for it in the local paper and sales dipped for a time, but he never blinked. I handled the back of the house while he handled the front. After about a year, I was general manager of the whole restaurant and he was a semi-absentee owner off rock climbing in Joshua Tree, Yosemite, or Grand Teton.
Iâd first worked at Muldoonâs as a fourteen-year-old kid prepping veggies for Turkâs father. The money I made on weekends made a difference to my family after my dad had lost his job with the La Jolla Police Department. Turk was an all-city high school linebacker with scholarship offers from all over. But he took the time to show me the restaurant ropes and became a big brother to me. And my best friend.
âSo, tell me about this Stone guy.â Maybe Stone had been lying to me about buying Muldoonâs just to get under my skin.
âBreakfast first.â
Turk walked down the entry hall and made a left at the hostess stand into the lounge. He stood behind the bar under a set of Irish bagpipes mounted on the back wall. The uilleann pipes bore the Muldoon family crest. They were Turkâs prized possession. A family heirloom his father brought over from the old country. Every St. Patricksâ Day, Turk would pull them down and play âDanny Boyâ just like his father had before him. A collector once offered him $10,000 for them, but he turned him down. One night in a quiet moment over too much Jameson, Turk confessed that he hoped to someday hand the pipes down to a son.
After he finally settled on one woman and quit playing on the sides of mountains thousands of feet in the air.
I sat on a stool and watched Turk concoct his version of breakfast. He pulled a banana, an orange, a lime, two eggs, and some cranberry juice from the under-counter refrigerator. After he peeled the orange and banana and tossed them into a blender, the raw eggs and cranberry juice followed. He topped everything with a few squeezes of lime, ran the blender on high for a few seconds, then poured in a pint of our house dark amber from the beer tap.
âYou want some?â He set an empty glass down in front of me.
I just stared at him. He shrugged his shoulders and took a swig directly from the pitcher. Dirty foam hung from his three-day growth of mustache.
âWhich route did you climb on Half Dome?â
âRegular Northwest.â
âThatâs the one we did that time, right?â My only trip to Yosemite, rock-climbing Mecca, way back in college. I remembered Turk ascending natureâs monument, heaven just out of reach and a view of the granite valley below. His movements were sure and fluid like an orangutan swinging through the trees. I fought my way up behind his lead, muscling against the rock instead of working with it. But somehow I made it to the top.
âYou should come next time.â Turk took another gulp of his breakfast, then came around the bar and sat down next to me.
âI donât think my knee or your restaurant would allow it.â I rubbed my left knee that had been shredded in a college football game. âSo tell me about Stone.â
âHe was part owner of a casino in Vegas before he moved out here. Back when the mob still had a piece of the action. I think it was the Starlighter, before they blew it up and built whatever the hell they put in its place.â
âWhat brought him to San Diego?â
âEvidently he was forced out of the casino.â Turk took another slug of breakfast and made a sour face. âHe got into real estateout here. Owns a few hotels. Now heâs a big time philanthropist. Heâs clean and shiny like Vegas never happened. He just donated a pile of cash to put a new wing on the La Jolla library.â
âDoes he own any restaurants?â
âI donât know. Why?â
âHe told me he was interested in Muldoonâs and that you should give him a call.â The anger welled up in me like steam in an