Halleck sat at the defense table pretending to pore over a sheaf of papers. When the hearing room was mostly empty, he rose, hands stuffed into his suit coat pockets in a gesture he hoped looked casual. He was actually holding his trousers up through his pockets.
He took off the suit coat in the privacy of a men's room stall, hung it up, looked at his pants, and then took off his belt. His pants, still buttoned and zipped, slithered down to his ankles; his change made a muffled jingle as his pockets struck the tile. He sat down on the toilet, held the belt up like a scroll, and looked at it. He could read a story there which was more than unsettling. The belt had been a Father's Day present two years ago from Linda. He held the belt up, reading it, and felt his heart speeding up to a frightened run.
The deepest indentation in the Niques belt was just beyond the first hole. His daughter had bought it a little small, and Halleck remembered thinking at the time ruefully - that it was perhaps forgivable optimism on her part. It had, nevertheless, been quite comfortable for a long while. It was only since he'd quit smoking that it got to be a bit hard to buckle the belt, even using the first hole.
After he'd quit smoking ... but before he'd hit the Gypsy woman.
Now there were other indents in the belt: beyond the second hole ... and the fourth ... and the fifth ... finally the sixth and last.
Halleck saw with growing horror that each of the indents was lighter than the last. His belt told a truer, briefer story than Michael Houston had done. The weight loss was still going on, and it wasn't slowing down; it was speeding up. He had gotten to the last hole in the Niques belt he'd believed only two months ago he would have to quietly retire as too small. Now he needed a seventh hole, which he didn't have.
He looked at his watch and saw he'd have to get back soon. But some things were more important than whether or not Judge Boynton decided to enter a will into probate.
Halleck listened. The men's room was quiet. He held up his pants with one hand and stepped out of the stall. He let his pants drop again and looked at himself in one of the mirrors over the row of sinks. He raised the tails of his shirt in order to get a better look at the belly which until just lately had been his bane.
A small sound escaped his throat. That was all, but that was enough. The selective perception couldn't hold up; it shattered all at once. He saw that the modest potbelly which had replaced his bay window was now gone. Although his pants were down and his shirt was pulled up over his unbuttoned vest, the facts were clear enough in spite of the ludicrous pose. Actual facts, as always, were negotiable - you learned that quickly in the lawyer business - but the metaphor which came was more than persuasive; it was undeniable. He looked like a kid dressed up in his father's clothes. Halleck stood in disarray before the short row of sinks, thinking hysterically: Who's got the Shinola? I've got to daub on a fake mustache!
A gagging, rancid laughter rose in his throat at the sight of his pants bundled around his shoes and his black nylon socks climbing three-quarters of the way up his hairy calves. In that moment he suddenly, simply, believed ... everything. The Gypsy had cursed him, yes, but it wasn't cancer; cancer would have been too kind and too quick. It was something else, and the unfolding had only begun.
A conductor's voice shouted in his mind, Next stop, Anorexia Nervosa! All out for Anorexia Nervosa!
The sounds rose in his throat, laughter that sounded like screams, or perhaps screams that sounded like laughter, and what did it really matter?
Who can I tell! Can I tell Heidi? She'll think I'm crazy.
But Halleck had never felt saner in his life.
The outer door of the men's room banged open.
Halleck retreated quickly into the stall and latched it, frightened.
'Billy?' John Parker, his assistant.
'In here.'
'Boynton's coming back soon. You okay?'
'Fine,' he said. His eyes were shut.
'Do you have gas? Is it your stomach?'
Yeah, it's my stomach, all right.
'I just got to mail a package. I'll be out in a minute or so.'