I finished the story for Paws to Reflect in time to go to Mercedes’s nightclub, arriving before the small red neon my dive sign was turned on. Ian had invested in my friend’s business, allowing her to do a remodel and add the My Dive Annex, a tiny shop that sold cafecitos and Cuban sandwiches.

Lenny, the house manager, was hurrying through the lobby as I came in. He gave me a pat on my bottom and said, “Sugar, do me a favor and help the bartenders. One of the girls is running late tonight.”

“Sure, Lenny. I could waitress if you need me.”

That sent him into convulsions of laughter, bending his skinny torso over and holding his arm across his waist. After he’d finished, he gasped, “I remember when Mercedes hired you.”

Chagrined, I said, “Who knew that balancing a tray of glasses was so hard?”

After helping the bartenders stack barware and tote supplies from the storeroom, I went to Mercedes’s office and stretched out on the grubby brown sofa that had survived the remodeling.

We could hear the new house band, Juanita and the Rat Dogs, rehearsing. Oswald hadn’t liked their klezmer-Cuban music, but Mercedes and I agreed that they were brilliant. “I love Juanita’s percussive right hand,” I said as the musician ripped through a piano solo.

“Me, too,” Mercedes said, turning her head from her computer screen to listen.

My friend was a sturdy woman who’d inherited her Cuban mother’s cocoa complexion, her Scottish father’s freckles, and both parents’ immigrant work ethic. She’d shared her passion for music with me, introducing me to dazzling bands and genres, and she’d taught me how to salsa dance.

Her short dreads were pulled back with a headband and she wore a black T-shirt with a purple graphic that said Attack of the Rat Dogs, the title of the album she was producing with the band.

“Can I have a few of those T-shirts?” I asked. Oswald had always liked funny T-shirts. Maybe I could give Gabriel one to pass on to him.

“You have to pay for them.”

“Serio, Mercedes, I work here for free all the time.”

“You drink and watch shows here for free all the time.” She wasn’t smiling, but her brown face had an affable, intelligent expression that I loved. She kept pulling off her new glasses, rubbing the bridge of her nose, and putting them on again.

“I contribute substantially to the ambiance,” I said. “I just got hit with a monster fee from my co-op. They’ve got to do electrical work.”

“¿Cuanto cuesta?”