I said, “How many drinks you had, Senator?”

Jim said, “Please,” and held up his hand.

If this had been a saloon in the Old West, the place would have cleared about now, the loud rustling of fifty chairs pushing back from tables, wood scraping against wood. But it was a posh bar in Boston in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, and Mulkern didn’t look like he’d wear a six-gun real well. Too much belly. But then, in Boston, a gun never was much of a match for a signature in the proper place, or a well-chosen slur dropped at precisely the right moment.

Mulkern’s black eyes were staring at me from under heavy lids, the look of a snake whose lair has been invaded, the look of a violent drunk itching for a fight. He said, “Patrick Kenzie,” and leaned across the table toward me. The bourbon on his breath could have ignited a gas station. “Patrick Kenzie,” he repeated, “now you listen to me. There is absolutely no way I will be spoken to in this manner by the son of one of my lackeys. Your father, dear boy, was a dog who jumped when I told him to. And you have no other hope in this town but to carry on in his footsteps. Because” he leaned in farther and suddenly grasped my wrist on the table, hard ”if you show disrespect to me, boyo, your business will be lonelier than an AA meeting on St. Patrick’s Day. One word from me, and you’ll be ruined. And as for your girlfriend here, well, she’ll have a lot more to worry about than a few pops in the eye from her deadbeat husband.”

Angie looked fit to decapitate him, but I put my free hand on her knee.

I took it back and reached into my breast pocket to remove the Xerox I’d made of the photograph. I held it in my hand, away from either Mulkern or Vurnan, and smiled slightly, coldly, I imagine, my eyes never leaving Mulkern’s. I leaned back a little, avoiding his toxic halitosis, and said, “Senator, my father was one of your lackeys. No argument. But, dead or alive, he can piss up a rope as far as I’m concerned. I hated the bastard, so don’t waste your distilled breath on appeals to my sentimentality. Angie is family. Not him. Not you.” I flicked my wrist and my hand came free of his. Before he could pull his back, I closed mine around it and yanked. “And Senator,” I said, “if you ever threaten my livelihood again” I flipped the photocopy on the table in front of him ”I’ll blow a fucking hole in your life.”

If he noticed the photocopy, he didn’t show it. His eyes never left mine, just grew smaller, pinpoints of focused hatred.

I looked at Angie and let go of Mulkern’s hand. “I’m done,” I said and stood up. I patted Jim’s shoulder. “Always a pleasure, Jim.”