mother.
B i sh op L adde rman was offered a job as an assistant chef in a fancy Brentwood restaurant, and so he left the Rib Joint.
It was quite a surprise. Bishop wasn’t looking for a job, but one day he got a call from Chez Vivienne’s owner, Raoul Mantou. Mr. Mantou said that he’d heard a lot about Bishop and that he wanted him in his kitchen. He offered seventy-five thousand dollars a year, twice what any cook got at Fontanot’s, and so Bishop had to go.
Michael Cotter was hired to take Bishop’s place.
Michael was different from the other smokers. Miranda, Ben, Parker, Penelope, and Thomas Grant were all in their 2 9 4
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late fifties up to sixty. Bishop was that age too. And even though Thomas was only twenty, he had what Fontanot called an old soul, and because of his scars and limp he seemed more like one of the older workers.
Cotter was young, not quite thirty, and handsome, black as glowing tar and lithe like a panther. He was always laughing and quick to lend a hand. The waitresses from the restaurant would come out to the yard just to look at him when he’d take his shirt off to move the heavy metal smokers or large bundles of meat.
Cotter got along with everybody. He and Thomas became fast friends.
One day, after his first few weeks on the job, Michael offered to drive Thomas home. Thomas took the ride because he liked to hear Michael’s tales about the streets.
They were different streets from those Thomas had inhabited.
Michael told stories about tough men and fine women that loved and fought in the clubs and bars. Thomas knew what happened outside, and Michael knew what went on indoors.
“So you stayed in that alley and didn’t evah go to school?”
Cotter asked on that first day he gave Thomas a ride.
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s wild, man. And nobody nevah knew?”
“Not until Pedro killed himself and I tried to stop him and fell off the roof. Then they knew . . . about me not goin’ to school anyway.”
M i c ha e l C ot te r love d a good story. He had been in the army for a spell, as a sniper. He told Thomas that they had him “all ovah the niggerlands from Afghanistan to Sudan, from Argentina to North Korea.”
“And you shot people?” Thomas asked.
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“Oh, yeah, man. Sometimes, though, they’d put a twist on it.”
“Like what?”
“Sometimes,” Michael said, “when they didn’t wanna kill somebody but just shake him up, they’d have me shoot his wife or young child. Sometimes I’d just wound a dude so he’d miss a meetin’.”
Most of the other smokers liked Cotter, but they didn’t believe his stories.
“He just a blowhard,” Parker had said to the other smokers one day before Cotter had arrived. “I mean, he tell a good story all right. And I believe he had some time in the armed services. But the United States government ain’t nevah gonna have no sniper shoot no child.”
“I’ont know,” Miranda said. “Maybe not a white child, but if it was some little black boy or Arab girl they might not care.”
“What do you think, Lucky?” Ben asked Thomas. “You the one he talk to the most.”
“He prob’ly did all that,” Thomas said.
“Why don’t you think he lyin’?” Penelope asked the youngest smoker.
“People lie to impress people,” Thomas said, paying very little heed to the words as they came out of his mouth.
“When they lie they sneak a look to see if you’re impressed.
But Cotter don’t care. He just talkin’. I think he did alla what he said. All of it and more.”
E ri c was hap py to have his brother back in his life. He still lamented Christie’s death, still felt guilty about it. But he didn’t feel alone with Raela as he had with Mona’s mother. If he was sick she nursed him and never got a sniffle. When they 2 9 6
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went skiing together he broke his leg, and she didn’t even sprain an ankle. And she was forever surprising him with her views of the world and her conviction that they were meant to be together.
“But do you love me?” Eric asked her one day.
“Sure,” she said.
“But I mean really, deeply.”
“That’s not the way you and I think,” she replied. “I’d kill for you if I had to. I’d die for you too. Isn’t that enough?”
“When I was in New York I slept with a woman, a stockbroker named Connie.”
“So?”
