JAY WALT WAS getting a coffee, cream and sugar, to go.

Ryan slid onto a stool between a couple of black girls with coats on, visitors, and hunched over the menu. He didn’t feel like talking to Jay Walt in the coffee shop of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, ninth floor: Jay Walt talked out loud wherever he was, even on an elevator. When Ryan was with him he’d feel people looking at them.

“Jesus Christ, hey, where you been? Move down one, honey, okay? You mind? Thank you, sweetheart.”

Ryan looked up at the beige leisure suit and trench coat over one arm-belt and rings and epaulets-and the alligator attachй case and the coffee to go with the plastic lid, all of it being wedged in against the counter, close to him.

“What’re you, so busy you don’t call your answering service anymore? I been trying to get you, two days I been calling. I figure you’re shacked up with some broad filed for divorce. Needs a little sympathy, huh? I know, don’t tell me, buddy, I been there.”

Jay Walt’s back filled and stretched the double-knit suit. The black girl next to him looked over. It was close in here, humid, the stools filled shoulder to shoulder.

“I figure you had some paper,” Ryan said, “no hurry. I was going to call you today or tomorrow. But I don’t think I can handle it right now.”

“Jesus, you eat in here?” Jay Walt pulled his tinted glasses off to look at the vapor forming.

“Not too often. Usually I’m downtown, I go around to the Hellas-”

“Eat that Greek shit?”

“-or the Athens.” Sounding like he was apologizing.

“I grab a cup,” Jay Walt said, “drink it in the car, make a few phone calls.”

“You got a phone in the Mark now?”

“Naw, new Cadillac Seville. It’s small, you know, but it’s okay. With the phone, shit, I could drive to Miami handle all my business I don’t have to do personally.” Jay Walt was peeling the lid off his coffee to go.