Riviera Blues. Jack Batten

working tonight.”

      “Poor you. Had dinner yet?”

      “I was planning on something from the kitchens of Campbell’s.”

      “Well, Ian’s cooked pots of ragoût d’agneau. We’d adore it if you came down and made us green about your big trip.”

      “What did you call the meal?”

      “Lamb stew, numb nuts.”

      I got two bottles of Côtes du Rhône out of the cupboard over the refrigerator. Alex and Ian and I ate, drank, talked, and laughed until almost midnight, and when I arrived back upstairs, I was feeling no particular pain.

      In the bedroom, I turned on the lamp beside the bed. A little breeze was floating through the open window. I walked over to the window and got closer to the breeze. It felt soft and sweet. I stood there and wondered, idly, vaguely, why a soft, sweet breeze was coming into the room. As far as I remembered, before I joined the guys downstairs, the bedroom window had been shut tight.

      “Be cool, my man.”

      The voice was a relaxed tenor, and it seemed to be emanating from somewhere over by the closet.

      “Stay steady, man,” the voice said. “Three things I don’t need you be doin’.”

      I turned around.

      “Ah, now, man, that there’s one of the things I didn’t need you be doin’.”

      The guy might have been Patrick Ewing, except I knew Patrick Ewing was playing for the Knicks at Madison Square Garden that night. The guy looked about as big as Patrick Ewing though, close to seven feet and two hundred and fifty pounds, and he was just as black. He had a ski mask pulled over his face, but his hands were the hands of a black man. There wasn’t a weapon in either hand. A guy built like Patrick Ewing doesn’t need a weapon.

      “Other two things,” the giant said, “don’t go talkin’ loud and don’t go doin’ any brave shit.”

      “No problem.” My voice hadn’t progressed past the croak level.

      “Long’s we got an understanding.”

      “Urn, would you perhaps care for a drink? Vodka?”

      “Not on the job, man.”

      “Yeah, I didn’t think this was a social call.”

      “Workin’.”

      “You want me to raise my hands or anything?”

      “Want you be tellin’ me where the disk’s at.”