The telephone rang.
He debated answering it, but finally ran and grabbed it just before the fifth ring, which would turn on the answering machine.
“Hello?”
There was no reply, but someone was on the line.
“If you’re going to talk dirty to me, please start now,” Matt said.
There was a click and the line went dead.
“Fuck you, pal,” Matt said, hung the telephone up, and went back to the hamburger.
The telephone rang again.
“Goddamn it!”
He snatched the phone from the wall and remembered at the last moment that the caller, this time, might be his mother, and one did not scream obscenities at one’s mother.
“Hello?”
And again there was no reply.
“Oh, goddamn it!”
“Were you asleep?” It was a female voice.
Jesus Christ! Amanda?
“Amanda?”
“I was worried about you,” Amanda said.
“I’m all right.”
“I knew this was going to be a bad idea. I told myself you would be all right.”
“I’m glad you called,” he said. “What was going to be a bad idea? Jesus, it’s quarter after three. Was that you on the machine? You called and didn’t leave a message?”
There was no reply, which told him it had indeed been Amanda who had called and elected not to leave a message.
“How long have you been trying to reach me?”
“I got here about eleven,” she said, very softly.
“Where’s here? Home?”
“No.”
“Where are you?”
“In the Warwick Hotel.”
“The Warwick? I thought you were staying with Chad?”
“I was. They put me on the train at seven.”
“I don’t understand.”