“No reason you have to stay where you are,” Ricci said. “I could hook you up at SanJo. A command gig, worth a big pay hike. The rapid deployment team program needs somebody to pull it back together.”
A surprised look formed on Glenn’s face.
“I thought that was your baby,” he said.
“Had to put it down when I went into the field.”
“So I heard. But now you’re back, and I kind of figured you’d be picking it up again.”
Ricci shook his head.
“Decided I work better alone,” he said.
“Uh-huh.” Glenn looked at him. “It’s probably none of my business, but what’ve you been doing instead?”
Ricci shrugged.
“Catching up,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Security rundowns.”
“Uh-huh.”
Ricci hesitated. He reached for his glass, rattled the ice cubes inside, but didn’t drink from it.
“And waiting,” he said. “Mostly waiting.”
“You mind me asking what for?”
“No,” Ricci said. “Just not sure I can answer.”
Glenn started to say something, appeared to reconsider, and sat listening to the music on the jukebox, a mid-tempo jazz instrumental carried along by a husky tenor sax.
“I’ve been hearing all kinds of news about Africa,” he said at length. “The hit on that supply convoy, other things besides. What the hell’s going down?”
Ricci rattled his ice cubes some more.
“Maybe it ought to be you telling me,” he said. “Since you hear so much.”
Glenn smiled thinly again. He waited.
“Truth is, I don’t know,” Ricci said. “I haven’t got all the facts yet. A lot of odd stuff’s happening over there. All kinds of questions floating around. But it’s only been a couple days, and so far nobody’s connected anything to anything else. They’re not even clear about what the attack was supposed to accomplish.”
Glenn exhaled, cigarette smoke streaming from his nose and mouth.
“I guess this makes the extravaganza aboard the oil platform a scratch,” he said.
Ricci shook his head.
“Gordian needs to get the Sedco deal done,” he said.
“How can they work out a security plan, decide what protective measures to take, when they don’t have any idea what to expect? Seems crazy to go ahead with it until they do.”
“It shouldn’t,” Ricci said. “The timing of what happened puts us on the spot. You know the game. The territory we cover, you’ll find plenty of uglies who’d love to see us skip out from a threat. That would be giving them what they want.”
“Notice we can be intimidated.”
Ricci nodded.
“This is bigger than Gabon,” he said. “If I were in Gordian’s position, I’d do the same as him. He’s got to hang tough.”
“With some extra manpower to protect him, I hope.”
“A fresh Sword detail’s flying out,” Ricci said. “He’ll be fixed okay.”
“You mean to join them?”
Ricci shook his head again.
“Pete Nimec can handle whatever comes up,” he said. “Better I stay out of his hair, mind the family farm. That way we’ve got all fronts covered.”
Glenn lipped his cigarette, reached both hands into his pants pockets, and fished out a couple of quarters.
“Makes enough sense,” he said. “There’s nowhere you can feel safe these days. Sometimes I think we’re all stuck in the land of Nod.”
Ricci’s face showed incomprehension.
“You know,” Glenn said. “It’s from the Bible. Book of Genesis: ‘And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.’ ”
Ricci shrugged a little. “Religion’s never been one of my vices.”
Glenn gave him a look.
“I don’t suppose,” he said.
There was a brief silence between them.
“My offer,” Ricci said. “You interested?”
Glenn shook his head no.
Ricci looked straight into his eyes.
“Seems like a fast decision,” he said.
“Fast, yeah,” Glenn said. “That doesn’t have to mean arbitrary.”
Ricci kept watching him across the table several moments, then nodded slightly.
“No,” he said. “Guess it doesn’t.”
Glenn finished off his stout, went to get himself a second. Before returning to their booth he stopped at the juke, dropped in his quarters, and punched in some selections.
“Can’t find many bargains around these days,” he said, sliding back opposite Ricci. “Fifty cents for three good spins on the box is one of the few left.”
Ricci’s lack of response opened out another spell of silence between them.
Glenn drank his beer, swayed a little to the music in the background. A female vocalist sang to the accompaniment of a piano, its fills running smoothly around her nuanced phrasings.
“The song’s ‘When October Goes,’ ” Glenn said after a while. “Singer’s Mary Wells. Lyrics by Bobby Mercer, music by Barry Manilow. Nice.” He paused and took a deep swallow of beer. “I’ve dug Manilow since I was in high school.”
Ricci looked at him.
“You going to explain your turndown?”
Glenn shook another cigarette from the pack near his elbow, lighted it with a Bic disposable, and sat there smoking. The Marlboro’s tip flared on his deep inhale.
“I’ll let you in on a little something,” he said. “I grew up right in this neighborhood. A rowhouse on Fourteenth Street, two blocks south. All my older brothers wore Crip blue. It’s kind of a long story, but I wound up wearing a beret at the opposite end of the color spectrum.”
Ricci nodded.
“The flash was black with a wide diagonal gray stripe, yellow borders,” he said. “Delta Force, attached to Joint SpecOps. I wouldn’t’ve considered you for my replacement without reading your personnel file.”
“I don’t suppose.”
Ricci regarded him through a haze of cigarette smoke.
“Any special reason you joined the service besides wanting a change of scenery?”
“Like I said, long story,” Glenn said. “Maybe we’ll get to it sometime. Meanwhile, you can have one crack at guessing where I choose to live nowadays.”
“Fourteenth Street. Two blocks south.”
“My, you are an astute son of a bitch,” Glenn said.
He drank, smoked, and listened to his music.
“Family ties why you’re back here?” Ricci said.
“Family’s gone, one way or another.”
“Then what’s holding you?”
Glenn’s broad shoulders went up and down.
“Maybe it’s my volunteer work,” he said. “I do a lot with teenage kids.”
“Why the ‘maybe’?”
Glenn finished his second beer, pushed the bottle aside.
“I think part of it’s that I’m just stubborn,” he said. “Civil boosters and quick-kill real estate brokers hate the sight of rowhouses. They’d be glad to sweep everybody out of them like litter and doze them flat to make room for more hotel towers, art galleries for rich people who can’t draw a straight line to hang their junk, and ritzy apartment lofts where the Swells can live. Try moving into one of those pads — you need to show your broker that you earn fifty, even a hundred times the monthly rent in income.”
Ricci looked at him.
“Sounds to me you’re on a crusade,” he said.
“Could be,” Glenn said. “But, you know, the Mexican gangs that smuggle drugs across the border into this city, players like the Quiros bunch we brought down a couple years ago, have a Spanish expression, plata o plomo. The silver or the lead. You’re either a friend and taking their bribes or an enemy taking their bullets.” He shrugged again. “I read a paper by some professors comparing what they do to unfair pressure tactics in business and politics. Fat cat landlords, brokers, and public improvement committees, they just use legal harassment instead of guns. Sometimes to influence each other. Mostly to put the squeeze on tenants. Same principle, different methods.”