“I’m guessing Bermuda,” Danny said.

Luther caught his eye and smiled. Of all the Coughlins, he had the least experience with Danny, but Avery had been right—you felt no lying in the man.

“Cuba,” Luther said to Danny.

“Too far south,” Danny said.

They both chuckled.

The gamesmanship left McKenna’s eyes. His flesh pinkened. “Ah, a bit a sport the lads are having now.” He smiled at Ellen Coughlin down the other end of the table. “A bit of sport,” he repeated and cut into his roast pork.

“So what’s the guess, Eddie?” Captain Coughlin speared a potato slice.

Eddie McKenna looked up. “I’ll have to give Mr. Laurence a bit more thought before I hazard any more idle conjecture on that point.”

Luther turned back to the coffee tray, but not before he caught another look from Danny. Not an entirely pleasant look, one bearing a hint of pity.

Luther shrugged into his topcoat as he came out onto the stoop and saw Danny leaning against the hood of a nut-brown Oakland 49. Danny raised a bottle of something in Luther’s direction, and when Luther reached the street he saw that it was whiskey, the good stuff, prewar.

“A drink, Mr. Laurence?”

Luther took the bottle from Danny and raised it to his lips. He paused, looking at him, making sure sharing a bottle with a colored was what the man wanted. Danny gave him a quizzical arch of his eyebrow, and Luther tilted the bottle to his lips and drank.

When Luther handed it back, the big cop didn’t wipe the bottle with his sleeve, just tilted it to his own lips and took himself a healthy snort. “Good stuff, uh?”

Luther remembered how Avery Wallace had said this Coughlin was a strange who did his own thinking. He nodded.

“Nice night.”

“Yeah.” Crisp but windless, the air a bit chalky with the dust of dead leaves.

“Another?” Danny handed the bottle back.

Luther took a drink, eyeing the big white man and his open, handsome face. A lady-killer, Luther bet, but not the kind to make it his life’s work. Something going on behind those eyes that told Luther this man heard music others didn’t, took direction from who knew where.

“You like working here?”

Luther nodded. “I do. You’ve a nice family, suh.”

Danny rolled his eyes and took another swig. “Think you could drop the ‘suh’ shit with me, Mr. Laurence? Think that’s possible?”

Luther took a step back. “What do you want me to call you then?”

“Out here? Danny’ll do. In there?” He gestured with his chin at the house. “I guess Mr. Coughlin.”

“What’s your complaint against ‘suh’?”

Danny shrugged. “It sounds like bullshit.”

“Fair enough. You call me Luther, then.”

Danny nodded. “Drink to it.”

Luther chuckled as he lifted the bottle. “Avery warned me you were different.”

“Avery came back from the grave to tell you I was different?”

Luther shook his head. “He wrote a note to his ‘replacement.’”