Amy appeared to be thinking of what I had said. We had very seldom been together like this. From time to time we’d meet for cocktails or dinner, and generally we talked about the Merchandise Mart, the decorating business, Burmese furniture, and copperwork. I became useful to Amy. I had vouched for her to the Adletskys, and they had recommended her to other rich clients. She was grateful to me. Her business prospects were our principal topic at the Szechuan Restaurant or Coco Pazzo or Les Nomades. Two dilatory people who had loved each other for forty years, discussing ottomans and wing chairs. I had never said anything about stretching out on her wooden floor.

And now, too, but for the fact that Jay’s coffin was being exhumed, we might have been chatting in a luxurious little parlor with the TV screens shining cokey gray, iridescent, and a small bar and cellular telephones.

‘Did Madge Heisinger really pour tea in your lap? Were you scalded?’

‘No, no. I was shocked but not actually burned. That’s just how she does things. She wanted to talk privately. She had a proposition for me, and she thought we should get together in the bathroom, where nobody could disturb us.’

The proposition Amy heard was this – the money the Adletskys paid for the furniture in the apartment was to go to Madge. Bodo agreed that she should have it and with this money she would start up business. She would open a divorce registry service. The opposite to a bridal registry. When a marriage breaks up, one of the divorcing parties generally takes all. The deprived husband or the stripped wife needs outfitting in all the essentials of housekeeping – a bed, two chairs, a carpet, a blanket, linens, coffeemaker, skillet, tooth glass, cups, spoons, towels, down to the clock radio or TV. Since recently divorced company employees are often agitated, suffering weeks or months of stress, they function badly, and personnel directors in the giant corporations might welcome such a registry service. It wouldn’t cost the company money, because your fellow employees or business associates would contribute to a divorce fund to ease the shocks of dislocation, rejection, the pains of loss. It would on one side be excellent for the morale and on the other profitable for the suppliers of the survival kit. Amy, with her Merchandise Mart contacts, could easily, dependably – uniformly – procure such items. This would give divorcées parity with brides. It would stress equality. It would have a democratic flavor. For a small showroom, the overhead would be minimal.

I laughed when I heard this. ‘Yes, I’ve got the picture,’ I said. ‘Now, who would deal with the corporate personnel officers? Who’d do the persuading?’

‘According to Madge, that would be Tom’s part of it,’ Amy said.

‘Tom is the fellow who was supposed to blow Bodo away – is that right?’

‘Yes. Madge feels responsible. She got him into it. There were three years in the slammer, plus months of pretrial, trial, and appeal. Madge says she should take the blame. She insists that it’s her responsibility, that she owes him.’