To my surprise, Jack himself stood behind the counter. Surprise because Jack didn’t usually saunter to his duty until later in the afternoon, on account of staying up all night to hear everybody’s secrets. Some younger fellow watered the lunch crowd, I never could remember his name. Today that fellow had his back to the room, however, was polishing the glassware one by one with a clean white cloth, and Jack faced the tables and stools, braced his eight fingers and two bony thumbs on the wood, shirt crisp and waistcoat black. The ceiling fan whirred directly above his head. I slid into place and told him his countenance was looking wilted today, was something up?

He stepped away and reached for a glass. I laid my arms on the counter, one folded over the other, and watched him pour me a gin and tonic. Because of shortages, there was no lime. Just bottled, concentrated lime juice, an unsatisfactory substitute that tasted of metal. Jack set it before me on the counter and assumed his original stance.

“You ever think of moving back home?” he said.

“Home? This is home.”

“I mean back where you came from, Mrs. Randolph. Where you was brought up. Family and friends.”

I set down the glass. “I come from nowhere, sonny. I’ve got nobody.”

“You have a mother and a father. Brother and a sister.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Family’s family, Mrs. Randolph. They might could help you find what you’re looking for.”

“Oh? I didn’t notice I was looking for anything.”

“Everybody’s looking for something. If you ain’t looking for something, you’re trying to get away from something. Ain’t that so?”

He had lowered his face a little, so that when I raised my face a little, we met right in the middle, eye locked with eye, tonic fizzing our chins, fan stirring our hair.

“Where do you get your ideas, Jack?”

“I’m just saying you might want to get out of town, Mrs. Randolph. That’s all I’m saying. Get the devil out of Nassau, and maybe take with you whatever you care about.”

“What’s happening?” I said. “What have you heard?”

Jack straightened up and glanced at the doorway. “Just that someone’s at the end of his rope, that’s all. And there’s a lot of fools swinging on that rope, you know what I mean? A lot of fools.”

“Fools like me?”

There was a commotion taking shape on the opposite side of the room, near the doorway where Jack had just glanced. He gave me a last look and stepped away, straightening his waistcoat, to nudge his colleague at the glassware. I tipped back my glass—it was a thirsty afternoon, all right—and reached for my pocketbook to rummage out a cigarette. As I did so, I contrived a sweep of the room beyond my shoulder. But it was only Freddie de Marigny and his cousin Georges de Visledou, laughing over some joke. I turned away and lit my cigarette.