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Chapter 6 2 страница
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It was a relief to have him there. I sat up and drank my tea and watched him take offhis shoes and socks. Then he put them by the radiator to dry. His feet were long and thin, too long for his slim, bony ankles; he flexed his toes, looked up at me. 'It's an awful night, ' he said. 'Have you been outside? '
I told him a little about my night, omitting the part about the girl.
'Gosh, ' he said, reaching up to loosen his collar. 'I've just been sitting in my apartment. Giving myself the creeps. '
'Heard from anyone? '
'No. My mother called around nine; I couldn't talk to her.
Told her I was writing a paper. '
For some reason my eyes strayed to his hands, fidgeting unconsciously on the top of my desk. He saw that I saw, forced them down, palms flat. 'Nerves, ' he said.
We sat for a while without saying anything. I put my teacup on the windowsill and leaned back. The Demerol had set off some kind of weird Doppler effect in my head, like the whine of car tires speeding past and receding in the distance. I was staring I across the room in a daze – how long, I don't know – when gradually I became aware that Francis was looking at me with an intent, fixed expression on his face. I mumbled something and got up and went to the bureau to get an Alka-Seltzer.
The sudden movement made me feel light-headed. I was standing there dully, wondering where I'd put the box, when all of a sudden I became aware that Francis was immediately behind me, and I turned around.
His face was very close to mine. To my surprise he put his hands on my shoulders and leaned forward and kissed me, right on the mouth.
It was a real kiss – long, slow, deliberate. He'd caught me off balance and I grabbed his arm to keep from falling; sharply, he drew in his breath and his hands went down to my back and before I knew it, more from reflex than anything else, I was kissing him, too. His tongue was sharp. His mouth had a bitter, mannish taste, like tea and cigarettes.
He pulled away, breathing hard, and leaned to kiss my throat.
I looked rather wildly around the room. God, I thought, what a night.
'Look, Francis, ' I said, 'cut it out. '
He was undoing the top button of my collar. 'You idiot, ' he said, chuckling. 'Did you know your shirt's on inside-out? '
I was so tired and drunk I started to laugh. 'Come on, Francis, '
I said. 'Give me a break. '
'It's fun, ' he said. 'I promise you. '
Matters progressed. My jaded nerves began to stir. His eyes were magnified and wicked behind his pince-nez. Presently he took them off and dropped them on my bureau with an absent clatter.
Then, quite unexpectedly, there was another knock at the door. We sprang apart. His eyes were wide. We stared at each other, and then the knock came again.
Francis swore under his breath, bit his lip. I, panic-stricken, gi) ^=«rc«t _. -. ^ziitiiji, uut fig made a quick, shushing gesture at me I with his hand.
'But what if it's -? ' I whispered. -*
I had been about to say 'What if it's Henry? ' But what I was actually thinking was 'What if it's the cops? ' Francis, I knew, was thinking the same thing.
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More knocking, more insistent this time.
My heart was pounding. Bewildered with fear, I crossed to my bed and sat down.
Francis ran a hand through his hair. 'Come in, ' he called.
I was so upset that it took me a moment to realize it was only Charles. He was leaning with one elbow against the door frame, his red scarf slung into great careless loops around his neck. When he stepped in my room I saw immediately that he was drunk. 'Hi, ' he said to Francis. 'What the hell are you doing here? '
'You scared us to death. '
'I wish I'd known you were coming. Henry called and got me out of bed. '
The two of us looked at him, waiting for him to explain. He jostled off his coat and turned to me with a watery, intense gaze.
'You were in my dream, ' he said.
'What? '
He blinked at me. 'I just remembered, ' he said. 'I had a dream tonight. You were in it. '
I stared at him. Before I had a chance to tell him he was in my dream, too, Francis said impatiently: 'Come on, Charles. What's the matter? '
Charles ran a hand through his windblown hair. 'Nothing, ' he said. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sheaf of papers folded lengthwise. 'Did you do your Greek for today? ' he asked me.
I rolled my eyes. Greek had been about the last thing on my mind.
: Hemy thought you might have forgot. He called and asked me to bring mine for you to copy, just in case. '
He was very drunk. He wasn't slurring his words, but he smelled of whiskey and he was extremely unsteady on his feet.
His face was flushed and radiant as an angel's.
'You talked to Henry? Has he heard anything? '
'He's very annoyed about this weather. Nothing's turned up that he knows of. Gosh, it's hot in here, ' he said, shouldering off his jacket.
Francis, sitting in his chair by the window with an ankle balanced upon the opposite kneecap and his teacup balanced on his bare ankle, was looking at Charles rather narrowly.
Charles turned, reeling slightly. 'What are you looking at? ' he said.
'Do you have a bottle in your pocket? '
'No. '
'Nonsense, Charles, I can hear it sloshing. '
'What difference does it make? '
'I want a drink. '
'Oh, all right, ' said Charles, irritated. He reached into the inside pocket of the jacket and brought out a flat pint bottle.
'Here, ' he said. 'Don't be a pig. '
Francis drank the rest of his tea and reached for the bottle.
Thanks, ' he said, pouring the remaining inch or so into his teacup. I looked at him – dark suit, sitting very straight with his legs now crossed at the knee. He was the picture of respectability except that his feet were bare. All of a sudden I found myself able to see him as the world saw him, as I myself had seen him when I first met him – cool, well-mannered, rich, absolutely beyond reproach. It was such a convincing illusion that even I, who knew the essential falseness of it, felt oddly comforted.
He drank the whiskey down in a swallow. 'We need to sober you up, Charles, ' he said. 'We've got class in a couple of hours. '
Charles sighed and sat on the foot of my bed. He looked very 32. 7 3I – -astii HOE in dark circles, or pauui, BMl a dreamy and bright-cheeked sadness. 'I know, ' he said. 'I hoped the walk might do the trick. ' _
'You need some coffee. ' ™ He wiped his damp forehead with the heel of his hand. 'I need | more than coffee, ' he said.
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I smoothed out the papers and went over to my desk and began to copy out my Greek.
Francis sat down on the bed next to Charles. 'Where's Camilla? '
'Asleep. '
'What'd you two do tonight? Get drunk? '
'No, ' said Charles tersely. 'Cleaned house. '
'No. Really. '
'I'm not kidding. '
I was still so dopey that I couldn't make any sense of the passage I was copying, only a sentence here and there. Being weary from the march, the soldiers stopped to offer sacrifices at the temple. I came back from that country and said that I had seen the Gorgon, but it did not make me a stone.
'Our house is full of tulips, if you want any, ' said Charles inexplicably.
'What do you mean? '
'I mean, before the snow got too deep, we went outside and brought them in. Everything's full of them. The water glasses, even. '
Tulips, I thought, staring at the jumble of letters before me.
Had the ancient Greeks known them under a different name, if they'd had tulips at all? The letter psi, in Greek, is shaped like a tulip. All of a sudden, in the dense alphabet forest of the page, little black tulips began to pop up in a quick, random pattern like falling raindrops.
My vision swam. I closed my eyes. I sat there for a long time, half-dozing, until I became aware that Charles was saying my name.
I turned in my chair. They were leaving. Francis was sirring on the side of my bed, lacing his shoes.
'Where are you going? ' I said.
'Home to dress. It's getting late. '
I didn't want to be alone – quite the contrary – but I felt, unaccountably, a strong desire to be rid of them both. The sun was up. Francis reached over and turned off the lamp. The morning light was sober and pale and made my room seem horribly quiet.
'We'll see you in a little while, ' he said, and then I heard their footsteps dying on the stair. Everything was faded and silent in the dawn – dirty teacups, unmade bed, snowflakes floating past the window with an airy, dangerous calm. My ears rang. When I turned back to my work, with trembling, ink-stained hands, the scratch of my pen on the paper rasped loud in the stillness. I thought of Bunny's dark room and of the ravine, miles away; of all those layers of silence on silence.
'And where is Edmund this morning? ' said Julian as we opened our grammars.
'At home, I suppose, ' said Henry. He'd come in late and we hadn't had a chance to talk. He seemed calm, well rested, more than he had any right to be.
The others were surprisingly calm as well. Even Francis and Charles were well dressed, freshly shaven, very much their unconcerned old selves. Camilla sat between them, with her elbow propped negligently on the table and her chin in her hand, tranquil as an orchid.
Julian arched an eyebrow at Henry. 'Is he ill? '
'I don't know. '
'This weather may have slowed him a bit. Perhaps we should wait a few minutes. '
'I think that's a good idea, ' said Henry, going back to his book.
After class, once we were away from the Lyceum and near the birch grove, Henry glanced around to make sure that no one was within earshot; we all leaned close to hear what he was going to say but at just that moment, as we were standing in a huddle and our breath was coming out in clouds, I heard someone call my name and there, at a great distance, was Dr Roland, tottering through the snow like a lurching corpse.
I disengaged myself and went to meet him. He was breathing hard and, with a good deal of coughing and hawing, he began to tell me about something he wanted me to have a look at in his office.
There was nothing I could do but go with him, adjusting my pace to his leaden shuffle. Once inside, he paused several times on the stair to remark upon scraps of debris that the janitor had missed, feebly kicking at them with his foot. He kept me for half an hour. When I finally escaped, with my ears ringing and an armful of loose papers struggling to fly away in the wind, the birch grove was empty.
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I don't know what I'd expected, but the world certainly hadn't been kicked out of its orbit overnight. People were hurrying to and fro, on their way to class, everything business as usual. The sky was gray and an icy wind was blowing off Mount Cataract.
I bought a milk shake at the snack bar and then went home. I was walking down the hall to my suite when I ran headlong into Judy Poovey.
She glared at me. She looked like she had an evil hangover and there were black circles under her eyes.
'Oh, hello, ' I said, edging past. 'Sorry. '
'Hey, ' she said.
I turned around.
'So you went home with Mona Beale last night? '
For a second I didn't know what she meant. 'What? '
'How was it? ' she said bitchily. 'Was she good? '
Taken aback, I shrugged and started down the hall.
To my annoyance she followed and caught me by the arm.
'She's got a boyfriend, do you know that? You better hope nobody tells him. '
'I don't care. '
'Last term he beat up Bram Guernsey because he thought Bram was hitting on her. '
'She was the one who was hitting on me. '
She gave me a catty, sideways look. 'Well, I mean, she's kind of a slut. '
Just before I woke up, I had a terrible dream.
I was in a large, old-fashioned bathroom, like something from a Zsa Zsa Gabor movie, with gold fixtures and mirrors and pink tiles on the walls and floor. A bowl of goldfish stood on a spindly pedestal in the corner. I went over to look at them, my footsteps echoing on the tile, and then I became aware of a measured plink plink plink, coming from the faucet of the tub.
The tub was pink, too, and it was full of water, and Bunny, fully clad, was lying motionless at the bottom of it. His eyes were open and his glasses were askew and his pupils were different sizes – one large and black, the other scarcely a pinpoint. The water was clear, and very still. The tip of his necktie undulated near the surface.
Plink, plink, plink. I couldn't move. Then, suddenly, I heard footsteps approaching, and voices. With a rush of terror I realized I had to hide the body somehow, where I didn't know; I plunged my hands into the icy water and grasped him beneath the arms and tried to pull him out, but it was no good, no good; his head lolled back uselessly and his open mouth was filling with water…
Struggling against his weight, reeling backward, I knocked the fishbowl from its pedestal and it crashed to the floor. Goldfish flopping all around my feet, amidst the shards of broken glass.
Someone banged on the door. In my terror I let go of the body 33i I and it fell back into the tub with a hideous slap and a spray of water and I woke up.
It was almost dark. There was a horrible, erratic thumping in my chest, as if a large bird were trapped inside my ribcage and beating itself to death. Gasping, I lay back on my bed.
When the worst of it was over I sat up. I was trembling all over and drenched in sweat. Long shadows, nightmare light. I could see some kids playing outside in the snow, silhouetted in black against the dreadful, salmon-colored sky. Their shouts and laughter had, at that distance, an insane quality. I dug the heels of my hands hard into my eyes. Milky spots, pinpoints of light. Oh, God, I thought.
Bare cheek on cold tile. The roar and rush of the toilet was so $ loud I thought it would swallow me. It was like all the times I'd ever been sick, all the drunken throw-ups I'd ever had in the bathrooms of gas stations and bars. Same old bird's-eye view: those odd little knobs at the base of the toilet that you never notice at any other time; sweating porcelain, the hum of pipes, that long burble of water as it spirals down.
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While I was washing my face, I began to cry. The tears mingled easily with the cold water, in the luminous, dripping crimson of my cupped fingers, and at first I wasn't aware that I was crying at all. The sobs were regular and emotionless, as mechanical as the dry heaves which had stopped only a moment earlier; there was no reason for them, they had nothing to do with me. I brought my head up and looked at my weeping reflection in the mirror with a kind of detached interest. What does this mean? I thought. I looked terrible. Nobody else was falling apart; yet here I was, shaking all over and seeing bats like Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend.
A cold draft was blowing in the window. I felt shaky but oddly refreshed. I ran myself a hot bath, throwing in a good handful of Judy's bath salts, and when I got out and put on my clothes I felt quite myself again.
Nihil sub sole novum, I thought as I walked back down the hail to my room. Any action, in the fullness of time, sinks to nothingness.
They were all there when I arrived at the twins' for dinner that night, gathered around the radio and listening to the weather forecast as if to some wartime bulletin from the front. 'For the long-range outlook, ' said an announcer's spry voice, 'expect cool weather on Thursday, with cloudy skies and a possibility of showers, leading into warmer weather for the '
Henry snapped off the radio. 'If we're lucky, ' he said, 'the snow will be gone tomorrow night. Where were you this afternoon, Richard? '
'At home. '
'I'm glad you're here. I want you to do a little favor for me, if you don't mind. '
'What is it? '
'I want to drive you downtown after dinner so you can see those movies at the Orpheum and tell us what they're about. Do you mind? '
'No. '
'I know this is an imposition on a school night, but I really don't think it's wise for any of the rest of us to go back again.
Charles has offered to copy out your Greek for you if you like. '
'If I do it on that yellow paper you use, ' said Charles, 'with your fountain pen, he'll never know the difference. '
'Thanks, ' I said. Charles had a rather startling talent for forgery which, according to Camilla, dated from early childhood – expert report-card signatures by the fourth grade, entire excuse notes by the sixth. I was always getting him to sign Dr Roland's name to my time sheets.
'Really, ' said Henry, 'I hate to ask you to do this. I think they're dreadful movies. '
They were pretty bad. The first was a road movie from the early seventies, about a man who leaves his wife to drive cross-country. On the way he gets sidetracked into Canada and becomes involved with a bunch of draft dodgers; at the end he goes back to his wife and they renew their vows in a hippie ceremony. The worst thing was the soundtrack. All these acoustic guitar songs with the word 'freedom' in them.
The second film was more recent. It was about the Vietnam War and was called Fields of Shame – a big-budget movie with a lot of stars. The special effects were a bit realistic for my taste, though. People getting their legs blown off and so forth.
When I got out, Henry's car was parked down the street with the lights off. Upstairs at Charles and Camilla's, everyone was sitting around the kitchen table with their sleeves rolled up, deep in Greek.
When we came in they began to stir, and Charles got up and made a pot of coffee while I read my notes. Both movies were rather plotless and I had a hard time communicating the gist of them.
'But these are terrible, ' said Francis. 'I'm embarrassed that people will think we went to see such bad movies. '
'But wait, ' said Camilla.
'I don't get it, either, ' Charles said. 'Why did the sergeant bomb the village where the good people lived? '
'Yes, ' Camilla said. 'Why? And who was that kid with the puppy who just wandered up in the middle of it? How did he know Charlie Sheen? '
Charles had done a beautiful job on my Greek, and I was looking it over before class the next day when Julian came in. He paused in the doorway, looked at the empty chair and laughed. 'Goodness, ' he said. 'Not again. '
'Looks like it, ' said Francis.
'I must say, I hope our classes haven't become as tedious as all that. Please tell Edmund that, should he choose to attend tomorrow, I shall make an effort to be especially engaging. '
By noon it was apparent that the weather forecast was in error.
The temperature had dropped ten degrees, and more snow fell in the afternoon.
The five of us were to go out to dinner that night, and when the twins and I showed up at Henry's apartment, we found him looking especially glum. 'Guess who just phoned me, ' he said.
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'Who? '
'Marion. '
Charles sat down. 'What did she want? '
'She wanted to know if I'd seen Bunny. '
'What'd you say? '
'Well, of course I said I hadn't, ' Henry said irritably. 'They were supposed to meet on Sunday night and she hasn't seen him since Saturday. '
'Is she worried? '
'Not particularly. '
Then what's the problem? '
'Nothing. ' He sighed. 'I just hope the weather breaks tomorrow. '
But it didn't. Wednesday dawned bright and cold and two more inches of snow had accumulated in the night.
'Of course, ' said Julian, 'I don't mind if Edmund misses a class now and then. But three in a row. And you know what a hard time he has catching up. '
'We can't go on like this much longer, ' said Henry at the twins' apartment that night, as we were smoking cigarettes over uneaten plates of bacon and eggs.
'What can we do? '
'I don't know. Except he's been missing now for seventy-two hours, and it'll start to look funny if we don't act worried pretty soon. '
'No one else is worried, ' said Charles. 5 'No one else sees as much of him as we do. I wonder if Marion's home, ' he said, glancing at the clock.
'Why? '
'Because maybe I should give her a call. '
'For God's sake, ' said Francis. 'Don't drag her into it. '
'I have no intention of dragging her into anything. I just want to make it plain to her that none of us have seen Bunny for three days. '
'And what do you expect her to do about it? '
'I hope she'll call the police. '
'Have you lost your mind? '
'Well, if she doesn't, we're going to have to, ' said Henry impatiently. The longer he's gone, the worse it will look. I don't want a big ruckus, people asking questions. '
Then why call the police? '
'Because if we go to them soon enough, I doubt there'll be any ruckus at all. Perhaps they'll send one or two people out here to poke around, thinking it's probably a false alarm '
'If no one's found him yet, ' I said, 'I don't see what makes you think that a couple of traffic cops from Hampden will do any better. '
'No one's found him because no one's looking. He's not half a mile away. '
It took whoever answered a long time to bring Marion to the telephone. Henry stood patiently, gazing down at the floor; gradually his eyes began to wander, and after about five minutes he made an exasperated noise and looked up. 'My goodness, ' he said. 'What's taking them so long? Let me have a cigarette, would you, Francis? '
He had it in his mouth and Francis was lighting it for him when Marion came on the line. 'Oh, hello, Marion, ' he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke and turning his back to us. 'I'm glad I caught you. Is Bunny there? '
A slight pause. 'Well, ' said Henry, reaching for the ashtray, 'do you know where he is, then? '
'Well, frankly, ' he said at last, 'I was going to ask you the same thing. He hasn't been in class for two or three days. '
Another long silence. Henry listened, his face pleasantly blank.
Then, all of a sudden, his eyes widened. 'What? ' he said, a little too sharply.
All of us were jarred awake. Henry wasn't looking at any of us but at the wall above our heads, his blue eyes round and glassy.
'I see, ' he said finally.
More talk on the other end.
'Well, if he happens to stop by, I'd appreciate it if you would ask him to call me. Let me give you my number. '
When he hung up he had a strange look on his face. We all stared at him.
'Henry? ' said Camilla. 'What is it? '
'She's angry. Not worried a bit. Expecting him to walk in the door any moment. I don't know, ' he said, staring at the floor.
'This is very peculiar, but she said that a friend of hers – a girl named Rika Thalheim – saw Bunny standing around outside the First Vermont Bank this afternoon. '
We were too stunned to say anything. Francis laughed, a short, incredulous laugh.
'My God, ' said Charles. 'That's impossible. '
'It certainly is, ' Henry said dryly.
'Why would somebody just make that up? '
'I can't imagine. People think they see all kinds of things, I suppose. Well, of course, she didn't see him, ' he added testily to Charles, who looked rather troubled. 'But I don't know what we should do now. '
'What do you mean? '
'Well, we can't very well call and report him missing when somebody saw him six hours ago. '
'So what are we going to do? Wait? '
'No, said Henry, biting his lower lip. 111 have to think of something else. '
'Where on earth is Edmund? ' said Julian on Thursday morning.
'I don't know how long he plans on being absent, but it is very thoughtless of him not to have got in touch with me. '
No one answered him. He looked up from his book, amused at our silence.
'What's wrong? ' he said teasingly. 'All these shameful faces.
Perhaps, ' he said more coolly, 'some of you are ashamed at how insufficiently you were prepared for yesterday's lesson. '
I saw Charles and Camilla exchange a look. For some reason, this week of all weeks, Julian had loaded us down with work.
We'd all managed, somehow or other, to bring in the written assignments; but no one had kept up with the reading, and in class the day before there had been several excruciating silences which not even Henry had been able to break.
Julian glanced down at his book. 'Perhaps, before we begin, ' he said, 'one of you should go call Edmund on the telephone and ask him to join us if he's at all able. I don't mind if he hasn't read his lesson, but this is an important class and he ought not to miss it. '
Henry stood up. But then Camilla said, quite unexpectedly, 'I don't think he's at home. '
Then where is he? Out of town? '
I'm not sure. '
Julian lowered his reading glasses and looked at her over the tops of them. 'What do you mean? '
'We haven't seen him for a couple of days. '
Julian's eyes widened with childish, theatrical surprise; not for the first time, I thought how much he was like Henry, that same strange mixture of chill and warmth. 'Indeed, ' he said. 'Most peculiar. And you have no idea where he might be? '
The mischievous, open-ended note in his voice made me nervous. 1 stared at the aqueous, rippling circles of light that the crystal vase cast over the tabletop.
'No, ' said Henry. 'We're a bit puzzled. '
'I should think so. ' His eyes met Henry's, for a long, strange moment.
He knows, 1 thought, with a rush of panic. He knows we're lying.
He just doesn't know what we're lying about.
After lunch, after my French class, I sat on the top floor of the library with my books spread across the table in front of me. It was a strange, bright, dreamlike day. The snowy lawn – peppered with the toylike figures of distant people – was as smooth as sugar frosting on a birthday cake; a tiny dog ran, barking, after a ball; real smoke threaded from the dollhouse chimneys.
This time, I thought, a year ago. What had I been doing? Driving a friend's car up to San Francisco, standing around in the poetry sections of bookstores worrying about my application to Hamp den. And now here I was, sitting in a cold room in strange clothes and wondering if I might go to prison.
Nihil sub sole novum. A pencil sharpener complained loudly somewhere. I put my head down on my books – whispers, quiet footsteps, the smell of old paper in my nostrils. Several weeks earlier, Henry had become angry when the twins were voicing moral objections at the idea of killing Bunny. 'Don't be ridiculous, ' he snapped.
'But how, ' said Charles, who was close to tears, 'how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder? '
Henry lit a cigarette. 'I prefer to think of it, ' he had said, 'as redistribution of matter. '
I woke, with a start, to find Henry and Francis standing over me.
'What is it? ' I said, rubbing my eyes and looking up at them.
'Nothing, ' said Henry. 'Will you come with us to the car? '
Sleepily 1 followed them downstairs, where the car was parked in front of the bookstore.
'What's the matter? ' I said after we had got in.
'Do you know where Camilla is? '
'Isn't she at home? '
'No. Julian hasn't seen her, either. '
'What do you want with her? '
Henry sighed. It was cold inside the car, and his breath came out white. 'Something's up, ' he said. 'Francis and I saw Marion at the guard booth with Cloke Rayburn. They were talking to some people from Security. '
'When? '
'About an hour ago. '
'You don't think they've done anything, do you? '
'We shouldn't jump to conclusions, ' said Henry. He was looking out at the roof of the bookstore, which was sheeted in ice and glittered in the sun. 'What we want is for Camilla to drop in on Cloke and see if she can find out what's going on. I'd go myself, except I hardly know him. '
'And he hates me, ' said Francis.
'I know him a little. '
'Not well enough. He and Charles are on fairly good terms, but we can't find him, either. '
I unwrapped a Rolaids tablet from a roll in my pocket and began to chew on it.
'What's that you're eating? ' said Francis.
'Rolaids. '
Till have one of those, if you don't mind, ' Henry said. 'I guess we should drive by the house again. '
This time Camilla came to the door, opening it only a crack and looking out warily. Henry started to say something, but she gave him a sharp warning glance. 'Hello, ' she said. 'Come in. '
We followed her inside without a word, down the dark hail into the living room. There, with Charles, was Cloke Rayburn.
Charles stood up nervously; Cloke stayed where he was and looked at us with sleepy, inscrutable eyes. He had a sunburn and he needed a shave. Charles raised his eyebrows at us and mouthed the word 'stoned. '
'Hello, ' said Henry after a pause. 'How are you? '
Cloke coughed – a deep, nasty-sounding rasp – and shook a Marlboro from a pack on the table before him. 'Not bad, ' he said.
'You? '
'Fine. '
He stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, lit it, coughed again. 'Hey, ' he said to me. 'How's it going? '
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