“Yehudi.”
I closed my eyes and counted to five, by ones. I wasn’t going to ask, “ Who ’ s Yehudi? ”
I shoved aside a pile of papers on the bed—I’d been going through some old clunker manuscripts seeing if I could find something good enough to rewrite from a new angle—and sat down.
“O.K.,” I said. “Tell him to being me a drink.”
“What kind?”
I looked at Charlie, and he didn’t look like he was kidding. He had to be, of course, but—
“Gin buck,” I told him. “A gin buck, with gin in it, if Yehudi knows what I mean.”
“Hold out your hand,” Charles said.
I held out my hand. Charlie, not talking to me, said, “Bring Hank a gin buck, strong.” And then he nodded his head.
Something happened either to Charlie or to my eyes, I didn’t know which. For just a second, he got sort of misty. And then he looked normal again.