Free Redemption Street by Reed Farrel Coleman

pool, and many of the other buildings from our vantage point. Sam didn’t waste his time looking. Eventually, I stopped playing the wide-eyed newcomer and got down to eating. The food was good, but the coffee tasted like the brown water at the bottom of what used to be the pool. Sam noticed the look on my face.
    “Stinks, doesn’t it? It’s this freeze-dried crap we mix with hot water. Then we put it in the urns to give the impression that it’s brewed. I’m always afraid to look at the percentage of real coffee in the packages,” he admitted.
    “Smart thing,” I said, trying to wash the taste out of my mouth with something that was supposed to be orange juice. “They probably measure the percentage of real coffee in parts per million.”
    “Probably,” Sam agreed. “Listen, if you don’t mind me asking, what the fuck are you doing here? It’s not that I’m not flattered you chose my establishment, but your being on the premises brings the average age around here down from ninety-eight to ninety-seven and eleven months and twenty-nine days.”
    “Research,” I snapped back without hesitation. “I’m doing research on the demise of the Cat—”
    “Bullshit! Pardon my French, Mr. Moe, but you can’t bullshit an old bullshitter like me. You might be able to feed the Molly Treats of the world that line of crap, but not old Sam. So …”
    “Were you around when the workers’ quarters at the Fir Grove burned down?”
    Sam changed. I can’t say how, exactly. His expression remained constant. The corners of his mouth didn’t suddenly turn down, nor did he furrow his brow. He did not avert his sparkly blue eyes. He did not cough or hem and haw. Yet something was different, as if the gases in his exhalation had turned sour.
    “I was around. I was around the fucking corner. I was the entertainment director of the Fir Grove back then. I did two shows a night, emceed, ran the dance contest, bussed the tables, and cleaned the toilets if I had to. It was a real top-notch job, just below child molester and just above cancer-study participant. Why you wanna know, boychik ?”
    “That’s what I’m here researching.” And for the very first time since I received it, I showed someone my license. That I kept it in the same case as my old cop badge was completely calculated. Like I’d told Dr. Prince, badges help cut through the crap.
    “Sixteen years after the fact.” The old comedian beamed. “Now, that’s what I call a late start.”
    “What can you tell me about it?”
    “What’s to tell? Some putz was smoking in bed, and—poof!—teenagers well done. You working for Hammerling, that publicity-seeking missile?”
    “No.”
    “For who, then? Who would be interested so long after it happened?”
    “Sorry, Sam, I can’t tell you that. But I bet you knew that?”
    “Sure, Sudden Sam knows all, sees all, says nothing.” He rolled his hands and fingers at me like Svengali putting his victim into a trance. “You hypnotized yet? My fingers are gettin’ stiff already.”
    “Anything left of the old place”—I was curious—”the Fir Grove, I mean?”
    Sam shrugged. “Maybe some stuff. They bulldozed a lot of it. This I know for sure. I don’t get over there much. Only the hayseeds—”
    “—and the Hasids. Yeah, I know. Molly told me.”
    “Yeah, well, I like to think of ‘em as the rebels and the rabbis myself. See for yourself. Take a ride over, but leave your chai in your room,” he suggested, placing his hand on my forearm.
    “Why?”
    He patted my arm. “You’ll see when you get there.”
    Before I could ask him about his odd warning, a chubby Hispanic man in chefs pants and hat approached Sam. He bowed to me slightly. “Jefe,” he addressed Sam, “the old people, they comeeng.”
    Sam got up without a word of goodbye and marched into the dining room right past the cook. The cook smirked, shrugged his shoulders in puzzlement, and headed back to his kitchen station. I waited a