the gray-haired man said. He glanced abruptly to his right, where a cigarette, lighted some time earlier in the evening, was balanced on an ashtray. It obviously had gone out, though, and he didn't pick it up.
"In the first place," he said into the phone, "I've told you many, many times, Arthur, that's exactly where you make your biggest mistake. You know what you do? Would you like me to tell you what you do? You go out of your way--I mean this, now--you actually go out of your way to torture yourself. As a matter of fact, you actually inspire Joanie-" He broke off. "You're bloody lucky she's a wonderful kid. I mean it. You give that kid absolutely no credit for having any good taste--or brains, for Chrissake, for that matter--"
"Brains! Are you kidding? She hasn't got any goddam brains! She's an animal!"
The gray-haired man, his nostrils dilating, appeared to take a fairly deep breath. "We're all animals," he said. "Basically, we're all animals."
"Like hell we are. I'm no goddam animal. I may be a stupid, fouled-up twentieth-century son of a bitch, but I'm no animal. Don't gimme that.
I'm no animal."
"Look, Arthur. This isn't getting us--"
"Brains. Jesus, if you knew how funny that was. She thinks she's a goddam intellectual. That's the funny part, that's the hilarious part.
She reads the theatrical page, and she watches television till she's practically blind--so she's an intellectual. You know who I'm married to? You want to know who I'm married to? I'm married to the greatest living undeveloped, undiscovered actress, novelist, psychoanalyst, and all-around goddam unappreciated celebrity-genius in New York. You didn't know that, didja? Christ, it's so funny I could cut my throat. Madame Bovary at Columbia Extension School. Madame--"
"Who?" asked the gray-haired man, sounding annoyed.
"Madame Bovary takes a course in Television Appreciation. God, if you knew how--"
"All right, all right. You realize this isn't getting us anyplace,"
the gray-haired man said. He turned and gave the girl a sign, with two fingers near his mouth, that he wanted a cigarette. "In the first place," he said, into the phone, "for a helluvan intelligent guy, you're about as tactless as it's humanly possible to be." He straightened his back so that the girl could reach behind him for the cigarettes. "I mean that. It shows up in your private life, it shows up in your--"
"Brains. Oh, God, that kills me! Christ almightyl Did you ever hear her describe anybody--some man, I mean? Sometime when you haven't anything to do, do me a favor and get her to describe some man for you.
She describes every man she sees as `terribly attractive.' It can be the oldest, crummiest, greasiest--
"All right, Arthur," the gray-haired man said sharply. "This is getting us nowhere. But nowhere." He took a lighted cigarette from the girl. She had lit two. "Just incidentally," he said, exhaling smoke through his nostrils, "how'd you make out today?"
"What?"
"How'd you make out today?" the gray-haired man repeated. "How'd the case go?"
"Oh, Christ! I don't know. Lousy. About two minutes before I'm all set to start my summation, the attorney for the plaintiff, Lissberg, trots in this crazy chambermaid with a bunch of bedsheets as evidence--
bedbug stains all over them. Christ!"
"So what happened? You lose?" asked the grayhaired man, taking another drag on his cigarette.
"You know who was on the bench? Mother Vittorio. What the hell that guy has against me, I'll never know. I can't even open my mouth and he jumps all over me. You can't reason with a guy like that. It's impossible."
The gray-haired man turned his head to see what the girl was doing.
She had picked up the ashtray and was putting it between them. "You lose, then, or what?" he said into the phone.
"What?"
"I said, Did you lose?"
"Yeah. I was gonna tell you about it. I didn't get a chance at the party, with all the ruckus. You think Junior'll hit the ceiling? Not that I give a good goddam, but what do you think? Think he will?"
With his left hand, the gray-haired man shaped the ash of his cigarette on the rim of the ashtray. "I don't think he'll necessarily hit the ceiling, Arthur," he said quietly. "Chances are very much in favor, though, that he's not going to be overjoyed about it. You know how long we've handled those three bloody hotels? Old man Shanley himself started the whole--"
"I know, I know. Junior's told me about it at least fifty times. It's one of the most beautiful stories I ever heard in my life. All right, so I lost the goddam case. In the first place, it wasn't my fault. First, this lunatic Vittorio baits me all through the trial. Then this moron chambermaid starts passing out sheets full of bedbug--"
"Nobody's saying it's your fault, Arthur," the grayhaired man said.
"You asked me if I thought Junior would hit the ceiling. I simply gave you an honest--"
"I know--I know that.... I don't know. What the hell. I may go back in the Army anyway. I tell you about that?"
