Typically I’ll nurse a bottle of beer while Carolyn puts away a couple of scotches. Tonight, though, when the waitress came over to ask if we wanted the usual, I started to say, “Yeah, sure,” but stopped myself. “Wait a second, Maxine,” I said.

“Oh-oh,” Carolyn said.

“Eighty-six the beer,” I said. “Make it scotch for both of us.” To Carolyn I said, “What do you mean, ‘oh-oh’?”

“False alarm,” she said. “Eighty-six the oh-oh. You had me worried for a second, that’s all.”

“Oh?”

“I was afraid you were going to order Perrier.”

“And you know that stuff makes me crazy.”

“Bern—”

“It’s the little bubbles. They’re small enough to pierce the blood-brain barrier, and the next thing you know—”

“Bern, cut it out.”

“Most people,” I said, “would be apprehensive if they thought a friend was about to order scotch, and relieved if he wound up ordering soda water. With you it’s the other way around.”

“Bern,” she said, “we both know what it means when a certain person orders Perrier.”

“It means he wants a clear head.”

“And nimble fingers, and quick reflexes, and all the other things you need if you’re about to go break into somebody’s house.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Plenty of times I’ll have a Coke or a Perrier instead of a beer. It doesn’t always mean I’m getting ready to commit a felony.”

“I know that. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I know it’s true.”

“So?”

“I also know you make it a rule not to drink any alcohol whatsoever before you go out burgling, and—”

“Burgling,” I said.

“It’s a word, isn’t it?”