“The wind is always so bad up here,” said Hannibal. “But perhaps in his madness he doesn’t feel it. I suffer so from this horrible weather.” He looked down at his own plump, short body. “This climate may account for the number of brutes you have in this country.”

“I’m going to California tomorrow,” she said. “It’s warm there.” Then, her intent gaze following the man’s stumbling run back toward the Drive, she said, “Oh, he must feel the cold!” In a moment or two, the man was lost to view in the early December dusk. Hannibal touched her arm. “Come away. It’s too cold here. What’s your name? Walter is very crude not to have told me your name.”

“Annie,” she answered, still straining to see. “Does he have a place to go? His head looked shaved, completely shaved. Doesn’t someone take care of him?”

Walter had joined them, the paper refolded and held under his arm. Hannibal glanced at him, then at the girl. She was young like all of Walter’s girls. Her clothes were so shabby. How much he would like to kiss her young neck! But he could only make girls laugh. They liked his jokes, and when they laughed, in the midst of their laughter, he could touch their arms and hands, their hair, and they allowed him that, he supposed, as payment.

“Nobody takes care of anyone,” said Walter. “It’s part of the sickness of a capitalist society.”

“But can’t someone give him a coat?” Annie asked.

“Come on, baby. Leave the window. If you think he’s bad off, you should see the basket cases in the vet hospitals.”

“Yes,” Hannibal said, rubbing his fat clean hands together. “Let’s leave this room and have a coffee in that disgusting cafeteria. I have a phenomenal story, Walter, about Alberto and his two Chinese girls…”

Walter said, “No. I want to talk to you about the Spanish Refugee Committee.”

“I will not speak of Spanish committees,” Hannibal said. “Tomorrow perhaps. Not tonight.”

The Indians had gone. The chess players nodded over their board on which only a black king and his pawn and two white bishops and the white king remained.

As Walter made for the door, it opened, and a young boy of sixteen or seventeen entered the room and went to stand next to the grand piano. He averted his eyes as the two men and the girl passed him. Walter gave him a faintly contemptuous glance. When he saw that Annie had stopped to look at the boy, he took hold of her arm in his two hands and shook her. “Stop staring at people!” he said loudly. “Stop dreaming!”

Hannibal touched Annie’s hair and sighed. “How can you put up with such a coarse fellow, eh?” he asked, and laughed away the insult.