Summary

Russell has a smoke with Chessie Steyl, a famous actress with whom he has a casual acquaintance, outside a premiere party for her latest movie. He compliments her performance and she asks him what she should read next. He recommends Jack Carson’s book, and invites her to the launch party the following week.

Back inside, Russell runs into Steve Sanders, the cultural reporter for the New York Times who brought the journalist who gave Youth and Beauty a bad review to the Labor Day party. Sanders tells Russell he has tried calling him and Kohout several times about one of his sources saying Kohout was never really kidnapped in Pakistan and that his whole story is a lie.

Sanders asks Russell about what kind of vetting he did for Kohout’s story and Russell counters with The New Yorker story that is...