“I don’t know. I’ve said I would. But I’m kind of squeamish about working for a gangster.”

“Is that what you think he is?”

“I told you. It doesn’t matter what I think. And all he offered me was a job, angel. Not a proposal of marriage. If I don’t like working for him, I can quit, and he won’t lose any sleep over it. But somehow I have the romantic idea that he feels differently about you. Any man would.”

“You’re not making a pass at me, are you?”

“If I was going to do that, I’d be in the swimming pool.”

“Max is going to help me become a movie actress.”

“So I heard. Is that why you’re going to marry him?”

“As a matter of fact, it isn’t.” She colored a little, and her voice became more petulant. “It just so happens that we love each other.”

It was my turn to pull a face.

“What’s the matter, Gunther? Weren’t you ever in love with someone?”

“Oh, sure. Your mother, for instance. But that was twenty years ago. In those days I could still tell someone I was in love with her and mean it with every fiber of my being. These days they’re just words. A man gets to my age and it’s not about love. He can persuade himself it’s love. But it’s not that at all. It’s always about something else.”

“You think he just wants to marry me for sex, is that it?”

“No. It’s more complicated than that. It’s about wanting to feel young again. That’s why a lot of older men marry younger women. Because they think youth is infectious. And it isn’t, of course. Old age, on the other hand, now, that is infectious. I mean, I can more or less guarantee that, in time, you’ll catch it, too.” I shrugged. “But like I keep telling you, angel, it doesn’t matter what I think. I’m just some slob who used to be in love with your mother.”

“That’s not such an exclusive club.”

“I don’t doubt it. Your mother’s a beautiful woman. Everything you got, you got from her, I guess.” I nodded. “What you were saying. About her being suicidal. I’ll look in on her before I go.”

I quickly went away from her and back to the house before I said anything nasty. Which was what I felt like saying.