Chapter 45

As Nick held the door for Ceilidh, he said. “I hope you don’t feel like I’m kicking you out.”

Ceilidh, again wearing her shiny green dress from the night before, shook her head and hugged him. “I wasn’t planning on being here by morning at all. If you hadn’t been in the sitting room when I got up, I’d be long gone by now.”

“I’m glad I was there then.” Nick followed her out into the hall, closing the door. He still wasn’t completely convinced he hadn’t violated some unspoken rule in his relationship with Pilar by having sex with Ceilidh on the couch while Pilar slept in the next room, but he’d done it and enjoyed it and there was no point ruining it now by pretending he hadn’t. As she opened the stairwell door to head downstairs, he asked. “We’ll see you around?”

Ceilidh smiled. “I’m booked to be here until Friday, but I think Jazz is going to want to extend that a day or two. And I work with Pilar. I’ll be around if you want me.”

Nick opened his mouth to say something similar, but a graph of all his romantic complications spread out across his mind’s eye, giving him pause. Instead, he said. “Ok, great.”

Ceilidh kissed him on the cheek, laid a hand on his arm, and looked him on the eyes. “Don’t overthink it, Nick. It was vacation sex. I had a really good time.”

Nick wasn’t sure how vacation sex was different from any other sex, but it sounded enough like absolution that he found himself nodding. “So did I. I do hope you’ll be around, Ceilidh.”

She gave him an enigmatic smile and headed downstairs. Nick climbed up one flight. He had to admit he was a little relieved Ceilidh wouldn’t be in his rooms when he invited his stepfather to breakfast. His love life was bound to be a topic of conversation and he didn’t feel like explaining her presence to Ed Coyle or laying out all the details in front of her.

For that matter, he wasn’t really looking forward to explaining his current situation to his stepfather at all. Intellectually, he knew the man didn’t have any real authority over him anymore, but Ed Coyle had always wielded his authority as a last resort anyway. If Nick was set on a course Ed disagreed with, his stepfather’s first strategy was to try to talk him out of it. Nick liked to say that a lot of his teenage rebelliousness had been filibustered out of him. In truth, a lot of bad behavior he might have engaged in had died on the vine at the thought of trying to justify it to his stepfather. For him to do something wrong, it needed to be satisfying enough to exceed the satisfaction he would feel from giving up just to get Ed to shut up about it. That was a pretty high bar sometimes.

Ed’s second layer of defense against Nick’s natural boneheadedness was usually to let Nick do whatever boneheaded thing he had in mind. Then, when it went pear-shaped, Ed would dissect how closely the event had lined up with his own predictions. As a former reporter, Ed had an incredible memory for the details of previous conversations and complete disdain for the idea that it was rude to say, “I told you so.” In fact, when he got on a roll, Ed was perfectly capable of connecting one boneheaded act to a stream of dumbassery stretching back years.

Only when he thought Nick was planning to do something permanently harmful to himself and no amount of reasoning would talk him out of it did Ed Coyle flat out forbid it. Nick remembered him doing it exactly twice - the same number of times he’d “let Nick make his own mistakes” and subsequently have to acknowledge he had been completely wrong in his dire predictions.

As he stood outside the suite his stepfather had checked into, Nick knew he didn’t have to put up with any of that anymore - didn’t have to listen to Ed’s reasoning or Monday-morning quarterbacking or any of the rest of it. His stepfather was only here because Nick had invited him. Nick could just have easily left him in Brownfield Mills or paid for him to go somewhere far, far away.

Ed was here because Nick wanted him here. One thing Nick had discovered about being rich was that almost nobody around him wanted to be his moral compass and even the people who volunteered for the job seemed content to let him make his own mistakes and then maybe explain why he shouldn’t have done what he did. As frustrating as Ed’s approach had been at times, Nick didn’t want to lose it.

He just hoped his stepfather wouldn’t have any good reasons for why he shouldn’t be sleeping with so many women and, for lack of a better term, swapping with Pilar, Arwen, and Lev. Nick was enjoying all of that far too much.

He knocked on the door and heard Ed respond from the other side. He was a little surprised his stepfather was still in his suite at almost nine in the morning when he’d undoubtedly been up for hours already. Even if Nick hadn’t known he was adopted, Ed’s relentlessly morning-oriented lifestyle would have been a dead giveaway.

Ed cracked the door open. “Nick? What are you doing up so early?”

“Very funny.” said Nick, figuring Ed was making fun of him. “I wasn’t going to get any more sleep this morning and you told me to come get you for breakfast when I was ready to eat. I’m ready to eat.”

“I should ... get changed.” Ed made to close the door.

“Can I come in?” Nick asked, realizing he was about to be left waiting in the hall.

Ed looked down for a moment. “Why don’t I meet you in your suite? We’ll have breakfast there.”

“Nick, is everything all right? Do you need me for something?” a woman’s voice called out from deeper inside Ed’s suite.

Ed winced and gave up on trying to close the door. He took a step back. “You might as well come in.”

Nick wasn’t completely sure it was Rosangela’s voice he’d heard coming from his father’s bedroom until she emerged, wrapping herself in one of the palazzo’s white robes. “Nick, do you need me?”

“Not at the moment.” Nick couldn’t help smirking. “I didn’t know you were here. I just came by to collect my stepfather for breakfast.”

“Ah, good.” Rosangela untucked her long black hair from the robe and let it cascade down her back. “I’ll be back on duty at noon, but you can page me directly any time if you need me specifically.”

“Thank you.” Nick nodded, having a hard time not laughing. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You don’t mind if I use your shower before I head out. Do you, Eddie?” Rosangela addressed Nick’s stepfather.

“Not at all. You can let yourself out when you’re done? I’m headed out to breakfast with Nick.” Ed said casually.

“All right then. Have fun.” Rosangela turned and disappeared back into his bedroom.

“Do you still need to change?” Nick asked.

“No. Obviously, that was a ruse.” Ed pointed out that he was already wearing jeans and a button-down work shirt. “Where are we headed?”

Nick smiled. “My suite sounds like a good idea actually. It will make it easier for Pilar to find us once she wakes up.”

“Oh. Is she there?” Ed asked casually, following Nick out into the hall.

“Last I checked. She was still asleep when I left. I didn’t want to disturb her.” said Nick.

“Are you two ... dating now?” Ed asked cautiously.

Nick led him into the stairwell. “She’s more or less moved in with me in the last few weeks. So, for some values of ‘dating,’ yes.”

“Did something happen with Kiki?” Ed asked.

Nick considered waiting until he got to his rooms to answer the question. Somehow, in spite of being caught with his hand in a very pretty Italian cookie jar, Ed had managed to drive right to the heart of the topic Nick wanted to tiptoe up to. Nick could equivocate or change the subject, but Ed would just smell blood in the water. As he opened the stairwell door, he said. “No. We’re still seeing her.”

It took half the hallway for Ed to come through the door and catch up with Nick. “Is Kiki your third?”

Nick frowned. “I thought you had to be married to have a third.”

“Did someone tell you that?” Ed fell into step with him.

“No. It turns out that joining the Stone family doesn’t come with any sort of an operating manual.” Nick said wryly. “I’ve had to learn as I go.”

“You must be learning pretty quickly if you already have a third.” said Ed.

Nick shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what Kiki is. It’s been hard enough getting her to accept any title without introducing her to one she’s probably never heard of.”

“So, is Pilar the third?” Ed persisted.

Nick shook his head. “Why are you so obsessed with thirds? I thought that was some obscure thing they did in Montana.”

“Who’s doing it in Montana?” Ed asked.

Nick explained about his great uncle and his relationship with Monroe and Dietrich’s parents. Halfway through, he remembered Kay Inoue-Stone and explained who she was before adding. “I forgot about her. I guess I knew it wasn’t just in Montana.”

“It was pretty prevalent in California and Washington through a lot of the twentieth century.” said Ed. “And I’ve talked to some thirds in France, Germany, and Italy. Plus, I talked to some people who consider the idea of thirds to be old fashioned. The whole story is like an iceberg. The deeper I go, the bigger it gets.”

Nick waited until they were in his sitting room to say. “I’m glad you’re excited about your book, but is there any way I could talk to my father about my life off the record ... at least for today?”

“Of course.” said Ed immediately.

“Of course?” Nick raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know what I’m going to tell you yet.”

“That’s usually the best time to get a reporter to agree to speak off the record.” Ed pointed out. “If I knew what you were going to tell me, I wouldn’t need to agree to anything to get you to talk to me.”

Nick snorted. “What if it turns out I’m right at the center of the story you’re trying to write?”

“If I felt like you were crucial to the story I was trying to tell, I would formally request an on-the-record interview and only use what you were willing to tell me in that context plus anything that I could corroborate independently.” said Ed.

“Is ‘formally request’ another way of saying ‘try to guilt me into?’” Nick suggested.

“Of course.” said Ed. “You’re an adult and a billionaire now. How else am I supposed to maintain my parental authority?”

“I assumed you’d keep trying to drown me in words until my common sense kicked in.” Nick grumbled and looked in the bedroom before closing the door again. “Pilar’s still asleep and still alone. I’m going to order us breakfast.”

Ed waited until he’d ordered breakfast to say. “So, am I still going to be allowed to do that - talk your ear off about right and wrong?”

“Yes, but you’re going to have a lot of competition. I’ve been lining up speakers to start coming in once or twice a week to cover that very topic ... broadly anyway.” Nick suggested. “I can probably pull some strings and get you a slot ... seeing as they’re my strings.”

Ed rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You’re enjoying this. Aren’t you?”

“Being rich and sleeping with beautiful women?” Nick shook his head. “It’s been terrible. I’m putting on a brave face. You must know exactly what I’m talking about. I bet last night with Rosangela was pure agony. You look miserable.”

Ed shook his head again. “You want my fatherly advice, Nick? When a woman that beautiful offers to have sex with you and you’re not cheating on anybody, have sex with her.”

Nick snorted. “Okay, but what about when thirty women that beautiful offer to have sex with you?”

“Have thirty women offered to have sex with you?” Ed went behind the wet bar and grabbed a bottle of sparkling water.

“Offered? Probably not.” Nick shook his head. “Implied that they would offer if they were sure I would say yes? Probably. I stopped counting.”

“Seriously? It’s been a month.” Ed pointed out.

“More like six weeks.” said Nick. “I’ve been meeting a lot of new people.”

“All right. You probably shouldn’t sleep with every woman who offers herself to you then.” Ed took a sip of his water. “Mere mortal men don’t have that problem. Women coming out and offering them sex are surprisingly rare.”

“Are you not counting yourself among mortal men anymore?” Nick teased. When Ed didn’t answer, he looked at his stepfather. “Rosangela just offered herself to you?”

Ed shook his head. “I’d rather not name names, but there is something I want to talk to you about ... maybe while we eat. How long does it take to get breakfast delivered here?”

Someone knocked at the door. Nick said. “That long, apparently.” But when he opened the door, Dennis was standing there. “Hey. You’re not breakfast.”

“I’m not.” Dennis agreed. “Is Emily here?”

“I haven’t seen Emily since the club last night. Why?” Nick asked.

“Tanvi told me she left with Kiki last night.” said Dennis.

“I haven’t seen Kiki since the club last night either.” Nick told him. “Have you checked Emily’s room?”

“Emily has her own room?” Dennis looked puzzled.

“She should. All of the models have rooms in the north wing as far as I know.” said Nick. “Pilar has one anyway. I assume Kiki has one too.”

“Okay, man. Sorry.” Dennis slapped Nick on the shoulder. “You’re all right.”

“Uh, thanks.” Nick said. He might have added more, but breakfast did arrive and, as Nick was letting them in, Dennis headed off. Nick went to sit at the table with his father. “That was weird.”

“Emily’s the Australian one from your video?” Ed asked.

“Yeah. She and Dennis have been together for a few weeks now. She also has an apartment at the Loft.” said Nick.

“How did she manage that?” Ed poured himself a cup of coffee.

“The day after the shoot, she got injured up on the roof shooting a promo. It seemed easier to give her an apartment than to let her sue me and cousin Jazz.” Nick sipped some orange juice. “In hindsight, there were probably about a million cheaper and less complicated ways to take care of the situation, but I’m still working on fine motor control with my billionaire muscles. Fortunately, she’s working out well. She’s the first international member of the Committee to Give Away Nick’s Money if you don’t count Lev. Also, she grew up in an apocalypse cult which gives her an interesting perspective. And she’s my social media director.”

“That’s ... a lot of backstory. Why did Dennis think she would be here?” Ed asked.

“She left with Kiki last night. Kiki spends some nights with me and Pilar.” said Nick. “Neither of them showed up here. I didn’t even know they left together until Dennis told me.”

“Was he on drugs?” Ed asked.

“Dennis - just now? I don’t think so.” Nick shook his head. “I’ve been kind of keeping an eye on that. As far as I can tell, he’s not using any more than he did back in the Mills. He did drink this weird tea in Nepal, though. I’ve been meaning to read up on it, but it keeps getting pushed down my list of topics. Have you ever heard of it?”

“What’s it called?” Ed asked.

Nick sighed. “I don’t remember. Is there more than one weird shamanic tea from Nepal?”

“Probably. Not my area of expertise.” said Ed.

“Anyway, ever since Nepal, Dennis has been doing a lot of research about psychotropics. He even asked me to line up a couple of experts on the subject - clinical researchers with real credentials. Hopefully, he’s becoming a more informed user if nothing else.” said Nick. “Mostly, I’m relying on Simon to tell me if I should worry more.”

“How’s Simon doing? I thought I saw him with your ex on the Fourth.” Ed suggested.

Nick shook his head. “I don’t really think of Shelby as my ex. We were together less than three weeks before she asked me to pretend we didn’t know each other. But I’m pretty sure they’re together until she leaves for school next month except...” He gestured with the fork he’d just picked up to eat. “Pretty much everything is more complicated than it looks like at first blush right now. Why don’t you tell me about the women throwing themselves at you before I dig too deep in the lives and loves of Nick Coyle’s inner circle?”

Again, Ed paused too long for Nick’s comfort, but this time Nick decided to wait him out and let him tell what was on his mind his own way. When Ed had gathered his thoughts, he said. “So, I started working on this book a few weeks ago and at the time I thought it was about how the Stone family was having their own private sexual revolution and not inviting the rest of us. Obviously, I didn’t frame it that way when I interviewed people, but it’s a very sensitive, very private subject and my premise is kind of ... adversarial. When you’ve got a topic like that, you usually have to do a lot of digging and a lot of legwork before people will talk to you. It’s like building a jigsaw puzzle.”

“I can imagine.” offered Nick.

“Well, I quickly discovered that the Stones aren’t at all reluctant to talk about their sex lives. It was a bit like the first prospectors showing up at Sutter’s Mill and finding gold nuggets just lying on the ground. I couldn’t believe nobody else had ever stumbled on this avenue of research before. I would show up. People would introduce me to their sister-wives and their thirds and show me into their homes and talk frankly about what they were doing to protect their children from being taken away by the government. Pretty much everybody I called agreed to talk to me.” Ed assembled his breakfast while he talked. “I think I would have realized eventually that it was too good to be true. But what gave it away was when people started calling me volunteering to be interviewed - people I hadn’t contacted who got my number from someone else. They didn’t want to talk to a reporter about their sex lives. They wanted to talk to me - Nick Coyle’s father.”

Nick nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose I should have seen that coming. A lot of doors have opened for my friends without anyone explicitly saying why they were opening, but it’s obvious proximity to the Trust. Only Max has been actively dropping my name to get things, but they’re all being offered things without any obvious quid pro quo.”

Ed sat back. “How have you been handling it?”

“I haven’t been. I trust most of my friends to know the difference between people approaching them because they’re close to me versus saying, ‘I’m friends with Nick. Have sex with me.’” Nick shook his head. “I don’t really mind them bleeding off some of the money’s influence. There’s more than enough to go around.”

Ed considered him across the table. “And your stepfather?”

“If people know you’re writing a book and talk to you about it, I don’t really see the problem.” said Nick. “Maybe you won’t need to put me in there if enough of them talk to you.”

“They don’t just talk, Nick.” Ed put his coffee cup down. “These are some of the most sexually open and adventurous people in the world and they want to be friends with me because of my connection to you.”

“Oh.” Nick frowned. “Maybe it’s my immaturity speaking, but that seems like a good problem to have.”

“It is as long as you’re okay with it.” Ed said. “I thought I should at least run it by you and hear what you have to say. All kidding aside, I would hate for you to resent me for cashing in on your name for my own purposes. If you have some ... guidelines you’d like me to follow?”

Nick shook his head. “Dad, you taught me everything I know about being a moral person. Whatever feels right and like you’re not exploiting anyone involved, go for it. Any guidelines I could give you would just be me parroting back things you told me in the past.”

Ed considered him for a long time. “So ... you’re not mad about Rosa?”

Nick gave a snort of laughter. “I might be a little bit annoyed. I wanted to have sex with her myself.”

Ed sipped his coffee. “Don’t stop yourself on my account. I’m not arrogant enough to think that was anything other than right place, right time for her. She was ... really wound up last night.”

Nick thought back to his last conversation with Rosangela at the club. “I can see how that might have happened.” He thought back. “How is this all sitting with Connie? I assume you wouldn’t be doing all this behind her back.”

“You assume correctly. Connie has her life. I have mine. When they intersect, we get along really well.” Ed took another sip of his coffee. “Why? Do you want to sleep with her, too?”

This time it was Nick’s turn to take too long to answer. Rather than make things more awkward, he said. “‘Want’ is a funny word here. How old am I going to be before I stop wanting most of the women I meet?”

Ed gave a snort of derisive laughter. “I’ll let you know when it happens to me.”

They ate for a while in companionable silence. Finally, Nick said. “All right. As a personal favor, can you tell me the most deviant thing you’ve done in my name?”

Ed raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you want to know? I was afraid if I tried to talk about any of this, you were going to stick your fingers in your ears and sing la-la-la until I shut up.”

“I really don’t want to know.” admitted Nick. “But I do need to talk to somebody about my own life and it would be easier to talk to you about it if you would voluntarily cede the moral high ground before I started talking.”

“More than I already did by letting you catch me with Rosa?” Ed asked.

“If you’ve got anything, yeah - and you didn’t let me do anything.” Nick reminded him. “You just didn’t think there was any chance I would show up that early in the morning.”

“She told me you didn’t get in until after three this morning.” acknowledged Ed. “Ok. Most deviant thing?” He tapped his teeth with a fingernail. “There’s a commune in the Black Forest - out of the way, quiet little town, looks very Hansel and Gretel. They invited me to come meet them. I stayed with this couple about my own age. That night, the wife came to my room to offer me hospitality.”

“You took it, I assume.” Nick said. “It’s not much of a story if you didn’t.”

“I did, but that’s not the story. The next day, I met their son and his to-kill-for Aryan wet dream of a wife. I contrived a way to stay with them the next night.” Ed picked up his fresh-squeezed orange juice. “Hedy was just as hospitable as her mother-in-law.”

Nick waited to make sure Ed wasn’t kidding. When he was sure, he said. “Friday night, I slept with Arwen and Lev slept with Pilar.”

Ed sat back and considered his son. “Was this a one-time thing or are you planning to keep doing it?”

“We’ve talked about doing it again, but we’re taking it slow right now. When we were talking about things, Lev got very ... unsettled about something in his past. None of us want to add to that right now.” said Nick.

“That seems ... wise.” offered Ed. “I’ve talked to a few swingers in the last couple of weeks. It seems to amplify people’s feelings about their marriage. If things are going well, it makes them extra happy. If things are going poorly, swinging can exacerbate that.”

“I don’t think what we’re doing is exactly swinging or swapping.” Nick said carefully. “Have you talked to anyone who’s doing this sort of thing long-term - two couples who share a more permanent bond between them?”

Ed nodded. “I have, but I’m not sure how much you could learn from their situation. Yours isn’t really that, though. And you might be getting a little ahead of yourself. You’ve only tried this new arrangement once and everything about it is new. Lev and Arwen have only been really together since June and you weren’t even seeing Pilar a month ago. Plus, you have Kiki. How does she fit into all this?”

“Enthusiastically, actually.” Nick sat back. Carefully, he added. “But she’s not the only difference. Lev and Arwen have somebody else that they’re seeing and I have ... other complications to consider.”

Ed raised an eyebrow. “How many other complications?”

“That’s a tricky question.” Nick rubbed his eyes. “Three? Maybe four ... definitely at least one. I’ve been sleeping with my lawyer.”

“Ainsley Davenport?” Ed shook his head. “I get it. I bet she’s a wildcat. But I hope you’re not trusting her on anything important. She’s just as much a lawyer as any of those old gray heads who tried to awe you into letting them run your trust the way they wanted to.”

“Probably even more than that.” Nick admitted. “I’ve brought her in as my in-house counsel and to build my internal legal department. We’re taking the trust away from Black and Stringer.”

“I like that last part.” Ed acknowledged. “But I still wouldn’t trust her if I were you.”

“I’m trying out the concept of trusting Ainsley to be Ainsley the way I trust Simon to be Simon.” said Nick. “She’s pathologically ambitious. As long as being on my good side is in her best interest, she’ll do whatever it takes to stay there. I believe our interests are aligned at least for now. And we’re about to make an object lesson of her old boss, Arthur Black. Ainsley knows I’ll do the same to her if she ever fucks me over.”

After he said that, Nick ran his hand through his hair. “Christ, I sound like a mafia boss. Don’t I?”

“You sound like a young man who has something worth defending and you’re defending it.” Ed said firmly. “Nobody’s so big that lawyers can’t carve him up and bleed him dry if he lays still and takes it. You’ve got better things to do with that money than give it to bloodsuckers. How’s the charity work coming?”

“Slowly. We gave out eight and a half million dollars to about forty organizations, but it’s still very haphazard. I don’t think we made any major mistakes, but we’ve mostly focused on low-hanging fruit and making friends in New York City.” said Nick. “Part of why we’re going after Art Black is that he sent the cops to raid the Loft while I was in Montana to try to show me why I need a big, powerful law firm in my corner. All he really showed me is that I need the police to at least know where I live. We sprinkled a hundred thousand or so on the PBA and widows and orphans and I’ve committed to about a million more over time.”

“Sounds like a shakedown.” grumbled Ed.

“Maybe. It was a bullshit charge that wasn’t going to stick, but if Jesse hadn’t shown up when he did, my friends would have spent the night in jail.” Nick said. “I know I’m becoming part of the problem by paying the cops to like me, but every other solution is much more expensive and has the power to kneecap me in everything I want to do. Plus, I’m genuinely happy to help families who’ve lost someone in the line of duty.”

Ed nodded slowly. “It sounds like you’re making the best choice you can under the circumstances. If you have some influence with the police, you might be able to use that in the future. You just ... don’t want to get into a position where you feel like you have to defend the cops no matter what they do. We give police enormous powers in America and sometimes they misuse that power. You should probably experiment with taking a position they’re not going to like right around the next time you write them a big check. If they think you’re a solid supporter, it’ll be harder for you to take up the cause of the next black kid who gets shot in the back without a massive backlash.”

“That’s ... rather Machiavellian.” Nick suggested.

“It’s New York City politics, which I covered for years remember. Whatever else the police do, they have strong structural institutions for protecting themselves and a long history of circling the wagons.” said Ed. “Unfortunately, you can’t be as wealthy as you are and not play politics. Politicians are just lawyers with flag pins on their lapels and armed enforcement. The best thing you can do is be useful to them without clearly taking sides. Has anyone approached you about the presidential election yet?”

“If they have, I haven’t heard about it. I have someone who answers all fundraising calls and records the crucial details in a spreadsheet for me, but I haven’t opened that spreadsheet directly yet. Right now, Sveta - the woman who answers the calls - is also curating them for us to consider a few at each meeting.”

“You do realize this Sveta has an enormous amount of power then?” Ed asked.

Nick nodded. “The curation is temporary. Once we get two more people on the board, we’ll make sure that every call gets reviewed by at least one of us. I need to start a search for candidates once we get back from Milan.”

“Who’s on the board now?” Ed asked.

“Me, Emily, and what everyone is calling my inner circle - Max, the twins, Lev, and Arwen.” said Nick. “I want to add at least two more members this year and probably two more next year. I have no idea who they should be except that they shouldn’t be too much like who we already have - older, not male, not white, probably not American.”

“Maybe somebody with experience in charitable giving?” Ed suggested. “Have you considered a Blackstone?”

“I don’t know. Is that one word or two?” Nick asked.

“Both, actually. There’s a faction within the Stone family, mostly descended from the patriarch through his mistress Athena Washington. They got a pretty raw deal from the rest of the family for about a hundred years after he died. Things started to get better in the sixties, but there’s still a lot of bad blood out there.” Ed shook his head. “I only learned about them tangentially to my research into Colin in the nineties and I met a couple in Paris. You should probably research them before you take anything I just said as gospel.”