The waitress came back with the beer. An older couple strolled in and took a table in the dining room. Formal. A single guy in a gray business suit came in carrying the New York Times and sat at the counter, well away from the two guys in the orange hunting caps. He opened his Times to the real estate section. I drank the Rolling Rock and marveled at how good Karen and the boy and the Rotary awards had looked together, and wondered if that would continue with Peter on the scene. With Peter around, maybe their lives would disintegrate and Karen would fall into prostitution and Toby would end up running with a dope-fiend vampire motorcycle gang and the Rotary would take back their awards. It happens all the time with Hollywood families.

The waitress brought the meat loaf on a heavy white plate like the kind they used in cafeterias in the forties. The slice of meat loaf was wide and thick and weighed almost a pound. There was a large portion of creamed potatoes and about a million green peas, and a thick brown gravy had been ladled over the meat loaf and the potatoes. Nurture food. It smelled wonderful. She said, “Can I get you anything else?”

“Tabasco sauce and another Rolling Rock.”

She brought the Rock and the Tabasco. I applied both liberally. Tabasco is great for clearing the sinus and putting the ruination of lives into perspective. So is the Rolling Rock. The meat loaf was excellent.

What’s wrong with this picture? Peter Alan Nelsen was a celebrity, and the profits from his pictures were subject to stories in Newsweek and Time. Karen would read those stories and know that her ex-husband, the father of her child, was worth millions. Many people, perhaps most, would go after a piece of that, yet she hadn’t. Either for herself or for the boy. Interesting. Maybe Peter wasn’t the boy’s father. Maybe Peter had done such hateful things to Karen that this was her way of punishing him and he deserved it. Maybe Karen was a nut case.

At five minutes before seven a tall guy with a nose like a chayote squash came in and looked around. He was wearing a bright turquoise shirt with a squash-blossom string tie and black slacks and a black duster. The black slacks were a half inch too short and the pointy black shoes were cut a half inch too low, so you ended up seeing a lot of black socks with little red triangles. He looked at me and the guy with the Times and the couple in the back and then he left. Probably looking for the disco.