>It was two in the morning when she called. Her voice sounded

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>It was two in the morning when she called. Her voice sounded strange and distant, as if she were turned away from the mouthpiece.

>“What’s the matter?” he said angrily. “Where are you? Why did you leave the baby alone?”

>“I’m...in a phone booth,” she said. She giggled.

>“Why did you leave Billy alone?”

>“I’m not...alone,” Sally giggled. “We’re in here together.”

>“Who? Who?”

>“Me...and this big, black nigger.” Jack heard a distant muttering, and Sally’s voice saying, “Why not call you that? That’s what you are. That’s what I wanted. A big...black... nigger.”

>“What the hell’s going on!” Jack yelled.

>“We’re in this phone booth,” Sally giggled, her voice suddenly loud, intimate, her mouth pressed up against the instrument. “We’re sort of, well, fucking in here.”

>Jack hung up the telephone very quietly. He thought about the man with Sally, who probably did not care whether Sally was “using” him or not as long as he got what he wanted. Try as he might, Jack could not hate or even dislike the man. But when Sally showed up several hours later, alone, he was waiting for her. He had most of her clothes packed into her set of matched luggage.