“It’s all right.”

Leo turned to Buddy Jeannette with a sixteen-inch trocar, a hollow, chrome-plated brass rod with a handle at one end and a knife-sharp point at the other.

“You were there, weren’t you, just a few days ago?”

“Leo, don’t start with the trocar yet, okay? Let’s get this cleared up. What day are we talking about?”

“You worked three nights this week, so it must’ve been Monday. I think around six o’clock.”

Jack nodded, but not ready to come right out and admit anything, his conscience telling him he was innocent. “Uh-huh, and who was I with?”

Leo said, “You know who you were with.” He picked up a length of plastic tubing coupled to a metal aspirating device that hung inside the sink and attached the tubing to the handle end of the trocar. “You gonna try and tell me you weren’t with her? Kind of girl you can spot a mile away with that red hair?”

“Yeah, I was with Helene.”

“You admit it.”

“I want to know who told you.”

“You admit it, what difference does it make?”

“Leo, you’re not sayng I was with her, you’re accusing me of it.”

“If that’s the way you take it.”

“But what am I being accused of? I’m not a parolee anymore, Leo, I’ve been rehabilitated. I don’t have to stand at attention and take any more shit, okay? I want to know what I did.”

“I don’t know. Did you take her up to a room?”

“I happpen to run into her. I haven’t seen Helene in, you know how long, it’s been years.”

“Since you went to prison.”

“We had a drink, that’s all.”

“But did you have the urge?”

“To what?”

“Take her up to a room.”

“Leo, you can’t look at a girl like Helene and not get the urge, that’s the way God made us.” He watched Leo move toward Buddy with the trocar. “What it looks like to me, you’re worried I could be getting into something,” Jack said, “or I’m gonna screw up again because this guy used to be a friend of mine, years ago.”