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concentration. At one point he’d even caught himself whistling the gypsy tune. Tonight he’d find out if the virtuoso violinist could sustain his first impression. He half expected to be disappointed.
    Nearly always, dinner was an afterthought for Jess, something his stomach would nag him about until he’d finally take to the streets in search of an open café or sandwich shop. So, finding himself at the Warwick Hotel dining room two nights in a row was so out of character that he very nearly turned on his heel and pointed his nose toward the door.
    “Will you be dining alone, sir?”
    The maitre d’ leaned expectantly toward the dining room’s tasseled colonnade and made the decision for Jess. He’d stay for dinner.
    Halfway across the room, Jess began to think he was being led to the same remote table by the kitchen he’d occupied the night before. But the chair that was held out for him was just two tables from the empty stage. It couldn’t have been better had he bribed the fellow.
    Jess stretched out his long legs beneath the crisp linen cloth and settled back to watch the meticulously trained staff at work.
    “Care for ice, sir?”
    A thin boy of perhaps ten or eleven held a crystal urn filled with gleaming cracked ice at the ready near Jess’s goblet. Jess chuckled at the boy’s blank expression. He concentrated just hard enough to be polite to his patrons, but his mind was a zillion miles away.
    “Ever drop one of those?”
    “Beg pardon, sir?” The boy jumped, startled at having been spoken to, and nearly dropped the heavy leaded crystal. He clutched it to his chest as the ice inside clattered to rest. ‘Yes’ and ‘no thank you’ were the words he would be most accustomed to hearing from patrons. To most diners, he and his kind were invisible.
    “Have you ever broken one of your ice buckets?” Jess winked and grinned, trying to reassure the lad who was clearly uncomfortable over being drawn into conversation.
    “No, sir.” The boy’s eyes grew huge, and he drew the words out as he contemplated how horrid it might feel if he’d had to answer ‘yes’.
    “What d’you think would happen?” Jess folded his hands in his lap, showing the child he had all the time in the world to hear the answer.
    “Mr. Tony’d whup me, sir.”
    “Ah.” Jess nodded soberly. “And then what?”
    “Then my pa’d whup me.” This answer took no thought at all and spilled out on an involuntary snort.
    “Well, of course. He’d have to, wouldn’t he.”
    “That’s what he’d say, anyway. You want ice or not?” The boy shifted the heavy crystal bucket.
    “In a minute. But what happens first?”
    “Huh?”
    “Tell me each thing that would happen if you were to drop something like this.” He gestured toward the gleaming glass.
    “Y’mean...”
    “Just picture it in your mind smashing to the floor and describe it to me second by second.”
    “Well...” the boy shifted again and focused his gaze on the cold cut glass he held. His eyes flicked briefly left and right, as if he worried that someone might see him talking overlong with this crazy man, and then he carefully set the crystal bucket on the tabletop. He flexed his wet hands, deeply reddened by the cold glass, and slid them along his pant legs to dry his palms.
    “First, my fingers feel slick, and the points of these here diamonds, these designs, start to drag down my shirt.” He looked to Jess for reassurance he was on the right track.
    Jess gloated silently. He’d been right about the boredom in the lad’s eyes. Behind those piercing brown eyes was a clever mind being wasted. The boy’s response was proving him right.
    “Go on,” he nodded.
    “Then my mind kicks in, knows I’m gonna drop the thing. But my hands don’t know it yet, so they just let the sweaty glass drag on through.” The pace of his words remained steady, thoughtful, as he continued to dissect the imagined catastrophe.
    “That’s when I know I can’t catch it,