Phil followed me out front, and before I could get my wallet out he paid the guy. Then I stood there holding the grinders while he got his briefcase out of the car. He said, “Hey, I like you, Mike. I’m glad to see you with her.” I felt a little sweat pop out. It was the most he’d ever said to me. “Thank you,” I said. I tried to act somewhat laid-back, I asked him if he still liked to play golf—I couldn’t remember. He said, “She was such a slut in high school.” He passed me some folders to carry. “It was obscene,” he said, “just the numbers alone,” and slammed the car door. Then the dog came loping out of the dark—it loves anyone getting in or out of a car—and ran right between his legs. He raised his briefcase and said, “Get away!” Our dog isn’t really trained, and when he smelled the food he came after me, but not before he’d left a big glob of spit on Phil’s pants. Phil said, “I don’t believe it,” and wiped his pants and stomped inside.

We ate, everybody’s eyes on the table. Barbara asked Linda, “Do you have any Parmesan?” and Linda exploded out of her chair and over to the kitchen and came back holding the cheese grater in front of her. Phil was quiet. He seemed content to stare at his plate. I asked him about celebrities he’d interviewed; he belched into his fist and sat up, and told us a story about leaving Russia in the sixties with a planeload of journalists—“Just before they locked me in the studio,” he said. “Ha-ha”—he was acting slightly more alive. He said they were forced to turn the plane back in midair, and Russian soldiers escorted a guy off who was from one of the Eastern European newspapers and shot him.

I was trying to remember how I knew this story. He said, “That Czech gentleman turned up dead.” That was it. This was, word for word, the identical story he told the other time I met him, in that diner. Phil finished his beer, hunched over in his chair. He didn’t look the way he looked on TV. He looked old. I’m sure he was tired. His eyes were all red. But there were other, subtle differences. I watched him swallow. Up close, he was mostly ears and sagging eyelids.