400
PARTISAN REVIEW
grand design. We may not be able to perceive the perimeters of the design,
but it's certainly
there,
it's being manifested, a power greater than ourselves
is hard at work. It's really very comforting. Suspense without Angst.
Horror without terror."
Mick suddenly found a pair of hands over his eyes and he felt a
woman's breasts press into his back. A voice said "Guess who," and when
he turned he saw it was Heimlich's wife.
"Come on," she said. "You'd know those tits anywhere."
"Whose tits these are I think I know," Mick said. "A loaf of bread, a
jug of thine and wow."
Heimlich's wife dropped him a curtsey.
"The
Mahster,"
she said, "is out picking up some more cheap wine."
"What did he do, take up a collection?"
"Not quite. He cleaned out my purse, the asshole." She took posses–
sion of Mick's arm. "Come on," she said. "It's party time."
She drew him into the living room. It was full of people. They were
mostly people who worked for the magazine and people who used to
work for the magazine and people who wanted to work for the magazine.
All of them were standing in groups and all of them looked as if they
belonged there. Mick felt a small bubble of uneasiness detach itself some–
where inside him. He put a lid on it. None of it really mattered. None of
it could touch him. He was, he decided, immune to all of it.
They squeezed their way past Gettys the Art Director and fat Tony
DeKoven, who had left the magazine to write for Hollywood and had just
been dropped from a Steve Martin picture.
"The only thing I learned in L.A.," DeKoven was saying, "was how to
be a lousy lay."
Heimlich's wife tightened her grip on Mick's arm and they kept mov–
ing. A burst of laughter ripped across the room from a group near the
window. Mick flinched at the sound.
"You really hate this, don't you," Heimlich's wife said. "Why don't you
just come over for dinner some night for God's sake."
"Your husband does something unpleasant to my appetite."
"Nobody said we had to invite him, did
1."
A new 45 dropped onto the stereo. The music was turned down low.
This was a crowd that liked to hear itself talk. Heimlich's wife did not
bother to ask him if he wanted to dance, she just put her arms around him
and waited. Mick knew he was trapped. He had to dance with her. If he
did not dance with her then what he was doing was hugging her close in
the middle of the room.
"Relax," she commanded him.
He moved her stiffly around the floor. His back was beginning to
