Suddenly, he caught glimpse of the most peculiar person holding up a sign that had Pierre on it, spelt incorrectly.
Pierre said,"If I wanted a pier you would have been pushed off of it" while cav said to himself "I thought all American was slang."
Avoiding the mystery person, Pierre and Cav went to get some flapjacks.
Cav said to to Pierre, "Good thing these are flapjacks and not catflaps", and they laughed and high-fived each other.
the cafe of which was still open at midnight...
In the café, Ossobuco was sat with a man in black, presumably doing business; Cav tried to overhear what they were saying.
Cav couldn't quite make out if the man in black was selling art, or if his name was Art, and had something more sinister in mind.
Osso did not look impressed with the man, but continued to listen to him.
As was her style, she smiled enigmatically, listening to Art, the columnist, seduce her with conjecture. while she thought about deployment and allocations.
'Say,' said Art to Osso, 'I could get you a show at the White Cube if you'd like--' he trailed off, telling Osso about the particulars of the deal, often saying one thing one minute and another the next, blaming this on a mild psychological problem.
I have a villa in Italy said Art, please come and stay with me Osso.
Osso started questioning Art about what he knew of her Art.
come to Italy with me Osso and make beautiful art with me said Art seductively, evading the question.
'But, you're a critic,' Osso said; 'critics know the price of everything and the value of nothing.'
Osso delayed her chat with Art because she had a function to attend that evening, but while she rushed about cutting yet more cheese cubes and breaking bunches of grapes into smaller segments, and buying ice cubes, she considered the implications of accepting a first class flight ticket to her favorite place.. from, gasp, a critic.
She remembered the last time she had been to Italy; she had met a twenty-one-year-old rakishly handsome Italian artist, and the week she had spent with him, mostly rolling around together in bed, or frolicking bare-bottomed on the beaches of Capri, had been some of her most treasured memories.
Thinking, thinking, if I get Art to get me a ticket to Rome and things don't go well, I can always slip over to Capri and look up Giancarlo again.
In the midst of this pondering, someone else was knocking on Osso's door, with an inescapable urgency in their hammering it.
