MY HEART BEAT WILDLY. I struggled for breath. I said, “How you doing, Jer?” and hoped he couldn't read my mind.
But he was listening to his own drum machine. “I'm doing great,” he said. “Janie just left to visit an aunt in Noblesville and I'm about to step out.”
“Ah,” I said. Miller has had a . . . “friend” for quite a while now. Wendy's in local television. Miller's a lot happier than he used to be. Since his promotion.
He said, “So, when does your big TV advertising campaign start?”
“What?”
“I thought you were having a commercial made.”
“Oh. Yeah. Yeah.”
“Is there going to be a press launch? Beauty queens draped over your magnifying glass?”
I managed to say, “I've got this guy. He's making the ad. He's working on the footage now.”
“Good,” Miller said. “Great. But I'll need to know when it's scheduled. I've got some eye trouble that makes me blink a lot.”
In a good mood, Miller.
Then he said, “Wondered if you wanted to come down for lunch tomorrow.”
My heart sprinted again. “Let me check.”
I put my hand over the phone and closed my eyes.
“Well?” I heard him say.
“Yeah,” I said, unable to invent the simplest lie. “Let's do some lunch. I'll call you in the morning.”
“Good,” he said. “Al, there's some wild stuff going on. You'll be interested.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Our Scummy friends called in their weekly bomb but when the guys got there, nothing.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I figure they never planted it and they're seeing if they can get the publicity anyway.”
“Yeah?”
He cleared his throat. “What we got here is minimalist bombers.”
He waited for me to comment. When I didn't he said, “That's bombers who don't blow things up becoming bombers who don't even leave bombs.”
He wanted me to say, “You never used to use words like `minimalist.'|” I said it.
“Yeah,” he said happily. “Well, I read now.”
A policeman in love.
He said, “At least that conniving bastard at the cable company didn't play this time. It's bad enough he gets in bed with them at all, but if he'd given them airtime when they hadn't actually laid anything down, well, that would have been real bad.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Look, Jer, I've got to go.”
“Me too. Be lucky.”
We hung up.
And I sat.
And I wondered if, by saying nothing to him, I had made whatever decision there was to make.