I might have been in a cathedral on Martin Luther’s birthday. When I slotted a quarter into the telephone, the rattle echoed. “Yes.” How Raf got so much Arabic intonation into so short a word was a mystery. I said, “Walker, the Commodore included this number in some stuff he sent me today. Can you take him a message?” “He’s sleeping.” “I think he’ll want you to wake him up for this one.” The roast I hadn’t eaten at the Mariannes’ had come back to haunt me. Maybe it had to do with Alfred Hendriks being dead meat, but I had to have some. After Raf and I finished talking I bought a sack of burgers at a White Castle and ate them in the car. I didn’t feel like fit company for people. I turned on the radio, heard some music, and listened to the news. Hendriks wasn’t on it. By the next report he would be; Detroit is a reporters’ town. I turned it off and ate and thought. Mostly I ate. I went back with John Alderdyce further than anybody. In that time I had given up trying to trace the workings of his mind.
