“Okay, this must be her now,” he assumed. “Hello.”

“I-van Da-vid, what are you doing right now?”

It was Lucina Gallo, as he had guessed. Her question sounded urgent. Ivan could hear faint music blaring in the background.

Okay, how do I answer that? he asked himself. He mumbled, “Ah…actually—”

Lucina cut him off. “How fast can you get downtown?”

Ivan hesitated again. “Ah—”

Lucina cut him off again. “I-van, I’m going to have a mee-ting with a couple of football players from the Chargers at the Treasure Grill. And I want to throw a big birthday par-ty. If you can make it here in no more than thir-ty minutes, I can let you pitch them with me.”

What was an eager businessman to do…?

“I’ll be there,” he told her.

She said, “O-kay. I’ll make them wait for you.”

As soon as Ivan hung up the phone, he cursed himself again. “Shit!” It was twenty minutes to midnight. Then he wondered, “What should I wear?”

He froze for a minute, standing in the middle of his bedroom while he thought it over. Football players, hunh?…Wear something flashy, he told himself.

He walked into his closet and pulled out a colorful party shirt he had bought for himself after graduating from college. But after putting it on, he decided that it was too bright and loud.

“Yeah, that’s too much…but maybe I could put a blazer over it.” He grabbed a navy blue sports jacket to wear over the top. He liked how the combination looked with his dark denim jeans and brown leather shoes.

“Not bad,” he decided, looking it over in the bathroom mirror. With no time to waste, he brushed his teeth, tossed on a dab of Escape cologne, and headed for the door.

When he walked out into his living room, Derrick was sound asleep on the sofa. The cable TV was on an HBO adult series.

Ivan chuckled and went on about his business.

AT SEVEN MINUTES AFTER MIDNIGHT, Ivan found a parking space off of Fifth Avenue and rushed into the Treasure Grill to meet up with Lucina and the Chargers.

“May I help you?” the hostess asked him at the front entrance.

Ivan looked like a man who was late for a hot date that had cooled off. The place was nearly empty.

“Yeah, I’m looking for a, ah, pretty Brazilian girl with some football players.”

The hostess smiled at him. She was a college-age blonde in all black.

She said, “You must be Ivan David.”

“Yeah,” Ivan answered her with a nod.

She nodded back to him. “They’re in the back. Follow me.”

She led the way to a secluded section of the restaurant where they had pulled two tables together to accommodate a group of eight. But at the moment there were only seven; three football players, Lucina, and three other drop-dead-gorgeous women.