11
I chose our meeting place. Not the coffee shop he liked on East Fifty-Second Street but instead a dark bar in Hell’s Kitchen whose collection of tiki accents – woven palm fronds, hula girl figurines, strings of dusty silk hibiscus – failed to conceal its Irish-cop nature. I picked it because there were booths in the back and they never played music before ten o’clock. Maybe I also picked it because he would dislike it. He was fastidious. He liked things bright and clean; there was an essential, almost aggressive wholesomeness to him. I arrived first and saw him come in, edging through the street door as if he preferred not to touch it. He spotted me, but his expression didn’t change. It had been a year.
‘Hello, Gerry,’ I said.
He dropped his hat on the table, and then slid into the b
