She called him the following Wednesday, her third call of the evening, his mother said. Maryellen was sorry, she had thought it over, there had been things on her mind she shouldn’t have taken out on him. She wanted to talk. She wanted to see him.

And from the soft purr in her voice, she wanted to give him another shot at her, too. He decided to be the tough guy. Seeing her did not mean he had to lose control, did it? By the end of the conversation, she was whimpering again, murmuring that she was eager to see him, couldn’t wait for Saturday night. Bullshit, he thought. She was up to something, but so what? He wasn’t going to lose control of the situation, was he?

Maryellen stood him up, spending that weekend in bed with Hadley, as she reported the next time Devlin saw her, the following Tuesday, outside the East Forty-second Street Automat where she intercepted him. She was sporting a black eye the size of a peach—not even sunglasses could conceal it. She had told Hadley about Devlin, and Hadley had popped her. Now Devlin wanted to pop her for standing him up to spend the weekend in bed with Hadley. Devlin told her, and she burst into tears. Again. He wanted to get away from her. What he didn’t understand, she said, was that she told Hadley about him because she knew she had made a mistake. More bullshit, he thought at once: how many times had she made the mistake with Hadley before telling him? How many times Friday night?