That had been three weeks ago, and he had not seen nor called Cindy since, and the pain of the breakup was equaled only by the pain of the bursitis in his right shoulder, despite the fact that he was wearing a copper bracelet on his wrist. The bracelet had been given to him by none other than Meyer Meyer, whom no one would have dreamed of as a superstitious man given to beliefs in ridiculous claims. The bracelet was supposed to begin working in ten days (Well, maybe two weeks, Meyer had said, hedging) and Kling had been wearing it for eleven days now, with no relief for the bursitis, but with a noticeable green stain around his wrist just below the bracelet. Hope springs eternal. Somewhere in his race memory, there lurked a hulking ape-like creature rubbing animal teeth by a fire, praying in grunts for a splendid hunt on the morrow. Somewhere also in his race memory, though not as far back, was the image of Cindy Forrest naked in his arms, and the concomitant fantasy that she would call to say she’d made a terrible mistake and was ready to drop her psychiatrist pal. No Women’s Lib man he, Kling nonetheless felt it perfectly all right for Cindy to take the initiative in re-establishing their relationship; it was she, after all, who had taken the first and final step toward ending it. Meanwhile, his bursitis hurt like hell and the elevator operator was not one of those bright snappy young men on the way up (Kling winced; he hated puns even when he made them himself), but rather a stupid clod who had difficulty remembering his own name. Kling went over the same tired ground yet another time.
“Do you know Mr. Fletcher by sight?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” the elevator operator said.
“What does he look like?”
“Oh, you know, he calls me Max.”
“Yes, Max, but . . .”
“ ‘Hello, Max,’ he says, ‘How are you, Max?’ I say, ‘Hello there, Mr. Fletcher, nice day today, huh?’ ”
“Could you describe him for me, please?”
“He’s nice and handsome.”
“What color are his eyes?”
“Brown? Blue? Something like that.”
“How tall is he?”
“Tall.”
“Taller than you?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Taller than me?”’
“Oh, no. About the same. Mr. Fletcher is about the same.”
“What color hair does he have?”
“White.”
“White? Do you mean gray?”
“White, gray, something like that.”
“Which was it, Max, would you remember?”
“Oh, something like that. Ask Phil. He knows. He’s good on times and things like that.”
Phil was the doorman. He was very good on times and things like that. He was also a garrulous lonely old man who welcomed the opportunity to be in a cops-and-robbers documentary film. Kling could not disabuse Phil of the notion that this was a
