ONE<br >We had been sitting in the room for close to an hour，<br >talking about this and that--the Warriors， the Democrats，<br >Mozart， Montaigne. I was a nondescript private eye who<br >could stuff all of his assets int(J some carry-on luggage if<br >he owned any carry-on luggag% and he was one of the<br >ten wealthiest men in the city if you didn t count the<br >had everything money could buy and most<br >it could rent. In a while he would be renting<br > The room had once been a den， comfortable and<br >masculine， the repository of riches gathered during a life-<br >time of commercial conquest. From where I sat I could see<br >a pre-Columbian torso and a post-Impressionist landscape<br >and a harpsichord worthy of Landowska. But the riches had<br >been shoved into the corners to make room for a bed be-<br >cause in spite of all the prizes， or just maybe because of<br >them， Maximilian Kottle was dying. When he realized I<br >knew it he told me why.<br > "Cancer，" he said crisply， with cocky defiance.<br > I had guessed as much， but even so I had nothing to<br >say worth saying. The word lay in the center of the room，<br >the way it always does， like a dead rat that everyone sees<br >but no one wants to pick up and carry out to the trash.<br > "I m sorry，" I mumbled finally， embarrassed be-<br >cause I was embarrassed.<br > Kottle shrugged. "Don t be. Poor Belinda， my wife，<br ><br >