“We’ve already made arrangements, though,” Jerry said helplessly. “We’ve spent money. We’ve rented the synagogue. We’ve got the food set up. We’ve booked our honeymoon. We’ve—” He gave up. If he went, Anna wouldn’t want to marry him. She’d want to murder him. He didn’t see how he could blame her, either.

Steve sidled over to Fred and whispered in his ear. Fred looked like a guy who’d just bit down hard on a lemon. Steve gestured to John. They all put their heads together.

“We’ll pay all the expenses involved in delaying your wedding,” Fred said. “That includes covering your rent here for as long as you’re away.”

Jerry didn’t answer right away. They really want me, he realized. The feeling was strange. It went to his head like champagne. Grad students had to be among the most chronically unwanted people in the world.

After a few seconds, he said, “I still don’t think Anna would be real happy with that.”

“Understandable. We’re messing up plans you’ve already made. If we give the two of you, ah, two thousand dollars as compensation for the inconvenience, would that make the lady happier? Would it make you happier?” Steve said. “We can call it a wedding present or something.”

John and Fred both opened their mouths, then closed them again without saying anything. These people have more money than they know what to do with. Literally, Jerry thought. It wasn’t a problem he’d ever needed to worry about before.

“Can I tell her that that will happen?” he asked.

“Go ahead.” John didn’t sound happy, but he gave the okay.

“Call me tomorrow afternoon. I’ll let you know what she says.” Jerry didn’t bother giving his phone number. It was unlisted, but they had to know it anyway.

There wasn’t much talk after that. The three men left as abruptly as they’d pushed their way in. Jerry watched them go down the stairs and out the door to the foyer. As soon as they disappeared, he started wondering if they’d really been there at all.

He wrote that down on a three-by-five card and stashed it in the manila folder he called his idea file. Waste not, want not.

Jerry parked his beat-up old Rambler on the street a couple of doors down from Anna’s apartment building. Her place looked just like his: a two-story Spanish-style structure with units surrounding a concrete courtyard centered on a pool. Tenants kept their cars in spaces underneath. A swarm of places like theirs had gone up in Hawthorne over the past five or ten years.

He climbed the stairs from the foyer to the security door and punched 2–6–4 on the keypad next to it. A moment later, Anna’s voice came tinnily from the speaker above the keypad: “That you, Jerry?”