“Yes,” Zona said, “and I could sue that damn psychiatrist! ‘Try the Tegretol a little longer.’ ‘He doesn’t need any damn Tegretol,’ I said. ‘You sit there real calm and say, “Try the Tegretol a little longer; check back in two weeks,” and Walter is running around in a three-piece wool suit and no underwear!’ He’s got the Samsonite out and he’s packing. I say, ‘Walter, where are you going?’ He says, ‘I’m blasting back to Krypton. To be among my own kind.’ And—fa-gam!—out the door he goes, wearing a damn three-piece wool suit, no underwear, a horrible tie, nine pounds of wing tips and no socks; he’s got huge blisters on his heels and doesn’t even seem to know. It has to be at least a hundred and twelve out and he’s wearing that ugly damn brown suit of his, copping a load of b.o.—when he finally ditched it, I burned the damn thing. When you get b.o. into wool, it never comes out. Pick it up with a pole. He says, ‘Where’s my brown suit?’ ‘Walter, that suit is out of style.’ ‘It’s so old it went out of style and came back in,’ he says. I said, ‘They never quite do, they never quite do, and every fool knows that.’ ”

“But he’s on the lithium now?” Blaine asked. His focus was on Zona now. He was completely concentrating on her.

“Finally,” Zona said. “I’m about ready to lose my mind. He packed up that Samsonite and was off. I’m not lying. The Eye of Horus and Rosicrucians. I’m serious.”

“Can I go up and see him?” Blaine said.

“I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” Zona said. “His remarks concerning his father have been kind of volatile lately.” She picked up one of Freddy’s Kools and lit it. “Damn, three months without a cigarette,” she said.

“Well, I guess every son wants to kill his dad at some level,” Blaine said. “But I thought the Tegretol was doing him good.”

“It was at first. His psoriasis cleared up entirely. He was going to his recovery meetings, to Bible study, to bird meetings. When Walter is straight, he’s totally on the ball. But this shrink had him on Prozac, too. Got him horny. Let me tell you. Five times a day! I said, ‘Walter, I’m not made out of steel. You may be Superman but I’m a forty-six-year-old woman with a hysterectomy last year. Give me a break.’ ”

Freddy began to finger his goatee again. “Psoriasis. In terms of diseases, it’s a metaphor for rage.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Blaine said.

“You are Walter’s father,” Freddy said. “You would have the insight. The skin is a very emotive organ. Don’t get so touchy.”