2 a.m. at the Cat's Pajamas Read Online Free PDF Page A

juice.
    Lorca says, “This is Len Thomas. He’s here because he’s gotten several calls about our club.” He turns to the cop. “This is Sonny Vega; he’s here because he has nowhere else to go.”
    “You look familiar,” Sonny says. “Who do we know?”
    “I doubt we have mutual friends.” The cop affects a cool lean but misses the bar with his elbow. He tries again while Sonny smokes and watches.
    “There’re only two kinds of people in this city,” Sonny says. “Those who know each other and those who haven’t figured out yet how they know each other.”
    “I’m from Boston,” the cop says.
    “Well, hell.” Sonny gives a look to Lorca:
I tried
.
    “Let’s talk this out,” Lorca says. “I’ll make eggs.”
    “Mr. Lorca, you’ve received seven visits from Officer Renaldo. The time for talking is over.” The cop flips the notebook shut and hands Lorca a citation the color of emergency cones. Lorca scans it to locate the total. “You’re kidding.”
    Sonny reads over his shoulder. “Holy shit.”
    “You have thirty days to pay,” the cop says, looking satisfied. “I’ll be coming every night to check that the city’s ordinances are being respected. Another infraction and it’s your bar.”
    Lorca follows as the cop strides through the vestibule, jolts open the front door, and turns. The flurries have lost their ambition, but the visit seems to have emboldened him. “Play by the rules, Mr. Lorca, or it’s your bar.”
    Something about this man’s plumped-up face, the thought of pulling another T-shirt out of his duffel bag, the impending holiday, calcifies in Lorca. “Do you think this is fair?” he says. “Coming into a club with a list of infractions and a fee that, let’s be honest, there is very little chance I can come up with.”
    “It’s not my choice,” Len says.
    “It’s not your choice.”
    “Well, it’s not.”
    “I’m not asking that. I’m asking if you think it’s fair.”
    A truck karangs by. The cop waits for it to pass. “Mr. Lorca,” he stammers.
    “Call me Jack,” Lorca says. “Only my friends call me Lorca.”
    Len Thomas opens his mouth to speak, but Lorca shuts the door. Pain pauses him in the vestibule by the stack of phone books. Though he is only forty, some unkind rod is normally clanging against his wrists and knees. A woman in his inner ear canal holds a relentless, intimate C and he is always shaking his head to clear her.
    Lorca has never been a player but can tell even in recordings whether a guitarist is well rested or angry, where the piano is located in the studio. When he was a little boy, his fatherwould choose a piano key at random, and Lorca would call out the note; correctly, every time. Charged by this special rite, his ears are virtuoso in shape. Well-formed lobes make lowercase
j
’s against his sideburns. Pert, stubborn tragus. When Lorca is engaged in listening, and he is always listening, his eyes and mouth harden and conspire toward his sharp nose, making him appear cruel.
    Sonny sits at the bar, staring at the citation. “Are we screwed?”
    Lorca’s hand fumbles on a lighter. It takes him three tries to get his cigarette lit. “I’ll call Uncle Ray for the money.”
    “You realize that’s illegal,” Sonny says, about the cigarette.
    “Everything is illegal.”
    “Where’s Renaldo when you need him?”
    Lorca holds the citation up to the light, as if it might be counterfeit. The impossible total. “Renaldo got promoted,” he says.
    “Good for him,” Sonny says. “Deserves it.”
    Lorca shakes his head. “Len Thomas from Boston.”
    “You know what they say.” Sonny pulls mournfully from the carton of orange juice. “Never trust a man with two first names.”

10:00 A.M.
    P rincipal Randles halts, startling the height-ordered line that follows her.
    “Children,” she says. “You should want to do right by the Lord. When you pray you should feel overcome by a sense of purity and rightness. The