Hal looks at Mary Ann and raises his eyebrows. She shakes her head. Then he looks at a group at a nearby table.
“What about you guys? Does he want to go see Mishy?”
“Mishy fishy!” someone from another table yells.
Nervous laugher rocks the place. Mr. Crew Cut’s neck turns red around his collar, and his lips press together, tight as a clam.
“That’s Misha,” he says, strictly.
“Okay,” Hal shrugs. “Misha, then.”
“f**k Misha,” Jeremy yells suddenly.
With the flash of his hand, too quick for the eye to follow, Mr. Crew Cut slaps Jeremy’s face. Hal’s body blurs across the distance between them, like the close passing of a speeding car. Chairs fall, a woman screams, several men yell, all amidst a general scramble to back away from our tables. Hal, with both hands about Mr. Crew Cut’s throat
