“I’ve been thinking about that musician or whatever he was,” Gregor said, “the one in California.”
“That was months ago,” Bennis said quickly.
“It lasted a matter of days. Do you know you do that a lot?”
On the other end of the line, there was the sound of Bennis striking a match, then the sound of Bennis exhaling. “Gregor, if you want to give me some kind of lecture on the way I run my social life, you don’t have to because Tibor already—”
“Do you know that the only long-term commitment you’ve ever made to a man was before I knew you?”
“You must have been drinking.”
“You were living with that man Michael What’s-his-name, the Greek, in Boston, before your father died and you moved back to Philadelphia. That was the year we met. Do you remember?”
“I remember how we met, Gregor. I’m never likely to forget it.”
“Between that time and this, you haven’t had a single long-term relationship. Not one.”
“I haven’t met anybody I wanted to have a long-term relationship with.”
“You haven’t met anybody you wanted to go on seeing for longer than two weeks.”
“Two weeks is as long as it makes sense to give most of the men I’ve known in my life,” Bennis said, “and that includes the Michael I was living with in Boston, who turned out to be a world-class Greek-American son of a bitch. Gregor, what the hell is this all about?”
“I think you do it on purpose.”
“What?”
“I think you go out with these—nuts—that you find, these—crazy people—because it’s your way of making sure that you don’t end up committed to something or somebody because you don’t really want to be committed to something or somebody.”
“Wonderful,” Bennis said. “When did you take up pop psychology, Gregor? What comes next? An exploration of the ramification of the position of Saturn in my astrological sign?”
“What I do,” Gregor continued, “is keep myself married to Elizabeth. It’s been—I don’t know how many years anymore, it’s been so long—but I’m still married to Elizabeth.”
There was quiet now on the other end of the line, and smoking, the deliberate inhaling and exhaling of breath. Gregor was surprised to realize that he was having a hard time breathing himself. He felt like Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls, ready to go over a cliff.
Bennis inhaled again. Then she exhaled again. Then she said, “You know, Gregor, this is all very interesting, but do you really think you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes,” Gregor answered. “I really think I do.”
“I think it would be a very bad idea to get started in this direction and then screw it up.”
“I agree. I’ll try not to screw it up. You should try not to screw it up, either.”
“What are you going to do now?”
Gregor wedged the door of the telephone booth open so that he had some air. The foyer around him was dark. He wondered if Clayton and Jackson were still alone downstairs, or if the county boys had finally shown up, ready to roll.
“There are some things I still have to do down here,” he said. “It’s like I told you. This is a very complicated situation. It’s going to be difficult to work out.”
“How difficult?”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to get back to Philadelphia until the day after tomorrow. And that’s the best I can do. At the very least, I’m going to have to give a deposition. At the worst, I’m going to have to give six. It’s that kind of thing.”
“What happens after you give all these depositions?”
“I’ll come home.”
“And then what?”
“Then,” Gregor said, “I think you and I ought to go out to dinner somewhere, not the Ararat. Somewhere we can talk.”
“Will you tell me about the case?”
“If you want to hear about it.”
“I always want to hear about it.”
“I’ve got to go back downstairs,” Gregor said. “There’s some administrative system here I don’t exactly understand, all about counties and God knows what. We’re waiting for the county prosecutor. I’ll get back as soon as I can.”
“You do that. In the meantime, I think I’m going to sit down and drink some serious liquor.”
“You ought to quit smoking,” Gregor said. “You’re going to kill yourself before we have a chance to work all this out.”
Bennis might have said good-bye, or she might not have, Gregor didn’t know. It could have been nothing but another outflow of smoke. What he did know was that the line was cut, and there was the buzz of a dial tone in his ear.