believed in being one of the crowd. He was one of a kind, a leader of men, and as many foreign
     potentates—not to mention journalistic competitors—had lived to regret, woe betide anyone who underestimated him.
    Now he bounded upstairs to 21’s gracious second floor, where, he knew without asking, his usual corner table would be awaiting
     him. Here, tables were spaced farther apart and the decor was much more to his liking.
    With its gleaming dark wood, rich velvet curtains, soft lighting on crisp white damask, silver and crystal, the second-floor
     restaurant was, for him, reminiscent of London, which, after New York, was his favorite city by far. There, his only child,
     Johnny, had been born during sunny years when, his fame just beginning, he had been appointed his paper’s youngest bureau
     chief, a reward after winning his first Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from Vietnam.
    He hadn’t been seated long before Johnny, aka John Q. Peet, rushed across the room to join him. “Sorry, Dad, I was—”
    “On the phone, making a date to meet some babe after dinner with more boobs than brains.” His father spoke in a matter-of-fact,
     clipped voice, as if the matter was already closed.
    At twenty-five, Johnny showed a slight resemblance to his father, although it could easily be missed if you didn’t know they
     were related. His father was dark. Johnny was fair. They had the same handsomely shaped head, the samestraight nose, but the “take-no-prisoners” fierceness present in Quentin Peet’s face was totally absent in Johnny’s. His mouth
     was gentler, or weaker, depending on how you looked at it, and there was a hesitancy, a slight droop to the shoulders, more
     noticeable when he was with his father, that conveyed uncertainty, vulnerability, something he deprecated about himself, although
     he knew women were attracted by it. Not for the first time Johnny felt a flash of irritation noting there wasn’t a trace of
     gray in his old man’s hair. Goddammit, it was as thick as ever, although his own appeared to be actually receding.
    In less than five minutes Quentin Peet’s favorite cocktail, a Rob Roy on the rocks (“Chivas, light on the vermouth”) was before
     him.
    “What are you drinking these days, son?” Before Johnny could answer, his father laughed, a dry, humorless laugh. “I suppose
     you know you give away the kind of women you’re dating in your choice of drinks. Please God, don’t let it be Perrier on the
     rocks tonight. I can’t face the thought of running into you again with Ms. Health Club 1990, with her sweaty, hairy underarms
     and what d’you call ’em? Fab abs?”
    Johnny laughed in the same way, similarly unamused and unappreciative of the crack. “I’ll have a margarita on the rocks, not
     frozen and no salt,” he said defiantly to the hovering waiter.
    He hesitated, gauging his father’s mood, then decided to plunge right in. “I’m seeing Dolores again.”
    “The Bolivian bombshell? God save us. Does your mother know?”
    “No, why should she? I said I’m seeing her, not marrying her.”
    “Well, just make sure that’s not on her agenda. She’s a disaster waiting to happen.