“Yeah, scrambled, Nana. Rye toast be nice. I'm starved away to nothing, and nobody does breakfast like you do.”

“You know that's the truth,” she cackled, and turned up the burners.“ You're lucky I'm an old-school lady. You're all lucky.”

“We know it, Nana,” Sampson smiled. He turned to the kids. “I need to talk to your father.”

“He's retiring today,” Jannie said.

“So I've heard,” said Sampson. “It's all over the streets, front page of the Post, probably on the Today Show this morning.”

“You heard your Uncle John,” I told the kids.“ Now scoot. I love you. Scat!”

Jannie and Damon rolled their eyes and gave us looks, but they got up from the table, gathered their books into backpacks and started out the door to the Sojourner Truth School, which is about a five-block walk from our house on Fifth Street.

“Don't even think about going out that door like that. Kisses,”I said.

They came over and dutifully kissed Nana and me. Then they kissed Sampson. I really don't care what goes on in this cool, unsentimental post-modern world, but that's how we do it in our house. Bin Laden probably never got kissed enough when he was a kid.

“I have a problem,” Sampson said as soon as the kids left.

“Am I supposed to hear this?” Nana asked from the stove.

“Of course you are,” John said to her. “Nana, Alex, I've told you both about a good friend of mine from my Army days. His name is Ellis Cooper and he's still in the Army after all these years. At least he was. He was found guilty of murdering three women off post. I had no idea about any of it until friends started to call. He'd been embarrassed to tell me himself. Didn't want me to know. He only has about three weeks to the execution, Alex.”

I stared into Sampson's eyes. I could see sadness and distress there, even more than usual. “What do you want, John?”