“Don’t be a hard ass,” he told me now in a teasing manner. “Let them have it already, Harley. And then get yourself out here! Let the expensive lawyers you’ve hired take care of the nitty-gritty. The weather’s perfect and Logan has quite the barbecue spread laid out.”

“Since when did you become munificent, Matt?” I bantered with him. “When I started with you, you were such a hard-driving, tough negotiator….?

“Well, ever since I realized that you were the toughest, hard-as-nails, take-no-prisoners negotiator/adviser I had ever met, of course,” he answered.

“Am I really that bad?” I asked, half-seriously.

“No, no, no, of course not, Harley,” he answered quickly. “I really appreciate that you brought in this different spirit into my team, changing the cut-throat debating style we used to practice in my front office to something else, something much more collaborative. And more profitable, I might add.”

He paused. “What did you say again? Not the French-style debatre or latin battuere which you said both meant to beat down or destroy …”

“Dialog. Dia plus logos, in latin. Roughly, the term refers to flow of meaning,” I explained again.

“Love that … flow of meaning … gotta tell Logan. He’ll flip,” he answered with a laugh. “He thinks I’ve become so zen as it is, and now wants to know my secret.”

“Should I tell him?” I asked in a teasing voice of my own. “Your secret, that is?”

“You will not, of course!” he responded. “I’m keeping you my secret as long as I can.”

I saw the senior partner of the law firm we were negotiating with signal to me that we were ready to resume.

“Gotta go, munificent one,” I said.

“Crack some nuts, if you must,” he answered. “But remember that the chopper will be waiting for you up on the roof of the building I told you about, ok? And, Harley, let the lawyers ”debatre” each other over the finer details, alright?”

I sighed. “I’ll think about it. But if it gets to be too late, maybe I should just….” I started to ask.

“Get here anyway, Harley,” he said firmly.

By the time I was done with the negotiations and left the lawyers to work the details out, and then got to the Hamptons area by helicopter, it was past 9 in the evening. I called Matt from Logan’s car that had fetched me from the helipad area, and he said they’d just finished with dinner and were moving to the campfire that had been prepared in the beach. Matt insisted, again, that I come over, despite the hour, after I checked into the hotel.