He heard her voice before he saw her, behind him. But she wasn't talking to him.
"Hello, Milty," she said. "How's everything?"
Malone turned around to get a look at Milty. He turned out to be the maître d'. What did he have that Malone didn't have? the agent asked himself sourly. Obviously Dorothy was captivated by his charm. Well, that showed him what city girls were like. Butterflies. Social butterflies. Flitting hither and yon with the wind, now attracted to this man, now to that. Once, Malone told himself sadly, he had known this beautiful woman. Now she belonged to someone else.
He felt a little bit sad about it, but he told himself to buck up and learn to live with his tragedy. He drank some more of his bourbon and soda, and then she noticed him.
He heard her say: "Oh. Excuse me, Milty. There's my man." She came over and sat down next to him.
He wanted to ignore her, just to teach her a lesson. But he had already turned around and smiled at her, and she smiled back.
"Hi," she said. "Did you get the tickets?"
Tickets!
Malone knew there had been something he'd forgotten, and now he knew what it was. "Oh," he said. "Sure. Just a second. I've got to check up."
"Check up?"