We had dinner at a place called the Rusty Scupper, just off the Square. Margaritas for the ladies, Beck’s Dark for Eberhardt and me. Seafood and sourdough French bread all around. The restaurant was built on pilings out over the Inner Harbor, and we had a window table. It was one of those cold, clear December evenings when the stars seemed to burn like icefire and all the night shapes stand out in bold relief against the hard black of the sky. The water sparkled with reflected lights from the ships anchored across the harbor at the Alameda Naval Supply Center, and from the pleasure boats down at the Pacific Marina and the Alameda Yacht Harbor. The ambience was one of the reasons we were all enjoying ourselves; the other was the company. The fare was good, but we could have been eating junk food and it wouldn’t have mattered a bit.

We were having coffee when Kerry and Bobbie Jean got up and went off in tandem to the powder room, the way women do. When they were out of sight Eberhardt leaned across the table and said, “Well? What do you think?”

“I think she’s too good for you.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said seriously. “I told you she was a sweetheart, didn’t I? Isn’t she a sweetheart?”

“She is, and I apologize for doubting you.”

“Yeah.” He drank some of his coffee. “Damn,” he said then.

“What?”

“She makes me nervous, a little. Like a damn kid.”

“How so?”

“I dunno. She just does. We haven’t been to bed yet.”

“Did I ask?”

“No, I mean I want to, I think she wants to, but I can’t ask her. I try but I can’t get the words out.”