“Okay, okay. I called him. Then, a while later, he called me back. Besides, what difference does it make who called who. He’s still my son, just like you are.”

“You called him with a wild new investment idea.”

“This country was built on wild investment ideas. But this is a good one, Lou. A can’t-miss … Sweet Lou … Remember when I used to call you that?”

“Dad, when are you going to learn?”

“This time it’s different.”

“Let me guess. Medical supplies?”

“Nope.”

“Pest-removal services?”

“No, but remind me to check into that one. Look, I’ll tell you because you’ll never guess on your own. It’s gold. Not those sissy Franklin Mint commemorative coins kind of gold—a real mining operation in British Columbia. Riches from the earth. The specs have fortune written all over them.”

“Dad, you’ve got to stop this.”

“I have the brochures in my truck. I’m just asking that you look them over.”

“It’s not gonna happen.”

“That’s what Graham said. Look, just give it a read-through is all I’m asking.”

“Fine. I’ll give it a read.”

“Fine. Can you pass me the ketchup?”

From a spot down the counter, the waitress nodded smugly that she hadn’t missed a word of the father/son exchange, and approved of how the discussion had gone. The tolerance Lou had developed for people struggling with their lives was nudged a bit by the woman, though not nearly to his limit.

The distraction was quickly interrupted by a vegetable chef who was turning a row of peeled carrots into perfect orange disks. He performed the maneuver with the dexterity of a neurosurgeon. The movement, like working a pump handle, was all wrist, with the point of the huge blade never leaving the cutting board. The sound of the broad end of the knife snapping down was like an AK-47 submachine gun.

But what caught Lou’s eye wasn’t just watching the pro at work. It was the youthful, freckle-faced cook directly to the chef’s right. The young man’s dark brown eyes were fixated on the slicing end of the razor-sharp knife. His right hand was just six inches or so from the carrot pieces that were flipping out from the blade like poker chips. Once, then again, it looked to Lou as if the young man—twenty-two if that—was going to make a move to snatch one of the newly minted coins from the cutting board.

Lou tensed.

The chef, lost in concentration, remained fixed on his gleaming blade, which never came up off the cutting board more than a millimeter or so farther than it had to.

Another flinch from the boy—this time involving not only his hand, but his shoulder as well.

The kid was going to go for it.

Lou felt certain of it.

Pushing back from the counter, he rose from his stool.