"Me neither, eight months ago," he said. "Now, look. Lady Macbeth."
"But Marty," I said, reaching for his finger again, "you haven't answered my question. About whether it's true."
"Oh that!" he said with a laugh, switching his hand to the other side. "Ask me something else."
"Okay," I said, "why am I bugged on the number eight? Because I'm permanently behind a private 8-ball?"
"Eight's a number with many properties," he said, suddenly as intently serious as he usually is. "The corners of a cube."
"You mean I'm a square?" I said. "Or just a brick? You know, 'She's a brick.'"
"But eight's most curious property," he continued with a frown, "is that lying on its side it signifies infinity. So eight erect is really—" and suddenly his made-up, naturally solemn face got a great glow of inspiration and devotion—"Infinity Arisen!"
Well, I don't know. You meet quite a few people in the theater who are bats on numerology, they use it to pick stage-names. But I'd never have guessed it of Martin. He always struck me as the skeptical, cynical type.
"I had another idea about eight," I said hesitatingly. "Spiders. That 8-legged asterisk on Miss Nefer's forehead—" I suppressed a shudder.
"You don't like her, do you?" he stated.