“I couldn’t imagine just living with someone,” Gregor told Jackman. “Especially here. Especially on Cavanaugh Street.”
“That kind of thing goes on everywhere these days, Gregor. Even on Cavanaugh Street.”
“Maybe it goes on with teenagers, but it doesn’t go on with middle-aged men like me.”
“Whatever. You’ve been looking green ever since Bennis got hurt. I’m just saying that if you made this official in some way, people would understand better why it is you’re concerned. They’d cut you more slack—”
“I don’t need any more slack,” Gregor said quickly. “I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.”
“And it’s you she had the affair with,” Gregor pointed out. “You said at the time she knew better what she wanted than any woman you’d ever known. I’d think that if Bennis actually wanted the kind of thing with me you’re talking about, I’d have heard about it by now.”
John Jackman looked disgusted. “Get real,” he said. “Women who look like Bennis Hannaford do not make the first move. They don’t have to. Women’s lib or no women’s lib. And besides, she’s come close to making the first move with you a dozen times—”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
John Jackman had the window next to his elbow rolled all the way down. He was beginning to sweat in the heat and humidity of the evening air. On the corner there was one of those newspaper sales boxes with a copy of the Philadelphia Star in its window. The Star was running a picture of the woman who had died in the explosion, a posed studio portrait, without the button with its fake fur message.
“Listen,” John Jackman said. “I want you to think about what you want to do next. We have to do something next. We can’t just sit around waiting for this Karla Parrish person to wake up and tell us what we want to know.
“Not that she’s likely to really know anything anyway,” Jackman went on when Gregor said nothing. “She was in Somalia or someplace when Mrs. Willis decided to off Mr. Willis.”
“Rwanda.”
“Wherever. Dan Exter thinks we’re all just spinning our wheels.”
“We are.”
“Well, we have to stop. I’d tell you to say hello to Bennis for me, but she doesn’t want to hear it. Does she curse me out when I’m not around?”
“She doesn’t talk about you at all.”
“It figures,” John Jackman said. “I’ve been thinking lately about getting married, Gregor. I’ve been thinking it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Even with all the responsibilities.”
“Do you have somebody in particular in mind?” Gregor was honestly interested. Bennis was the only woman he had ever seen John Jackman with for longer than a week and a half.
John started to roll up his window. Gregor could hear the car’s air-conditioning system grinding away. The engine was rumbling and shuddering under the hood. “I always have somebody in particular in mind,” John said. “The problem is, I have a couple of somebodies in mind every month. I’ll be down here for breakfast tomorrow at seven, okay?”
“No. I’ll meet you uptown. You’re sure we have an appointment?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“She’s put us off twice already.”
“I’ve threatened to give an interview to the Inquirer saying she’s put us off if she does it again,” John said. “Worse, I threatened that you’d do it.”
“Good.”
“You have to be tough with these political people. If you’re not, they’ll run right over you. Say hello to Bennis for me anyway, Gregor. What the hell.”
“Okay.”
“It’s too bad about breakfast. I like that restaurant you go to.” John rolled his window all the way up and pulled out onto the street. There was no traffic coming in either direction and no traffic visible in the distance. It was odd, Gregor thought, the way Philadelphia seemed to be almost deserted at some hours these days. When he was growing up, it had always seemed busy and crowded and funny-dangerous, like a roller coaster whose seats were all crammed full.
On an impulse, Gregor walked to the corner and looked down into the side street. For the first block or so it was all right, marked by some minor examples of Donna Moradanyan’s wedding decorations, but after that everything went to hell. It was dark. It was dingy. It was falling to pieces. Gregor couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something about all this, about the way Cavanaugh Street was in the middle of the sea of decaying city around it, that reminded him unpleasantly of Fox Run Hill.