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“Lord,” I said. “There must be something to this Sam Forresthood business.” “Ada has a way with concierges,” he said. “There was champagne, too, but I took it in to the newlyweds before I left to pick you up. Hoping, to tell you the truth, that it would knock them out for a spell. Want some fruit? Peel you a grape?” “No, thanks,” I said, feeling suddenly shy about being in a hotel bedroom with Sam Forrest, even this most unboudoirish one. The bed in which, presumably, he and Ada would sleep was undisturbed and piled high with pillows, its hangings drawn around it like mosquito netting. It was possible to think of it as just another massive piece of furniture. Almost. “Let me go check on Romeo and Juliet,” he said, vanishing into the bathroom that joined the rooms. In a moment he returned, grinning. “Asleep. The spoon position. Great possibilities for the handicapped.” Sam had his easel set up in front of one of the windows and had moved a big overstuffed armchair opposite it for me. The block of canvas that sat on the easel was not large, perhaps sixteen inches square. His pastels and a scurrilouslooking palette sat on a gilt table he had drawn up beside the easel. A thick monogrammed hotel towel covered everything. “Would it be impossibly bourgeois of me to wonder if oil paint comes out of hotel towels, or do you just steal them?” I said. “I don’t worry about them anymore,” he said, holding a brush in his teeth while he fiddled with the blowing curtain at the window. “The first time the manager raised a stink Ada told him he could probably make a fortune selling them as Sam Forrest originals. I don’t