Having less than forty dollars to get him through the next three days, he had done the usual. He had called up a Yank. He had called up Gil Archer, the literary agent, who was married to a woman whose name Fallow could never remember. He had suggested that they meet for dinner at Leicester's, leaving the impression he would be bringing a girl along himself. Archer arrived with his wife, whereas he arrived alone. Naturally, under the circumstances, Archer, ever the bland polite Yank, picked up the bill. Such a quiet evening; such an early evening; such a routine evening for an Englishman in New York, a dull dinner paid for by a Yank; he really was thinking about getting up and going home. [...]

The Regent's Park was the sort of New York restaurant favored by married men having affairs with young women. It was grand, glossy, and solemn, with a great deal of marble inside and out, a colossal stiff neck whose hauteur appealed mainly to people staying at the nearby Ritz-Carlton, Park Lane, St. Moritz, and Plaza Hotels. In the history of New York no conversation had ever begun with: "I was having lunch at the Regent's Park the other day and ..."

True to his word, Albert Vogel had secured a table beside the great window. This was not a hard ticket at the Regent's Park. Nevertheless, there it was, the park, in its springtime glory. And there was the statue of Jose Marti, which Vogel had also promised. Marti" s horse was rearing up, and the great Cuban revolutionary was leaning perilously to the right in his saddle. Fallow averted his eyes. An unsteady park statue was too much to contend with.

"These goddamned girls." Vogel shook his head and stared off distractedly for a moment, as if stunned by the very thought. "I swear to God, Pete, you have to hold yourself back. Otherwise, you'd feel so fucking guilty. These girls—today—well, when I was growing up, the big deal was that when you went to college, you could drink when you felt like it. Okay? These girls, they go to college so they can get laid when they feel like it. And who do they want? This is the part that's really pathetic. Do they want nice-looking healthy boys their own age? No. You wanna know who? They want . . . Authority . . . Power . . . Fame . . . Prestige . . . They wanna get laid by the teachers! The teachers go crazy at these places now. You know, when the Movement was going strong, one of the things we tried to do on the campuses was to break down that wall of formality between the faculty and the students, because it was nothing but an instrument of control. But now, Jesus Christ, I wonder. I guess they all want to get laid by their fathers, if you believe Freud, which I don't. You know, this is one thing the women's movement has made no headway with. When a woman reaches forty, her problems are just as big now as they ever were— -- and a guy like me has never had it so good. I'm not so old, but, f'r Chrissake, I've got gray hair—"

"Well, basically, it's just some kid in the South Bronx who gets hit by a car, as far as they're concerned. They can't be bothered. But what they're saying is, there were no witnesses, except for the victim himself, and he's in a terminal coma, and so they wouldn't have a case even if they found the car and the driver. Now, suppose this were your son. He's provided the information, but they're not going to use it because technically it's hearsay."

The whole thing made Fallow's head hurt. He couldn't imagine having a son, and certainly not in some council flats in the Bronx section of New York City in America.

Fallow tried to conceive of transferring the mercury egg and his bilious innards to the Bronx. He could scarcely imagine surviving the trip. From his viewpoint the Bronx was like the Arctic. It was somewhere to the north, and people didn't go there.