at his church, and spending time with the guys in his men’s group, he could take the whole thing only in small doses. He and God had communed more than once about how uncomfortable he felt in any church building, and so far he hadn’t felt much in the way of a change in his opinion. He’d joked once or twice with the guys in his group that there was something wrong with him—like maybe the conversion didn’t take or something. Right now, though, he was simply looking to relax, take some time to consider the many problems that had become his bedfellows.
The problem was where to start. Two weeks ago he’d been a semi-successful writer with a crumbling marriage and a potential lawsuit brewing. Since then, things had deteriorated. Now he was also a man who could no longer ignore the murder and conspiracy that had defined most of his life. The one bright spot he could see was that, considered as a whole, he thought he was handling things rather well.
It was Monday, and a light night at Ronny’s. Rick was nowhere in sight. Sam, who usually worked the room while Rick stayed behind the bar, covered both jobs tonight. That meant keeping CJ and three other people happy. And in CJ’s opinion, Sam could pull and deliver a beer as well as Rick, which made him all right in his book.
CJ had hoped to find Dennis here, if for no other reason than for some company. He would also have been content to find Julie, but he realized that was for more than just the company. It bothered him that he couldn’t stop thinking about her, and he hoped this showed growth of some kind. He attended a church with a heavy focus on grace—a reformed congregation that appealed to sinners, and CJ had no delusion that he wasn’t to be counted among the worst of these, as St. Paul had said—but he’d also found the theology lacking when it came to questions of personal responsibility. He supposed a happy medium existed somewhere, or that maybe he’d wake up one morning with the realization that grace did, indeed, trump all else, but for now he thought the poking at his conscience was a good thing.
But growth or not, everything that had hit him was a bit much to handle.
The jukebox sat silent, the TV above the bar turned down, so CJ had heard the low tunes of whatever music was on upstairs in Rick’s apartment, and now he heard the sound of footsteps coming down the flight of narrow stairs that connected the apartment to Rick’s business. CJ turned toward the restrooms, beyond which the stairs led to an equally narrow hallway as well as a large sign that warned patrons that even considering ascending the stairs was a mortal sin punishable by a non-gentle expulsion from the establishment. To properly reinforce this message, Rick had hung a framed photo of the last person who had tried to violate the sanctity of the bar owner’s abode.
Because of this, CJ was surprised to see Dennis come around the corner.
“H-hey,” Dennis said, walking up to the bar.
“Hey back,” CJ said. He looked at Dennis, then beyond him to where the hall disappeared toward the forbidden territory, but he didn’t ask the question he wanted to ask.
“Rick w-wants a bottle of M-Makers,” Dennis said to Sam.
The bartender slid a Seven and Seven in front of a guy sitting at the other end of the bar and then walked over to the liquor bottles and plucked a bottle of Maker’s Mark from its row. After a pause, he opened the cabinet beneath the display and extracted another bottle, both of which he set on the bar in front of Dennis.
“Save you a trip,” Sam explained.
“Thanks,” Dennis said. With both bottles in hand he turned and started off. After a few steps, though, he stopped and looked back at CJ. “Are you c-coming?” he asked.
So CJ slid from the barstool and followed Dennis up to Rick’s apartment. Before they’d reached the top of the stairs, CJ heard the faint music coming from beyond Rick’s door, gaining a clarity it didn’t have downstairs.
“Is that . . . ?”
“Sinatra,” Dennis confirmed.
When CJ stepped into the apartment—in just about every way a domicile that looked as if it belonged above a bar, save for the enormous flat-screen television lining one entire living room wall—he saw a trio of men at a round table in the