First Daughter

The Southern Roadhouse, set back in a strip mall as nondescript as Schiltz himself, was fronted by gravel ground down over the years to the size and shape of frozen peas. Its mock Southern columns out front only added to the exhausted air of the place. At one time, the restaurant had had a platoon of white-gloved attendants, all black, to greet the patrons, park their Caddies and Benzes, wish them good evening. It still had two sets of bathrooms at opposite ends of the U-shaped building, one originally for whites, the other originally for blacks, though no one connected with the place spoke about their history, at least not to strangers. Among themselves, however, a string of ascendingly offensive jokes about the bathrooms made the rounds like a sexually transmitted disease.

Jack walked in the kitchen door, showed his ID to the chef, whose indignation crumbled before his fear of the law. How many illegals were in his employ in the steamy, clamorous kitchen?

'Dr. Schiltz,' Jack said as they made room for the expediter, bellowing orders to the line chefs. 'Has he finished his porterhouse?'

The chef, a portly man with thinning hair and watery eyes, nodded. 'We're just preparing his floating island.'

'Forget that. Give me a clean dessert plate,' Jack ordered.

One was produced within seconds. The chef nearly fainted when he saw what Jack put on the center of it. With a squeak like a flattened mouse, the chef turned away.

Holding the plate up high in waiterly fashion, Jack put right shoulder against the swinging door, went from kitchen to dining room with snappy aplomb, and immediately stopped so short, the hand almost slid off the plate. Egon Schiltz sat at his customary corner table, but he wasn't alone. Of course he wasn't. He made it a point to have dinner with at least one member of his family even when he was working late. Tonight was his daughter Molly's turn. Same age as Emma, Jack thought. Look at them talking, laughing. Is that what it means to have a daughter? All at once, his eyes burned and he couldn't catch his breath. Jesus God, he thought, it's never going to get any better, I'm never going to be able to live with this.

Molly, catching sight of him, leapt up, ran over to him so quickly that Jack had just enough time to raise the tray above the level of her head.

'Uncle Jack!' she cried. She had a wide, open face, bright blue eyes, hair the color of cornsilk. She was a cheerleader at school. 'How are you?'

'Fine, poppet. You're looking quite grown up.'

She made a face, tilted her head. 'What's that?'

'Something for your father.'

'Let me see.' She rose on tiptoes.

'It's a surprise.'

'I won't tell him. It's in the vault, I swear.' She put on her most serious face. 'Nothing gets out of the vault. Ever.'

'He'd tell by your reaction,' Jack said. You can say that again, he thought.

She waited a moment until she was sure Jack really wouldn't let her in on the surprise. 'Oh, all right.' She kissed his cheek. 'I've got to go anyway. Rick's waiting for me.'

Jack looked down into her shy smile. She still had her baby fat around her jawline and chin, but she was already a handsome young woman. 'Since when have things become serious between you and Rick?'

'Oh, Uncle Jack, could you be more out of the loop?' She caught herself then. 'Oh God, I'm so sorry.'

He ruffled her hair. 'It's okay.' But it wasn't. He heard a sharp sound, was sure it was his heart breaking.

Molly turned. 'Bye, Daddy.' She waved and was off out the front door.

Schiltz sighed as he flapped a folded copy of today's Washington Post. 'Speaking of Rick, I was just underscoring to Molly how religion and adherence to God's commandments will protect her against the wages of sin, which these days are all too evident. Senator George is the object lesson du jour. I suppose you heard that august Democrat has been exposed as an adulterer.'

'Frankly, I haven't had time for Beltway gossip.'

'Is that why I don't see you anymore? How long has it been?'

'Sorry about that, Egon.'

Schiltz grunted as he slipped the paper into his briefcase. He nodded at the plate Jack was holding aloft. 'Is that my floating island?'

'Not exactly.' Jack placed the plate on the table in front of the ME.

Schiltz redirected his attention from Jack's face to the severed human hand on the dessert plate. 'Very funny.' He took up the plate by its edge. 'Would you tell Karl I want my floating island now.'

'I'm afraid that won't be possible. Your presence is needed elsewhere.'

Schiltz glanced at Jack. Carefully, he placed the plate back down on the immaculate linen tablecloth. Not even a crumb of roll marred its starched white surface. The same could be said, in terms of emotion, for Schiltz's face. Then he broke out into peals of laughter. 'You dog, you,' he said, wiping his eyes. He stood up to briefly embrace his friend. 'I've missed you, buddy.'

'Back atcha, Slim.' Jack disentangled himself. 'But honestly, I need your help. Now.'

'Slow down. I haven't laid eyes on you for months.' Schiltz gestured for Jack to sit on the chair vacated by his daughter.

'No time, Egon.'

''No time to say hello, good-bye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!' ' Schiltz quoted the White Rabbit in Bugs Bunny's voice, which no matter his mood made Jack laugh.

'There's always time,' he continued, sobering. 'Give the hysteria of logic a rest.'

'Logic is all I have, Egon.'

'That's sad, Jack. Truly.' He took a Cohiba Corona Especial out of his breast pocket, offered it to Jack, who refused. 'I would have thought Emma's tragic death would have taught you the futility of a logic-based life.'

Jack felt sweat break out at the back of his neck. His face was burning, and there was the same sick feeling in the pit of his stomach he'd had when he'd seen Emma in Saigon Road. In order to steady himself, he turned the chair around, pushed aside his holstered Glock G36, sat straddling the seat. 'And you think faith is better.'

'I know it's better.' Schiltz sat back, lit the cigar, turning it slowly, lovingly between his thumb and first two fingers as he took his first tentative puffs. 'Logic stems from the mind of man, therefore it's limited, it's flawed. Faith gives you hope, keeps you from despair. Faith is what picks you up and ensures you keep going. Logic keeps you lying facedown in the muck at your feet.' He waved the gray end of the cigar. 'Case in point: I'm certain you're convinced that Emma's death was senseless.'

Jack gripped the table edge with both hands.

'I don't. She left us for a reason, Jack. A reason only God can know. I believe that with all my heart and soul, because I have faith.'

Say what you want about Schiltz, he knew how to hunt and he smoked only the finest cigars. These attributes were sometimes all that kept Jack from strangling him.

'Jack, I know how much you're hurting.'

'And you're not? You knew Emma as well as I know Molly. We had cookouts together, went camping in the Smokies, hiked the Blue Ridge together.'

'Of course I grieve for her. The difference is that I'm able to put her death into a larger context.'

'Egon, I need to make sense of it,' Jack said almost desperately.

'A quixotic desire, my friend. The help you need you will find only in faith.'

'Where you see faith, I see doubt, confusion, chaos. Situation normal, all fucked up.'

The ME shook his head. 'I'm saying this as a friend: It's time to stop feeling sorry for yourself.'

Jack reflexively blocked that advice by going on the offensive. 'So what is faith, exactly, Egon? I've never quite been able to get a handle on it.'

Schiltz rolled ash into a cut-glass ashtray. 'If you insist on reducing it to its basic elements, it's the sure and simple knowledge that there's something more out there, something greater than yourself, than mankind: a grand plan, a design that can't be comprehended by you or by any other human being, because it is numinous, it is God's design, something only He can fathom.'