“No, I’ll just have a ham sandwich and coffee.” She felt nervously along the bottom of her pocketbook. There were a number of coins among the tobacco shreds. She wouldn’t be paid for two weeks, the manager had told her. Probationary period.

“Look!” she exclaimed. “There’s a red-headed man I saw here before. I think he just comes here to play a special record. He looks rich, doesn’t he? I wonder why he comes to a place like this? He’s drunk, don’t you think?”

The red-headed man was peering into the jukebox. He shoved in a nickel, then looked truculently around the room. Quite suddenly, as though she’d called him, he made straight for Annie. He swayed above her, ignoring Jake.

“You like Sibelius?” he asked in a husky, slightly accented voice. Before she could answer, he hit the table with his fist. “Greatest damn living composer!” The Greek was there in an instant. He led the man to the counter and placed a cup of coffee in front of him. The man pushed it away and rested his head on his arms. The Greek smiled triumphantly at Annie.

She laughed at the expression on Jake’s face. “That’s always happening to me,” she said. “If there’s a drunk within a mile, or a crazy person, they head straight for me.”

“I saw Max last night. He asked me if you’d called. It’s funny how people meet, isn’t it?”

“Max?”

Then she remembered. She grew ill at ease. Had they talked about her?

“He asked about the man and the dog.”

“The man and the dog!” she cried. “I forgot to tell you. When I got home tonight, before I came to meet you, the police were there. The man started howling in the middle of the afternoon, and I guess the other people got scared. They took him away.”

“And the dog?”

The waitress placed their orders on the table. Jake took out his medicine bottle and swallowed a few drops.

“The dog…I don’t know about it. Maybe the old woman was right and there wasn’t a dog…That’s not true. I heard it whimpering. People can bark but they can’t make that hurt sound. I hate to think about the dog.”

“Did you see the man?”

“No, no…I closed my door. I didn’t want to look at him.”

“Listen. Do you have any dresses? You look like you’re dying in that suit.”

“I’ve got a dress,” she said.

He looked so sorry for her, she laughed. “Maybe I’ll get a discount on some of those numbers in the store,” she said.