"I was wondering, Phil," said Stefanos. "Could I have a word with you, out in the bar?"

"So how well do you know this guy?" said Saylor.

Stefanos folded a dry bar rag into a neat rectangle, tucked it behind the belt line of his jeans so it rested against his hip. "Old family friend."

"How old?"

"His old man worked for my grandfather in the forties, when my grandfather had his grill over on Fourteenth and S."

"Okay, but how well do you know him?"

"I've run into him a couple of times in the last twenty years."

"Uh-huh." Saylor scratched his chin. "If his father worked for your granddaddy, then he must be pretty old."

"I'd say he's cruising up on fifty."

"He must be a real go-getter. Fifty years old and he wants to work in the kitchen of a joint like this."

"I don't even know if he does want to work here. A mutual friend of ours suggested it. You remember the Pizza Parlor Murders a couple of years back?"

"I remember it. So what?"

"Dimitri Karras's son was the kid who got run down by the getaway car."

"Christ."

"Yeah. This guy's no loser. The bottom fell out on him, is what it is. He's trying to put it together, and I thought we could help." Stefanos locked eyes with Saylor. "Look, Phil, the setup we got right now isn't exactly working out. Darnell hasn't caught a grip on the expediter position, and Ramon can't bus tables and wash the load of dishes we got with the business we're doing. Put Darnell back at the sink and bring Karras in to expedite for two hours a day. He's not desperate for money, so it's not a case of how much you pay him. It would do the guy good to just go somewhere every day. Get into the flow of normal life again, you know?"

Saylor pushed his gla.s.ses up on his nose. "You think he can do it? I mean, I feel sorry for the guy about his kid and all that, but I don't want to bring someone with emotional problems in here who's gonna screw up my business."

"Karras was some kind of college instructor if I remember right. And he used to run a multistore retail operation. So I gotta think he can handle this."

"Yeah, but does he have any restaurant experience?"

"He's a Greek, Phil."

"Good point. Okay, talk to him. See for yourself if you think he'll work out. I'm gonna leave it up to you. But I'm only gonna pay ten bucks an hour for two hours a day's worth of work. A free lunch goes with it, and a beer if he'd like. That's it, you hear me?"

"Thanks. You'll talk to Darnell?"

"Yeah, I'll do that. In the meantime, let me outta here before we open. You know I get too nervous when this place heats up."

Phil Saylor patted the John Riggins poster hung over the bar, then stopped to look at the framed Declaration of Independence print hanging by the service station. He smirked, reading the signatures of the Spot's regulars scrawled in childlike, drunken script alongside the signatures of America's forefathers.

"Hey, here's yours," said Saylor. "'Nicholas J. Stefanos.' I like that curlicue thing you did after your last name. And Boyle's name, you can barely read it. Jesus, you guys must have been drunk that night."

"I don't remember, to tell you the truth. But at least we had the sense to use the same color pen."

"Comedians," said Saylor. He was shaking his head as he headed for the door.

Melvin Jeffers raised his up-gla.s.s and said, "Another one of these, Nick. And give that Barry a little volume, will you? 'Cause you know this here is my favorite cut."

Stefanos kicked the house stereo up a notch. He poured rail gin and a hair of dry vermouth into a shaker filled with ice, and strained the mixture into a clean gla.s.s. He walked the drink down to the last stool, where Melvin was in place, seated by the service bar. He set Melvin's martini on a bev nap.

"Here you go, Mel."

Melvin was the Spot's singer; every dive like this had one. He was the musical director during lunch - he arrived daily at noon and left promptly at two P.M P.M. - and in this two-hour period he continuously sang along softly to the tapes, many of which he brought in himself. Melvin Jeffers was a small, neat man with an erect bearing. He wore clean traditional clothing and kept a close-cut Afro. He wrapped his hand around the stem of the up-gla.s.s, closed his eyes, and went into his best Barry White.

"'I don't want to see no panties,'" chanted Melvin solemnly. "'And take off that bra.s.siere, my dear.'"

Stefanos hash-marked Melvin's check.

"Another Manhattan," said the man everyone called Happy, seated in the middle of the bar, staring straight ahead. A filterless cigarette, its untapped ash hanging like a wrinkled gray d.i.c.k, burned down close to his yellowed fingers.

Happy's suit was aqua blue. His shirt and tie were kelp green. Happy wore clothes refused by the Salvation Army.

Stefanos made Happy his drink, which was not, strictly speaking, a Manhattan. Happy liked the sophisticated sound of the name but not the sweet vermouth which crowded the bourbon. Stefanos dropped a maraschino cherry in the gla.s.s, served the drink, and said, "Here you go, Happy."

"You put any liquor in it this time?" said Happy, talking from one side of his mouth.

"No. We're trying to cut back on our overhead."

Happy didn't laugh. No one had ever seen him even crack a smile.

Stefanos marked Happy's check.

"Ordering," said Anna w.a.n.g, the lunch waitress who had come on as a college student and stayed three years past graduation.

Stefanos went down to the service station, where Anna was taking a hit off his cigarette. She pulled the Camel from her mouth, smoke curling up into her nostrils. She wedged the cigarette back in the V of the ashtray.

Stefanos said, "That's called a French inhale, what you did just there."

"When in Paris," said Anna, making a quick gesture down the bar at Happy.

"What's your pleasure?"

"Three Bud drafts, a Light bottle, a sea breeze, and a frozen marg, no salt."

"Who's the frozen drink for?"

"Linda, that woman with the hair, from the Treasury? She's at table three."

"Tell Linda I don't do frozen drinks. She wants a Slurpee she's gotta go to Seven-Eleven."

"How about I tell her the blender's on the fritz?"

"Okay. Tell her that."

Ramon went by with a bus tray, brushing Anna's leg as he pa.s.sed.

"I need silver," said Anna to Ramon.

"Okay, chica, chica," said Ramon, giving Anna a quick wink for good measure.

Anna rolled her eyes and said, "If he'd spend more time getting the dishes and silverware turned over and less time trying to get in my pants, things would run smoother around here."

"I'm working on that," said Stefanos. "But I can't guarantee the little guy will leave you alone. He's like Jordan in the lane: not to be denied."

"Can I have that frozen marg - please?"

"No."

Stefanos got Anna her drinks: the beers, the sea breeze, and a frozen margarita, no salt. Anna dressed them and jockeyed them out to the dining room. Stefanos drew a third pitcher for two Department of Labor drunks, turned the tape over for Melvin, and refilled the coffee cup of a recovering alcoholic named Dave, who was reading a Howard Browne paperback at the bar. Stefanos made another Manhattan for Happy, served it, and emptied his ashtray.

"What's the special today?" asked Happy.

"Grilled chicken breast," said Stefanos.

"Any good?"

"Chef says you could f.u.c.k it."

"Gimme one of those," said Happy.

Stefanos said, "Right."

NINE.

DAN BOYLE, a thick man with dirty-blond hair and pale eyes, ambled into the Spot at half past two. He sported a lined raincoat that looked as if it had been trampled by a horse, a worn Harris tweed jacket underneath, and a Colt Python holstered beneath the jacket. Dan Boyle had a seat across from the ice chest at the empty bar.

"Nick, how's it goin'?"

"Going good."

"Gimme the combo."

Boyle dropped his deck of Marlboro reds onto the mahogany bar while Stefanos poured three inches of Jack Daniel's into a beveled shot gla.s.s. He served Boyle the shot and uncapped a bottle of Bud that he had buried in ice. He pulled another bottle from the same place and put one foot up on the edge of the chest.

Boyle put down half his shot. His fingers were like white fish sticks, and they covered the gla.s.s. He picked up his beer bottle and tapped Stefanos's. Both of them drank. It was Stefanos's first sip of the day, and the beer was good.

Boyle made a head motion in the direction of the house speakers. "What're we listening to?"

"Gaunt."

"c.u.n.t?"

"Gaunt."

"Y'know something? When Melvin takes off at two, the musical selection goes to s.h.i.t around here. Does Phil know you play this stuff?"

"Phil doesn't care as long as the reading on the register tape matches what's in the cash box."

"I should complain."

"You are complaining. Anyway, Boyle, I don't see you running screaming toward the exit."

"You know I'd never do that." Boyle winked clumsily over the lip of his gla.s.s. " 'Cause this here is my oasis in the asphalt desert."

Stefanos wiped his hands dry on his bar rag. "I read in the Post Post how you got a new boss." how you got a new boss."

"Yeah. The acting acting chief of police promoted a guy who's never worked Homicide." chief of police promoted a guy who's never worked Homicide."

"Nice picture of him in the paper."

"He's got a sweet smile, doesn't he? Like I'm gonna march into h.e.l.l behind that guy."

"It won't make a difference. Guys like you don't really have bosses, Boyle. You're one of those rogue cops you hear about. Like the ones you see on TV shows. The guys who are always quitting, tossing their gun and shield on their lieutenant's desk before storming out of the office."

"Except I don't quit." Boyle waved his index finger around the top of the gla.s.s. "Hit me."

Stefanos took the Jack off the middle shelf and poured. "What do you hear about a kid named Randy Weston? He's up on murder charges for doing a dealer named Donnel Lawton. Up around First and Kennedy?"

"I'm not familiar with the case." Boyle lit a smoke. "Elaine Clay got you running on that one?"

"She mentioned something about it, that's all."

"You watch yourself if you're going to be hanging around Kennedy. People think, it's just off North Capitol and New Hampshire, it's residential, nothing's going to happen, right? I've seen some really bad s.h.i.t go down on that strip. Remember the First and Kennedy Crew? The kid who shot up the police station a few years back, he was a member. Our guys were investigating a multiple homicide in that neighborhood the first time they brought him in. Things happen down there, brother. So you just watch yourself, hear?"

"Thanks, Dad." Stefanos put fire to a Camel. "So how're the kids?"

"Great. I walked into my daughter's room last night - she's all of thirteen - and I see this poster of a rapper hung on her wall. Wearing one of those slingshot swimsuits, too; the guy's got a crank on him that would scare a mule. He's one of those former drug dealers who make records now, raps about busting a cap in someone's head, f.u.c.king women in the a.s.s, all that. The same kind of boofer I see on the street every day, lookin' at me like he wants to cut my throat. A dude bragging about being a cop killer and getting paid for it - that's my daughter's hero. And then, the same night, some guy calls for her on the phone; I can tell by the sound of his voice he's a common little street -"

"Boofer?"

"I was gonna say 'punk.' "

"I should have waited to read your lips instead of your mind."

"So I give the phone to my daughter, and I gotta watch her face light up for him. him. I tell my wife we ought to move, but where are we gonna go, huh? We already live in the suburbs." I tell my wife we ought to move, but where are we gonna go, huh? We already live in the suburbs."

"You could try Utah."