“A topical reference, I take it,” he added, surprising Rudd, then, going to bat for same: “You don’t look like a slave to the media, Miles.”

At this Osmond opened his jacket to Fenton, perhaps taking advantage of the bartender’s turned back. “Twin forty-four mags,” he said, snapping it shut.

“Not only the biggest penis, but two of them,” said Rudd.

“Colt forty-five, as a matter a fact,” said Miles over raised forefinger in response to Fenton’s inquisitively raised eyebrows. “Gold Cup. And yourself?”

“Glock twenty-two,” said Fenton without hesitation. “Forty-caliber.”

Miles exhaled in a vaguely derisive fashion, too fast and too hard, prompting Rudd to say to Fenton, “Miles is less than awed by our plastic guns, as he calls them.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t end up getting shot by one,” said Fenton with a smile.

“But then you’d be aiming at the wrong color,” said Miles. “I like your friend, Rudd. Too bad he doesn’t drink.”

Rudd watched Fenton let this slip, as he knew he would. Fenton was a bit of a bleeding heart, Rudd knew, but also smart enough to not let it interfere with anybody’s drinking. That shit was better left in the miserable little dive bars that dotted downtown, places like Dewey’s Lucky Shot, where Rudd once happened to witness a fight many years ago. About what he didn’t know, could’ve been racial, plenty of poor blacks and Latinos glaring at each other over their draft beers in that place. Those guys always seemed to have knife scars. Rudd patted his Walther. “He drinks,” he said. “He’s just not a drunk like us.” This, the men’s favorite form of self-deprecation, brought them all back to good humor.

And it was with laughter running about their faces that they all noticed, almost as one, the busboy, straining against his white shirt and tie, carry Tony’s old nineteen-inch RCA television out to its occasional, Super Bowl-type resting place on the flat area above and behind the liquor bottles on the back of the bar.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” whined Rudd as the kid plugged in the set.

“Big news day,” said the bartender, turning it on.

“What the hell does that mean?” demanded Osmond. “‘Big new day’?”

“News, not new,” said Miles, strikingly annoyed, eyes glued to the broadcast now shaping up with the swiftness of solid-state.

“What do you say to that, Rudd?” said Osmond, trying hard to laugh but clearly in need of a little reassurance.

Rudd noticed the busboy staring right at him, rather brazenly, he thought, from the back of the room. The kid disappeared behind the corner. “These local guys are so afraid of being scooped that they’d cover the mayor’s morning fart if they could get in his bathroom.”

Everybody laughed, and Rudd regretted he hadn’t been funnier.

Shot here was from SkyCam3, hovering over the action, presumably where it had begun, though it seemed to have spread as far as the video could see. Rudd saw the busboy again, this time watching not him but the television from around the corner. The aerial shot took in the river, which seemed to be providing a border of sorts to the activity though small plumes of smoke could be seen rising from scattered areas on the other side, even from the historical district, which Rudd thought was pretty fucked, it being their history as much as his (not that he’d want to have to make that argument to Fenton). Rudd wondered if this would be happening in winter. Fires in snow, harder to start but harder to put out as well. So it is a riot, he thought. Then he realized what he’d just thought, and he thought it again to be sure, to get a real good taste. So it is a riot. RYE-OTT.

Nobody was laughing now. They were silently watching a remote unit capturing live video of a firefighter being shot in the back as he ascended a ladder. His yellow-slickered body tumbled down and the video went dead. Unit chasing ass out of there, Rudd imagined. “Jesus,” he said, and the silence was broken.

Miles turned to Rudd with an I-told-you-so expression, and the latter waited to see if this guy was enough of a jerk to follow through. Neither of them was ever to know, for at that moment Langston, another regular, pushed through the door, carrying with him a breeze that overturned the top two or three napkins from a stack on the corner of the bar.

Langston, a tall man with red hair, stood at the door and looked earnestly at the men, eyes pausing only a moment on Fenton, whom he likely was able to deduce the identity of.