“Doin’ okay, Quarry. Hunky fuckin’ dory.” He frowned, apologetic again. “Okay I call you that? Prefer something else?”

“Quarry’s fine. Is ‘Jerry’ okay, here? Are you on a job?”

But I knew he was.

He ignored the last question and answered the first: “Call me anything but late for lunch.” He laughed, pleased with his own wit. His teeth were white, and he had a nice smile, friendly as hell, but the best bet at the Four Jacks right now was that Jerry kept that smile in a glass overnight.

“Speaking of lunch,” I said, “I just had a late one. You want to order something?”

“I do,” he said, “but not lunch.”

He waved the redhead over, and ordered a double Scotch, straight up. She nodded dutifully, and went off in a rustle of fringe.

Jerry having ducked my question, I tried again: “Am I interrupting anything? Last thing I’d want to do is call attention, if you’re working.”

“Naw,” he said, pawing the air with a thick-fingered hand. “It’s fine. My part’s done, anyway.”

That was good to know. That meant Jerry was working the back-up position. When I’d worked for the Broker, the drill had been two-man teams-one of us went in and gathered intel, nailing the target’s pattern; a day or two before the hit was to go down, the other half of the team would come in, get filled in by the back-up guy, and do the deed. At that point, the first guy was just there for back-up, in case anything went south, and to make sure his partner got away clean.

Passive and Active, the Broker called it. We all had a preference, and mine was Active-I preferred coming in for a day or two, and do the dirty work, rather than sit for a couple of weeks watching and taking notes. But the Broker insisted we trade off at least once every four contracts. Jerry here had been one of the first Passive specialists I’d worked with, and I had pretended to get along with him fine, but I hated his ass.