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busboy.”
    â€œDead?”
    â€œYes.”
    Katz nodded as if he had known it all the time. “An innocent victim.” It was one of those redundancies Rehv heard Americans use quite often, like eternal damnation.
    Katz stopped nodding. His face began to go the color of his hands. Rehv was surprised that he could look so angry. “Something has to be done about this terrorism. It’s turning this town into a hellhole. You people—” Katz stopped himself, and resumed in a quieter voice: “Some of your people, Isaac, I’m not saying you, but some of the other refugees, are being very unrealistic. There is no Israel. There is Palestine. Israel is ancient history, like Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Apache nation.”
    â€œBut there are still Apaches, aren’t there?”
    Katz grunted. “Look at them.” He paused to let that sink in. One of his hands twitched slightly, as though about to set off for Rehv’s knee, but it stayed where it was. “It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Isaac. There’s no going back, so the longer you stay marginal, the harder it will be to get into the game.”
    But Rehv didn’t feel like getting into the game. Maybe it was because of the waves in his head, maybe because of the hurt in his back.
    Katz saw something on his face that he must have decided was discouragement. “But don’t get me wrong,” he said. “It’s not as tough as all that. My grandfather came from Russia without a dime, and in five years he owned his own house and was renting out the top floor.” He smiled brightly, hoping to kindle some enthusiasm. Quite suddenly, in mid-smile, he had a thought that made him start visibly. The teeth still showed, but the smile was gone.
    â€œYou weren’t involved in it, were you?”
    â€œOf course not,” Rehv said.
    â€œGood. I’m glad to hear that, I can tell you.” He picked up his glass, drained it, and smiled again at Rehv. He did look very glad. He licked his lips and pulled his chair a little closer to Rehv’s. His tone softened, became confidential. “You see, Isaac, I’m Jewish. That’s the truth and I’m proud of it. But first and foremost I’m an American. And America is a Christian country. Step off this island, Isaac, and you’ll find that it’s a very Christian country, and getting more Christian every day. Do you see my point, Isaac? I’m just saying that terrorism is wrong, under any circumstances.”
    Katz stood up and looked at his watch. Rehv saw that he had fumbled the usual leave-taking sequence: The polite way is to first show surprise at the time and then get ready to go. He felt a laugh begin to build uncomfortably, painfully inside him.
    â€œMy God!” Katz said. “Look at this. And with an opening tomorrow.” He walked quickly to the door. “You’ll come, I hope?”
    Rehv nodded and murmured something. Katz went out and down the stairs. Rehv held his breath as long as he could, and then let the laugh out like an embolism. He heard himself laugh and laugh. It was a raucous laugh with no humor in it at all. He and Sheila Finkle laughing together would be bedlam.
    When the laugh finally died away, he swallowed two sleeping pills with the rest of the armagnac. Then he set the camp cot beside General Gordon, shut off the lights, and lay down. For a long time he looked at Gordon, yellow brown in the dingy light of the streetlamps, as if he had been toasted. He wanted to roll over and say to Naomi: “If we get hungry we can always have him for breakfast.”
    Later the drug wrapped its arms around him and he stopped thinking.
    Too soon something punched a hole in the sleep that held him. It kept punching, insistent and mechanical, until he opened his eyes. It was still dark. The phone was ringing in the storage room.
    He pushed himself off the cot in the darkness and carefully crossed