Until ultimately I ripped the damn thing out of the wall and Minna fled to cooler climes. And when the clime in my apartment cooled somewhat, I repaired the telephone. As you now know.

It was one of the major mistakes of my life.

For almost an hour the phone remained stoically silent. I probed Wordsworth and pounded my typewriter while the silent phone lulled me into a false sense of security. Then it rang and I answered it and a voice I did not recognize said, “Mr. Tanner? Mr. Evan Tanner?”

I said, “Yes.”

“You don’t know me, Mr. Tanner.”

“Oh.”

“But I have to talk to you.”

“Oh.”

“My name is Miriam Horowitz.”

“How do you do, Miss Horowitz.”

“It’s Mrs. Horowitz. Mrs. Benjamin Horowitz.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Horowitz.”

“He’s dead.”

“Pardon me?”

“Benjamin, he should rest in peace. I am a widow.”

“I’m very worry.”

“Oh, it’ll be eight years in February. What am I saying? Nine years. Nine years in February. Never sick a day, a hard worker, a good husband, he comes home tired from the office, like a candle he drops dead. It was his heart.”

I changed ears so that Mrs. Horowitz could talk into the other one. She had fallen silent. I decided she needed prompting. “I’m Evan Tanner,” I said.

“I know.”

“You called me, Mrs. Horowitz. I don’t want to, uh, be brusque with you, uh, but-”

“I’m calling you about my daughter.”

I’m calling you about my daughter. There are bachelors in their middle thirties who can hear those words without erupting in panic, but they generally wear pink silk shorts and subscribe to physical culture magazines. I felt a well nigh irresistible urge to hang up the phone.

“My daughter Deborah. She’s in trouble.”

My daughter Deborah. She’s in trouble.

I hung up the phone.

Deborah Horowitz is pregnant, I thought. Deborah Horowitz is pregnant, and her idiot of a mother has decided that Evan Michael Tanner is personally responsible for this state of affairs, and is presently measuring him for a son-in-law suit. Or a paternity suit.