'Heidi has legal recourse,' Houston said carefully. 'You understand?'
'I understand,' Billy said. 'You're talking about you and Heidi and the Three Stooges there at the Glassman Clinic getting together and committing me to Sunnyvale Acres, Basket-Weaving Our Speciality.'
'That's pretty melodramatic, Billy. She's worried about Linda as well as about you.'
'We're both worried about Linda,' Billy said. 'And I'm worried about Heidi, as well. I mean, I have my moments when I'm so angry with her that I feel sick to my stomach, but I mostly still love her. And so I worry. You see, she's misled you to a degree, Mike.'
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'I know you don't. And I'm not going to tell you. She might, but my guess is that she won't - all she wants to do is forget that the whole thing ever happened, and filling you in about certain details she may have overlooked the first time around would get in the way of that. Let's just say that Heidi's got her own guilt trip to work out. Her cigarette consumption is up from a pack a day to two and a half.'
A long pause ... and then Mike Houston returned to his original chorus: 'However that may be, Billy, you must see that these tests are in the best interests of everyone con -'
'Good-bye, Mike,' Halleck said, and hung up softly.
Chapter Fifteen. Two Phone Conversations
Billy spent the rest of the afternoon stewing his way back and forth through the air-conditioned house, catching glimpses of his new self in mirrors and polished surfaces.
How we see ourselves depends a lot more on our conception of our physical bulk than we usually think.
He found nothing comforting in this idea at all.
My sense of what I'm worth depends on how much of the world I displace as I walk around? Christ, that's a demeaning thought. That guy Mr T. could pick up an Einstein and lug him around all day under one arm like a ... a schoolbook or something. So does that make Mr T. somehow better, more important?
A haunting echo of T. S. Eliot chimed in his head like a faraway bell on Sunday morning: That is not what I meant, that is not what I meant at all. And it wasn't. The idea of size as a function of grace, or intelligence, or as a proof of God's love, had gone out around the time that the obesely waddling William Howard Taft had turned the presidency over to the epicene - almost gaunt - Woodrow Wilson.
How we see reality depends a lot more on our conception of our physical bulk than we usually think.
Yes - reality. That was a lot closer to the heart of the matter. When you saw yourself being erased pound by pound, like a complicated equation being erased from a blackboard line by line and computation by computation, it did something to your sense of reality. Your own personal reality, reality in general.
He had been fat - not bulky, not a few pounds over weight, but downright pig-fat. Then he had been stout, then just about normal (if there really was such a thing the Three Stooges from the Glassman Clinic seemed to think there was, anyway), then thin. But now thinness was beginning to slip into a new state: scrawniness. What came after that? Emaciation, he supposed. And after that, something that still lingered just beyond the bounds of his imagination.
He was not seriously worried about being hauled away to the funny farm; such procedures took time. But the final conversation with Houston showed him clearly just how far things had gone, and how impossible it was that anyone was going to believe him - then or ever. He wanted to call Kirk Penschley - the urge was nearly insurmountable, even though he knew Kirk would call him when and if any of the three investigative agencies the firm employed had turned up something.
He called a New York number instead, paging to the back of his address book to find it. Richard Ginelli's name had bobbed uneasily up and down in his mind since the very beginning of this thing - now it was time to call him.
Just in case.
'Three Brothers,' the voice on the other end said. 'Specials tonight include veal marsala and our own version of fettuccine Alfredo.'
'My name is William Halleck, and I would like to speak to Mr Ginelli, if he's available.'
After a moment of considering silence, the voice said: 'Halleck.'
'Yes.'
The phone clunked down. Faintly Billy could hear pots and pans crashing and bashing together. Someone was swearing in Italian. Someone else was laughing. Like everything else in his life these days, it all seemed very far away.
At last the phone was picked up.
'William!' It occurred to Billy again that Ginelli Was the only person in the world who called him that. 'How are you doing, paisan?'
'I've lost some weight.'
'Well, that's good,' Ginelli said. 'You were too big, William, I gotta say that, too big. How much you lose?'