And the fact is, Houston puts in a better afternoon’s effort than he has in weeks and weeks. By God, McPherson thinks, looking over his list of Things To Do before he goes home—we might pull it off after all.

Chapter 68

68

Jim sleeps on his living room couch through the day, curled on his side around a tensely knotted stomach. He wakes often, each time more exhausted than the last. Every time he gains enough autonomy to pull himself upright, he calls Hana. No answer, no answering machine. More uneasy, unrestful sleep. His dreams are sickening, the problems in them more outlandishly insoluble than ever before. In the last of them he dreams he and all his friends have been captured by the Russians and held in the Kremlin. He tries to escape through a pinball machine, but the glass top slides back too quickly and cuts off his head. He has to climb back out and go through the ordeal of finding his head without the help of his eyes, then place the head back on his neck and balance it there very carefully. No one will believe he is walking around with his head chopped off. Premier Kerens, in a uniform with lots of medals, is flanked by Debbie and Angela and Gabriela, all wearing nothing but underwear bottoms. “Okay,” the premier says, holding up a device like an artificial hand that will cut out hearts. “You choose which one goes first.”

He wakes up sweating, his stomach clenched as if by cramp.

About two P.M. he tries Hana again, and she answers.

“Hello?”

“Ah? Oh! Hana! It’s Jim. I’ve … been trying to get hold of you.”

“Have you.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t home. Listen, ah, Hana—”

“Jim, I don’t feel like talking to you right now.”

“No, Hana, no—I’m sorry!”

But she’s hung up.

“Shit!” He slams down the phone so hard it almost cracks. After a moment he dials the number again. Busy signal, hateful sound. She’s left the phone off the cradle. No chance for contact. It’s so stupid! “Oh, man.”

He wants to go up there, beg her forgiveness. Then he gets angry at the unfairness of it, he wants her to beg his forgiveness, for being so unreasonable. “Come on! I was just having dinner with a friend! After the funeral of another friend!” But that isn’t exactly true. He pulls his big Mexican cookbook from the shelf and furiously slams it to the floor, kicks it across the kitchen. Very satisfying, until the moment he stops.

An hour later, angrier than ever, he calls up Arthur. “Arthur, have you got anything ready to go?”

“Well—come on over and we’ll talk about it.”