“Listen, I just thought you’d want to know. Joanie just barged in.”
“What?” said the gray-haired man, and bridged his left hand over his eyes, though the light was behind him.
“Yeah. She just barged in. About ten seconds after I spoke to you. I just thought I’d give you a ring while she’s in the john. Listen, thanks a million, Lee. I mean it—you know what I mean. You weren’t asleep, were ya?”
“No, no. I was just—No, no,” the gray-haired man said, leaving his fingers bridged over his eyes. He cleared his throat.
“Yeah. What happened was, apparently Leona got stinking and then had a goddam crying jag, and Bob wanted Joanie to go out and grab a drink with them somewhere and iron the thing out. I don’t know. You know. Very involved. Anyway, so she’s home. What a rat race. Honest to God, I think it’s this goddam New York. What I think maybe we’ll do, if everything goes along all right, we’ll get ourselves a little place in Connecticut maybe. Not too far out, necessarily, but far enough that we can lead a normal goddam life. I mean she’s crazy about plants and all that stuff. She’d probably go mad if she had her own goddam garden and stuff. Know what I mean? I mean—except you—who do we know in New York except a bunch of neurotics? It’s bound to undermine even a normal person sooner or later. Know what I mean?”
The gray-haired man didn’t give an answer. His eyes, behind the bridge of his hand, were closed. “Anyway, I’m gonna talk to her about it tonight. Or tomorrow, maybe. She’s still a little under the weather. I mean she’s a helluva good kid basically, and if we have a chance to straighten ourselves out a little bit, we’d be goddam stupid not to at least have a go at it. While I’m at it, I’m also gonna try to straighten out this lousy bedbug mess, too. I’ve been thinking. I was just wondering, Lee. You think if I went in and talked to Junior personally, I could—”
“Arthur, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate—”
“I mean I don’t want you to think I just called you back or anything because I’m worried about my goddam job or anything. I’m not. I mean basically, for Chrissake, I couldn’t care less. I just thought if I could straighten Junior out without beating my brains out, I’d be a goddam fool—”
“Listen, Arthur,” the gray-haired man interrupted, taking his hand away from his face, “I have a helluva headache all of a sudden. I don’t know where I got the bloody thing from. You mind if we cut this short? I’ll talk to you in the morning—all right?” He listened for another moment, then hung up.
Again the girl immediately spoke to him, but he didn’t answer her. He picked a burning cigarette—the girl’s—out of the ashtray and started to bring it to his mouth, but it slipped out of his fingers. The girl tried to help him retrieve it before anything was burned, but he told her to just sit still, for Chrissake, and she pulled back her hand.