It was a curious conversation. We were carefully polite, as we often are, and after we’d circled one another like first-round prizefighters she asked me why I’d called. “I’m just returning your call,” I said. “I’m sorry it took me awhile.”

“Returning my call?”

“There’s a message that you called Monday.”

There was a pause. Then she said, “Matt, we spoke Monday night. You called me back. Don’t you remember?”

I felt a chill, as if someone had just scraped a piece of chalk on a blackboard. “Of course I remember,” I said. “But how did this slip get back in my box? I thought you’d called a second time.”

“No.”

“I must have dropped the message slip and then some helpful idiot returned it to my box, and it got handed to me just now and I thought it was another call.”

“That’s what must have happened.”

“Sure,” I said. “Anita, I’d had a couple drinks when I spoke to you the other night. My memory’s a little vague. You want to remind me what we talked about in case there’s anything I forgot?”

We had talked about orthodontia for Mickey. I’d told her to get another opinion. I remembered that part of the conversation, I assured her. Was there anything else? I had said I was hoping to send more money soon, a more substantial contribution than I’d made lately, and paying for the kid’s braces shouldn’t be any problem. I told her I remembered that part, too, and she said that was about all, except that of course I’d talked to the children. Oh, sure, I told her. I remembered my conversation with the boys. And that was all? Well, then, my memory wasn’t so bad after all, was it?

I was shaking when I hung up the phone. I sat there and tried to summon up a memory of the conversation she had just described and it was hopeless. Everything was a blank from the moment just before the third drink Sunday night to the time I’d come out of it in the hospital. Everything, all of it, gone.

I tore up the message slip, tore it in half again, put the scraps in my pocket. I looked at the other message. The number Chance had left was his service number. I called Midtown North instead. Durkin wasn’t in but they gave me his home number.

He sounded groggy when he answered. “Gimme a second, lemme light a cigarette,” he said. When he came back on the line he sounded all right. “I was watching teevee,” he said, “and I went and fell asleep in front of the set. What’s on your mind, Scudder?”

“That pimp’s been trying to reach me. Chance.”

“Trying to reach you how?”