'I know that, I just—'
'Slight difference, one's a magazine, the other's a newspaper.' I could hear the drink in his voice now. I suppose it had been there all along, but I hadn't been aware of it before. 'There's a story about the Post,'
he said. 'Years ago, before you were born or your father before you, they were in an ass-kicking and hair- pulling contest with the old New York World. The Post had the rag on one day and ran an editorial calling the World a yellow dog. Now this was considered quite the insult. You know, yellow journalism?
You familiar with the term?'
'Not as well as you are.'
'What's that? Oh, a wiseass. You want to hear this or not?'
'I'd love to hear it.'
'So everybody was waiting to see what the World was going to come back with. And next day there's an editorial in the World. 'The New York Evening Post calls us a yellow dog. Our reply is the reply of any dog to any post.' You get it, or is the subtlety of a bygone age lost on you?'
'I get it.'
'In other words, piss on you.'
'When was this?'
'I dunno, eighty years ago? Maybe more. Nowadays a newspaper could come right out and say, 'Piss on you,' and nobody'd turn a hair, the way standards have fucking crumbled. How the hell did I get on this?'
'The Post.'
'Right, the New York Fucking Post. They've got an analysis of the latest letter, supposedly proves the guy's a phony, a talker and not a doer.
Some expert, some college professor, needs to read the instructions on the roll of Charmin before he can figure out how to wipe his ass. What do you think of that?'
'What do I think of what?'
'Wouldn't you say it's irresponsible? They're calling the guy a liar to his face.'
'Only if he reads the Post.'
He laughed. 'And piss on them, huh? But you get what I mean, don't you? They're saying, 'I dare you.'
Saying, 'Go ahead, kill somebody, make my day.' I call that irresponsible.'
'If you say so.'
'Why, you patronizing son of a bitch. Are you too much of a big shot now to have conversation with me?'
I resisted the impulse to hang up. 'Of course not,' I said soothingly. 'I think you're probably right saying what you said, but it's no longer something I'm involved in, not even peripherally. And I'm going nuts enough without it.'
'Oh, yeah? Over what?'
'Another case that's not really any business of mine, but I seem to have taken it on. There's a man I'm just about certain committed murder, and I'm damned if I can figure out why.'
'Gotta be love or money,' he said. 'Unless he's a public-spirited son of a bitch like my guy.'
'It's money, but I can't make it make sense. Suppose you're insured and I'm the beneficiary. I gain if you die.'
'Why don't we make it the other way around?'
'Just let me—'
'No, really,' he said, his voice rising as he got into it. 'I know this is hypothetical, but why do I have to be the schmuck? Make it that I win if you die.'
'Fine. You gain if I die. So I jump out the window, and—'
'Why do a crazy thing like that?'
'And you shoot me on the way down. Why?'
'You jump out the window and I shoot you on the way down.'
'Right. Why?'
'Target practice? Is this some trick, you were wearing a parachute, some shit like that?'
'Jesus,' I said. 'No, it's not a trick question. It's an analogy.'
'Well, excuuuuse me. I shoot you on the way down?'
'Uh-huh.'
'And kill you.'
'Right.'
'But you would have died anyhow when you landed. Because this is an analogy and not a trick question, so please tell me it's not a first-floor window you just jumped out of.'
'No, it's a high floor.'
