Benton charges into his building and a nervous doorman warns him that Brooke is upstairs. "Is she wearing a mask and carrying a gunny sack?" Wallace asks, looking like he dreads the encounter. Hector the Doorman simply says she scares him, and Wallace would agree if he wasn't yawning in total tedium.

Brooke tromps down the bi-level apartment's stairs, holding a shower caddy she claims to deserve because she paid for it and needs it more. With one look at Benton, it's obvious that theory is fallacy and that Benton desperately needs any instrument that abets hygiene. Brooke's merciless, so she takes it. "Darling, I know downsizing is a bitch, but -- I'm just so sorry, I can't give you the apartment," Benton coos as he helps himself to a tumbler of whiskey. Brooke snarks that she knows the place has been in his family since his grandmother screwed a rich man. "God bless her," Wallace signs. "Horny old coot." He buzzes up Beth Khambu, one of his students, as Brooke steals a statue and tucks it in a purse already overloaded with candlesticks and other sundries. Brooke mentions an American Civil Liberties Union fundraiser she's attending, suggesting Wallace might like to go as he works the Death Row story. "Oh yeah, maybe I could take my notebook and take some notes and stuff," brats Wallace. My reporter's notebook instantly combusts in my purse. The couple quibbles over who Brooke's date will be and then Beth lets herself in, which causes Brooke to arch an eyebrow. "Ah, the new protégé," Brooke says, very saccharine. Wallace gets rid of her, and she kisses him on the lips, then smacks him on his cheek four times and walks out with a sneering smile. Beth is wowed. "Tell me about it," Wallace leers drunkenly, giving Brooke's departing behind a lecherous stare. He drools as though her buttocks were dipped in chocolate and served a la mode. Beth snaps him out of his hormonal reverie by saying that everything's been arranged per his orders. They leave.