“Marianne dropped it on me like a bomb.” He winced, mugged for Hollingshead, then laughed aloud. “But I survived it and you will too, believe me. Right, Michael?”

Hollingshead leaned into the bar, his bloodless face looming into Fitz’s line of vision. “My wife’s a bitch,” he said. “There’s no surviving that.”

“But not Joanie,” Tim said, his smile turned up to full power. “Joanie’s the soul of the operation Chez Loney, I can see that.” He lifted his glass—he was having a martini and Fitz was following suit; Hollingshead was drinking beer. Like an Englishman. “Here’s to Joanie,” he said. “You’re a lucky man, Fitz.”

“I am,” he said, ducking his head. “And she wanted me to tell you how much she enjoyed, you know, the last time at your place—?”

Tim was on his left, Hollingshead on his right. They were both watching him.

“And she was wondering, we both were, when you were planning on holding another session, because we’d both like to, or we feel we need to, really—”

“Saturday night, sevenish,” Tim said. “You’re always welcome, you know that, Fitz.”

There was no babysitter this time—they’d learned their lesson on that score—but right up to the minute they left the house he couldn’t help imagining the various disasters that were sure to unfold in their absence. What if Corey got hungry and decided to cook something on the gas stove, a can of soup, anything, and forgot to light the burner? What if he took it in his head to play with matches? (He’s never played with matches, Joanie countered when he brought it up for the third time. He’s not that kind of kid, you ought to know that.) What about the door? What if somebody, some salesman, some pervert, came knocking? Or the park. What if Corey snuck off to the park with some of the neighborhood roughnecks, like Nicky Bayer and whoever? (So what if he did?) Well, they’d get drunk, wouldn’t they? And then get run over in the street, or—

Joanie told him he was being ridiculous. Corey had a bag of potato chips and a quart of root beer and the Saturday night TV lineup on CBS, which was as dependable a hypnotic as you could ask for, Jackie Gleason, The Defenders, Have Gun—Will Travel, Gunsmoke, and after that he’d be in bed, asleep, where no one or nothing could harm him. He was going to be fourteen in a month. He was a steady, dependable, level-headed kid who’d never given them or anybody else any trouble. It was time to let go.