He didn’t say anything. With his eyes he said something to the East Indian girl. The message got across to her, and she walked out of the parlor. Lita sipped more water, then dipped her fingers into the glass and applied her wet fingers to her temples. She put the glass on a small table adjoining the sofa. Then she was on her feet, crossing to the other side of the room, and faced a wall mirror. She had her hand to the side of her jaw.

“Does it hurt?” Corey asked.

“Only a little.”

“I hope it ain’t swollen.”

“Slightly,” she said. “It’s hardly noticeable.”

She turned away from the mirror, pressed the half-smoked cigarette into an ashtray. For some moments she walked around the parlor, not looking at Corey. Then she came back to the sofa and sat down. Two pillows were between them.

For a while it was quiet. Then from upstairs there was the sound of glass breaking on a tile floor. With it came Grogan’s voice, “What the hell are you trying to do?” There were a couple of nurses working with the high colonic expert, and they were jabbering excitedly. The high colonic expert shouted, “Hold it—be careful.”

Grogan shouted again, “Wait—wait!” He was shrieking now. “Wait, goddamit—” After that, the nurses, the high colonic expert and Grogan all were yelling as something very heavy hit the tile floor. There was the sound of more glass breaking; then another stretch of silence. Finally Corey said, “You gonna tell him?”

“Tell him what?”

“That I socked you.”

She leaned back in the sofa, facing front with her arms folded across her bare midriff. “You want me to tell him?”

“It don’t matter. Not to me.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“I just wondered,” he said.

She unfolded her arms. Her hands came up in front of her face and she hit her fingertips together. She did that several times. Then she said, “No, I won’t tell him.”

“Why not?”

“He’ll only worry,” she said. “He worries too much as it is.”

“About you?”

She turned her head very slowly and looked at him. Then she faced forward again. “He’ll be fifty-six. I’m twenty-five.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“You’ll know when you’re fifty-six,” she said.

“I won’t make it to fifty-six. Not the way I live.” And as he spoke, he was thinking, it’s sorta like short wave. You use the right frequency, you can tune in on this dame. To some degree, anyway.

She was looking at him. “What do you mean, the way you live? You mean the drinking?”

He didn’t answer. He looked at her bare middle, looked away. Then he got up from the sofa, took a few steps and came back to the sofa and sat down. Now there was one pillow between them.