"I didn't know that.”

"George got him on the floor.”

"Well you have to wonder if they knew each other why the guy would shoot him right there instead of some side street.”

"Maybe it wasn't planned, to shoot him.”

"They had an argument," Lyle said.

"They had an argument and the guy whips out a handgun. Which they recovered, incidentally. A starter's pistol with the barrel bored out to take twenty-two-caliber ammunition.”

"How do you have an argument with an outsider on the floor? Who on the floor has time to get into an argument with someone who's his own guest?”

"Not everybody with a guest badge is your sister-in-law from East Hartford. Maybe George had interesting friends.”

With his index finger McKechnie made a wigwag motion over the glasses. The bartender moved their way, talking to someone over his shoulder.

"You know what it all means, don't you?”

"Tell me, Frank.”

"It means they'll install one of those metal detection devices and we'll all have to walk through it every time we go on the floor. I hate those goddamn things. They can damage your bone marrow. My life is crud enough as it is.”

3

Lyle sat by a window at home, in T-shirt and jeans, barefoot, drinking Irish lager.

Pammy bought fruit at a sidewalk stand. She loved the look of fruit in crates, outdoors, tiers of peaches and grapes. Buying fresh fruit made her feel good. It was an act of moral excellence. She looked forward to taking the grapes home, putting them in a bowl and letting cold water run over the bunches. It gave her such pleasure, hefting one of the bunches in her hand, feeling the water come cooling through. Then there were peaches. The earthly merit of peaches.

Lyle remembered having seen some pennies in the bedroom. He went in there. Ten minutes later he found them, three, sitting on a copper-and-brown Kleenex box. He heard Pam take the keys out of her purse. He stacked the pennies on the dresser. Transit tokens on the right side of the dresser. Pennies on the left. He went back to the window.