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and soul. It was home. No one was just going to take it away from me.
    The phone rang as soon as I hit the kitchen. I grabbed the wall extension hanging on the pillar next to the meat-cutting table.
    â€œRick Cahill?” It was a man’s voice that I didn’t recognize.
    â€œYes. How can I help you?” He didn’t reply, and then a couple of seconds later I heard the dial tone. Not a great start to the day. Hopefully, not a continuation of last night. I let it go and focused on the restaurant and my real life.
    I grabbed eight rectangular pans from the rack opposite the dishwasher and walked out to the cook’s station in the grill area. I pulled the pans that held steaks from their slotted drawers in the under-counter refrigerator and rotated the meat into the new containers. After I’d done the same with the fish, I dumped the empty pans back in the kitchen on the dishwasher counter and washed my hands.
    Nothing had started to turn yet, but we needed a busy night. I decided not to call in a fish order. Better to sell out of what we had than to dazzle customers with a variety of fish that would go bad before it sold. The restaurant business was different from most. You couldn’t have a year-end sale or even a week-end one. When the product got old it went into the garbage and your tiny profit went in with it. Still, it beat wearing a badge for a police departmentthat wanted to put you behind bars as much as you did the gangbangers on the street.
    I grabbed the clipboard with the meat order sheet off the hook next to the phone and went into the walk-in refrigerator. I usually checked the inventory at night before I shut Muldoon’s down, but last night Melody and Stone had knocked me out of my routine. We were pretty well stocked, and it would be another light order. I grabbed a shrink-wrapped strip loin from its box to get started on my meat cutting for the morning. When I came back out of the walk-in there were two large men staring at me from across the butcher-block meat cutting table.
    â€œAre you Cahill?”
    The speaker was at least six four and must have come through the door sideways or he would have gotten stuck. His head was square like his body, evenly leveled by a crew cut. He had a few years on me and they looked like they’d been spent pumping iron. Gray sweats, stretched well beyond XXXL, clung to his body.
    His partner was as tall but not as wide. He had unkempt blond hair and a faint goatee anchored his angular face. Metal rings pierced both eyebrows and stair-stepped up his ears. He wore a lazy Generation Y grin and lounged against the cutting table. A black leather coat and baggy jeans filled out the attitude.
    Those two weren’t there to make dinner reservations.
    â€œI’m Rick Cahill.” I dropped the meat on the table. “What can I do for you?”
    â€œWhere’s the girl?” The bigger one was in charge. His voice had an edge to it and a faint Brooklyn accent.
    Looked like my friends from last night’s car chase had finally caught up to me. I liked it better when I couldn’t see them. And, when they couldn’t see me.
    â€œWhat girl?”
    â€œDon’t be a hero, pal.” He tugged on his sweat top with his ham-hock right hand. “Melody, the drop-dead Filipina. We just wanna talk to her. Where is she?”
    Some of the edge had rubbed off his voice. It was almost weary,like he’d done this so many times before that he was tired of the routine. His partner didn’t look tired. He’d snapped out of his slumping attitude and was poised like a puma ready to pounce.
    My morning crew wasn’t due for another twenty minutes. It was just me and them.
    â€œThat sounds like a woman who had dinner here last night. But I don’t know where she is.” True, but now I had competition if I wanted to find her. Double-barreled competition. I sank my weight into the balls of my feet. “Why don’t you