"So somebody took it."

"Right."

"If they go to the IRS with it-"

"Then we're dead. That's all. They can plant us next towhatsisname's wife,Tillary's. You miss the funeral, don't worry about it. I'll understand."

"Was anything else missing, Skip?"

"Didn't seem to be."

"So it was a very specific theft. Somebody walked in, took the books, and left."

"Bingo."

I worked it out in my mind. "If it was somebody with a grudge against you, somebody you fired, say-"

"Yeah, I thought of that."

"If they go to the Feds, you'll know about it when a couple of guys in suits come around and show you their ID. They'll take all your records, slap a lien on your bank accounts, and whatever else they do."

"Keep talking, Matt. You're really making my day."

"If it's not somebody who's got ahardon for you, then it's somebody looking to turn a dollar."

"By selling the books."

"Uh-huh."

"To us."

"You're the ideal customers."

"I thought of that. So didKasabian. Sit tight, he tells me. Sit tight, and whoever took 'em'llget in touch, and we worry about it then. Just sit tight in the meantime.Tight's no problem, it's the sitting that's getting to me. Can you get bail for cheating on taxes?"

"Of course."

"Then I suppose I can get it and run out on it. Leave the country. Live the rest of my life inNepal selling hash to hippies."

"All that's still a long ways off."

"I suppose." He looked thoughtfully at his cigarette, drowned it in the dregs of his beer. "I hate it when they do that," he said thoughtfully. "Send back glasses with butts floating in them. Disgusting." He looked at me, his eyes probing mine. "Anything you can do for me on this? I mean for hire."

"I don't see what. Not at this point."

"So in the meantime I just wait. That's always the hard part for me, always has been. I ran track in high school, the quarter-mile. I was lighter then. I smoked heavy, I smoked since I was thirteen, but you can do anything at that age and it doesn't touch you. Nothingtouches kids, that's why they all think they'regonna live forever." He drew another cigarette halfway out of the pack, put it back again. "I loved the races, but waiting for the event to start, I hated that. Some guys would puke. I never puked but I used to feel like it. I would pee and then I'd think I had to pee again five minutes later." He shook his head at the memory."And the same thing overseas, waiting to go into combat. I never minded combat, and there was a lot about it to mind. Things that bother me now, remembering them, but while they were going on it was a different story."

"I can understand that."

"Waiting, though, that was murder." He pushed his chair back. "What do I owe you, Matt?"

"For what?I didn't do anything."

"For the advice."

I waved the thought away. "You can buy me that drink," I said, "and that'll be fine."

"Done," he said. He stood up. "I may need a hand from you somewhere down the line."

"Sure," I said.

He stopped to talk to Dennis on the way out. I nursed my coffee. By the time I was done with it a woman two tables away had paid her check and left her newspaper behind. I read it, and had another cup of coffee with it, and a shot of bourbon to sweeten the coffee.

The afternoon crowd was starting to fill the room when I called the waitress over. I palmedher a buck and told her to put the check on my tab.

"No check," she said. "The gentleman paid it."

She wasnew, she didn't know Skip by name. "He wasn't supposed to do that," I said. "Anyway, I had a drink after he left. Put it on my tab, all right?"

"Talk to Dennis," she said.

She went to take somebody's order before I could reply. I went to the bar and crooked a finger for Dennis. "She tells me there's no check for my table," I said.

"She speaks the truth." He smiled. He often smiled, as if much of what he saw amused him. "Devoepaid the check."

"He wasn't supposed to do that. Anyway, I had a drink after he left and told her to put it on my tab, and she said to see you. Is this something new? Don't I have a tab?"

His smile broadened. "Anytime you want one, but as a matter of fact you don't have one now. Mr.Devoe covered it.Wiped the slate clean."

"What did it come to?"

"Eighty dollars and change.I could probably come up with the exact figure if it mattered. Does it?"

"No."

"He gave me a hundred dollars to cover your tab, the check today, a tip forLyddie and something to ease my own weariness of the soul. I suppose one could maintain that your most recent drink was not covered, but my inscrutable sense of the rightness of things is that it was."Another wide smile. "So you owe us nothing," he said.

I didn't argue. If there was one thing I learned in the NYPD, it was to take what people gave me.

I went back to my hotel, checked for mail and messages. There were none of either. The desk clerk, a loose-limbed black man fromAntigua, said that he didn't mind the heat but he missed the ocean breezes.

I went upstairs and took a shower. My room was hot. There was an air-conditioner, but something was wrong with its cooling element. It moved the warm air around and gave it a chemical flavor but didn't do much about the heat or the humidity. I could shut it off and open the window from the top, but the air outside was no better. I stretched out and must have dozed off for an hour or so, and when I woke up I needed another shower.

I took it and then called Fran. Her roommate answered. I gave my name and waited what seemed like a long time for Fran to come to the phone.

I suggesteddinner, and maybe a movie afterward if we felt up to it. "Oh, I'm afraid I can't tonight, Matt," she said. "I have other plans.Maybe some other time?"

I hung up regretting that I'd called. I checked the mirror, decided I didn't really need a shave after all, got dressed and got out of there.

It was hot on the street, but it would cool down in a couple of hours. Meanwhile, there were bars all over the place, and their air-conditioners all worked better than mine.

CURIOUSLY, I didn't hit it all that hard. I was in a surly mood, gruff and ill-tempered, and that usually led me to take my drinks fast. But I was restless, and as a result I moved around a lot. There were even a few bars that I walked into and out of without ordering anything.

At one point I almost got into a fight. In a joint on Tenth Avenue a rawboned drunk with a couple of teeth missing bumped into me and spilled part of his drink on me, then took exception to the way I accepted his apology. It was all over nothing- he was looking for a fight and I was very nearly ready to oblige him. Then one of his friends grabbed his arms from behind and another stepped between us, and I came to my senses and got out of there.

I walked east on Fifty-seventh. A couple of black hookers were working the pavement in front of the Holiday Inn. I noticed them more than I usually did. One, with a face like an ebony mask, challenged me with her eyes. I felt a rush of anger, and I didn't know who or what I was angry at.

I walked over to Ninth, up half a block to Armstrong's. I wasn't surprised to see Fran there. It was almost as if I had expected her to be there, seated at a table along the north wall. She had her back to me and hadn't noticed me come in.

Hers was a table for two, and her partner was no one I recognized. He had blond hair and eyebrows and an open young face, and he was wearing a slate-blue short-sleeved shirt with epaulets. I think they call it a safari shirt. He was smoking a pipe and drinking a beer. Her drink was something red in an oversize stemmed glass.

Probably a tequila sunrise.That was a big year for tequila sunrises.