“Okay. Seven o’clock.” As he hung up, Jake wondered why Agent Mankowitz would want to eat at an Irish pub. Then he thought about how Younger would react to his having dinner with Glynis again—even with an FBI agent as a chaperone.

The pub was crowded and noisy when Jake arrived, nearly ten minutes before seven. People were piled at the bar three and four deep. Irish ballads were bleating out of the speakers in the ceiling, the volume way too high for Jake’s comfort. The waitresses and barmaids were dressed in off-the-shoulder blouses and kelly green skirts: the management’s idea of what Irish lasses wore, Jake reasoned.

He asked the head waitress for a booth, was given a buzzer and told to wait either outside on the sidewalk or at the bar. Jake squeezed through the crowd at the bar and spotted a bottle of Negra Modelo among the display behind the busy barmaids. Mexican beer in an Irish pub, he thought. The evening was filled with incongruities.

The buzzer went off when he was halfway through the dark beer, and as Jake carried his glass to the head waitress’s station, Glynis came in the door, looking fresh and hopeful. She was wearing a coral red patterned summer knit dress, sleeveless, knee-length.

Jake smiled at her, although he couldn’t help looking past Glynis to see if Tim Younger had followed her.

“Is she here yet?” Glynis asked, smiling expectantly.

Jake shook his head. “Not yet.”

A waitress led them through the noisy mob thronging the bar to a booth toward the rear of the room, near the double swinging doors of the kitchen. Jake could smell corned beef and cabbage whenever a waiter pushed through the doors.

A short, chubby woman in a dark pants suit and starched white blouse came to their booth. Her face was round, framed with short-cropped dark hair. The jacket of her suit hung open. Jake wondered if she could button it over her ample bosom.

“Glynis Colwyn?” she asked, in a crisp, no-nonsense voice. “I’m Special Agent Mankowitz.”

Jake half rose from behind the table as Agent Mankowitz slid in beside Glynis. “You must be Jacob Ross,” said the FBI agent.

A real detective, Jake thought as he took her proffered hand. Her grip was strong, firm.

“Now then,” said Agent Mankowitz, “I’ve been assigned to look into your allegations of murder associated with drug trafficking and money laundering.”

“Good,” said Glynis.

“So why don’t you tell me what you know.”

Jake sat as Glynis explained about their suspicions that the murders were a cover-up for narcotics and gambling operations. She was interrupted by a waitress who took their orders for drinks: chardonnay for Glynis, iced tea for Mankowitz. Jake nodded when the waitress asked if he wanted another beer.

Mankowitz listened without comment, without even nodding. The waitress brought their drinks and handed them stiff oversized menus.