Ashes to ashes. I decided to have breakfast at Charley’s. I wasn’t sure why I felt like I was going in a circle, but then, I wasn’t sure I was going anywhere at all. Except south. To New Jersey. I drove my car through streaks of gray light. Like the window in Starring’s apartment.

Either I got there before the morning rush, or Phil was living off past success. Other than a bread truck parked in the no-parking zone in front of the restaurant, there were no cars on the block. As I walked through the door Phil and his redheaded waitress looked up with curiosity from a corner table. For an instant they seemed bothered by the disruption, but I didn’t think it was personal. More likely they were comfortable with the deserted atmosphere. It was a shame; the place seemed more seasoned than dingy, but failure has a way of rushing things. The man in a slate-blue Wonder Bread uniform sat in the corner, his plate piled high with corned beef hash. It had been ages since I had hash. Of any kind. The deliveryman kept his head buried in his newspaper and didn’t bother to look up.

By the time I settled at the counter the waitress had her face two inches above her black and white enamel table. She seemed to be wrestling with her eyes. I couldn’t tell if the problem was makeup or contacts. Phil slowly left his seat and leaned his body in my direction.

I nodded my hello. “Can’t make up my mind yet. Trying to choose between ham and eggs and hash.”

He pushed himself away from the counter and wiped his hands on a towel hung nearby. He shook his head. “No choice.” He turned his back and cut two thick slices from an honestly cooked ham enthroned next to the stove. This pig wasn’t shook out of a can. “What kind of eggs?”

“Over medium.”

He turned around and looked at me. “This is why I don’t carry a cook.” He pointed with the spatula toward a door off the far end of the counter. “No way to tell a cook what someone means by ‘over medium.’ ”

Before I could explain the redhead interrupted. “You don’t keep a cook because there is nothing for a cook to do. Just like there is nothing for me to do.”

She was finished snorting the table and held a small square mirror an arm’s length from her face. Her very pretty face. It almost made up for the carping tone in her voice, but not quite. I’d heard enough of that between Gloria and Holmes. I hoped the lady would knock it off. I turned back toward the grill where both my eggs and ham were making some nice smells and sounds. “Hey, if it tastes as good as it looks, why would you let anyone else cook?”

He looked into the mirror that ran directly across from my seat and spoke to the waitress, “Don’t be an ass. If I started to cook quiche you’d have plenty to do. What the hell, I got no complaint. This joint had a good long run. Long enough to take me to my last stop.”

“Jesus, Phil, cut that out! I hate it when you talk like that.” Her voice sounded sincere. It surprised me. After a moment, though, she settled back into a more comfortable role. “How come I never saw any of this so-called run?”

I could see him lift an eyebrow. “You’re living off it, sweetheart.” She didn’t bother to answer and I kept staring at the grill. He added home fries and slipped two pieces of rye into the toaster. I was starving. He turned and reached behind the large institutional coffee urns and pulled out a small glass pot from an electric drip model. I didn’t know if I was a special customer or he just didn’t use the big one. He poured coffee into a thick china mug. I considered leaping across the counter but didn’t have to. He handed it to me and seemed pleased to see me drink it black. The coffee was tremendous.

I talked to him while he assembled my meal. “If you served this,” I lifted the mug, “you’d fill the place.”

“You wanna do a commercial?” Phil said as he placed the plate in front of me.

I grabbed my knife and fork and ignored the napkin. “I’ll tell you in a minute,” and dived into the food. Phil disappeared and I didn’t notice him again until he slipped another slice of ham onto my plate. I lifted my face and saw him staring at me. I nodded my thanks and put my head back down. I finished with another mug of coffee and a smoke. It had been a long time since I treated myself to a good meal. To any meal.

I flashed back to the pizza, then Amalfi’s. I stubbed out the first cigarette then lit another as the memories lopped a hunk off my wellbeing.

“You eat like you haven’t eaten for a while,” Phil said as he refilled the mug. “You in some kind of trouble?”

“Is it that apparent?”

“It’s pretty early in the morning for a private cop to be out unless something was going down.” He dragged his stool over to my section of the counter when he saw I wasn’t going to shoo him away. “ ’Course I don’t know if you’re still a private cop. For all I know you could be a social worker again, doing some early morning job.”

“Jesus, Phil, no one could answer anything with you slobbering in their face like that,” the redhead said. “Sorry, Mister, my Phil likes you and he don’t get to talk much with people he likes.”

Her tone seemed almost caring by the time she finished. Another lady full of surprises.

Phil said, “I tell her everything. A man’s got to talk to someone, you know.”

I did know; but it felt odd to hear it from Phil. Since I began this romp, shields were sliding off everything and everyone. I wanted to smoke my joint but I doubted Phil liked me that much. “Well,” I looked right at him, “I’m still a private cop. But at the rate I’m going I’ll need that social work job.”

He grinned sympathetically. “Having trouble, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“No surprise.” He leaned in over my plate. “Not if you’re working on the one with the cop.”

“That’s the one.”

“You’re looking at real heavy. I never told you, did I? Julius, I told Julius. He got you the message, right?”

“Yeah. He didn’t elaborate, though.”

He looked past my head to the table where the redhead sat. I saw her face in the mirror. She seemed interested, there was nothing else for her to do. The deliveryman had left while I had been buried in my food.

“You hear that, Red? Julius didn’t elaborate.” The three of us smiled conspiratorially. Phil continued, “ ’Course, there wasn’t much e-labor-ating anybody would do, including some real Blarney Stone kissers.” I could see Red begin to shift focus to her fingernails. I pulled my eyes off the mirror and paid attention to Phil. He had lowered his voice, “I’m telling you it was tighter than the Virgin Mary’s asshole. This squad ain’t supposed to exist, so the people on it don’t exist neither.”

“But they do?”

“They sure do.”

“Why can’t it be traced through Personnel?”

“They don’t pick them from the force. Most people think the squad’s recruited out of state. Out of state, believe it or not.” He shook his head as if it would be only a moment before the Fascists arrived. “Sometimes even the regulars recruit that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“When they put stripes on a black guy they hire him from somewhere else. Definitely don’t want him from too close to home. This Washington Clifford is an exception.”

“So people know him?”

“People used to know him. Dropped out of view a couple years ago. People were more relieved than curious.”

“Why?”

“Too independent for most people’s taste.”

I thought of Starring’s head. I didn’t think “independence” was the right term for what Clifford had going.

“Why do people think he’s attached to Devlin’s special squad?”

“Nothing hard. Occasionally shows up at scenes and shows tin. That sort of thing. Nothing for the bank, but good enough for me.”

“So there was no information?”

“Let’s put it this way. I been nosing around the cops and City Hall for forty years. Either the lid is clamped tighter than a rich man holds Ben Franklins, or people don’t know anything offside about those burglaries. So far, all that’s interesting is Clifford.” Phil made sure to grab my eye. “But he makes it very interesting.”

I had a hunch that Clifford was more interesting than even Phil knew. I lit another cigarette and offered him one. He took it but quickly tucked it in a pocket of his apron. He nodded toward the redhead and moved his hand back and forth. I got the message. I wasn’t to talk about smoking, and I didn’t want to talk about Clifford.

“What do you think of someone who breaks into a house to get something specific? Says he is on a clock? Then can’t make up his mind whether to rape the woman he’s surprised to find there?”

“Kills her?”

“No. Whacks her around.”

“I’d say he wasn’t very good at his job.”

“Neither fish nor foul. Sounds like a quick hire, doesn’t it?”

“He really say that about a clock?” He had a bemused expression on his face and was shaking his head.

“Yep.”

“I’d say a very quick hire. And dumb. Shit, all you got to do is ask Julius. He’ll get you the name.”

I didn’t want to ask Julius. Somehow I began to feel suspicious of the little dregs of information Phil kept feeding me. “You give me just enough material to keep me in the dark.”

Before he answered I heard a peal of laughter from behind my head. I knew who it was coming from.

“I know why he likes you, private cop. You’re as suspicious as he is. Do you have a name?”

I swiveled around to look at her directly. “Matt. And you?”

“Red will do.”

I nodded my agreement, then turned back to Phil and his slight smile. “She’s right. That’s some of why I like you. Also, Julius told me you didn’t run my name. It wouldn’t matter, but that was thoughtfill.”

My suspiciousness evaporated before he finished. Too many ugly hours, too little sleep. I rubbed my eyes. “I’m sorry, Phil. I’m not wrapped very tight these days. I’m lost in this fucking case. I can put faces into roles and names to the faces, but I don’t know what the hell is going on or why. It all feels ass-backwards.”

He sat back down on the stool. “I wish I could help you. I seen this plenty. That’s why it’s an open case and not closed.” He bobbed his head. “Sounds like you’re working on one that’s not even open. Look, there’s no right way to figure things out. You just grab at whatever’s flapping and hope it takes you somewheres. Ass-backwards is a state of mind.”

He sounded like Lou. His words gave voice to a buried optimism, and I smiled and thanked him. He told me what I owed for breakfast, and I thanked him again. The terrific coffee was free.

So was the outdoors, but the java was the better deal. The dirty sky had turned up the brightness notch, which made it just possible to see the drizzle. It was cold and clammy and made me wonder about the climate in New Jersey. Probably the same, only a little warmer. I pulled my jacket tighter against the chill. This wasn’t going to be a vacation. I thought back to the times my first wife and I used to go to Jersey. Her family lived there; those were supposed to be vacations.

I started the car and pulled slowly into traffic. I was tired but fought the urge to rush. I doubted Holmes and Dr. James could get there before the light amped up a little more. I pointed the car in the direction of my house and hoped it knew the way home.

The idea made me chuckle. My house. The one next door was mine too. I tried to remember what the front of it looked like. I couldn’t, so when I got to my block I parked on the street instead of in the alley. I was standing on the sidewalk comparing the different facades when Charles came flying out the front door, his green plaid flannel nightshirt flapping in the wind and rain. He was wearing matching plaid slipper socks that wrapped around his partially exposed calves. I immediately decided to spend some money on Charles this Christmas.

“Matthew, I’m glad you decided to park in front. I would have met you in the back but sometimes it’s difficult to hear over the noise from the parking lot.” He was breathless from his run.

“Slow down. What’s so important?”

His head drooped and his shoulders sagged. I almost reached out to keep him from slumping to the ground. He looked back up at me. “I blew it. I fucked up.”

“Charles. Stop the operetta. What’s going on?”

He looked at me with Mastroianni eyes. “I let them into your apartment.”

“Let who in?” I didn’t know whether I sounded scared or angry; but Charles had just lost his Christmas gift.

“It was a short hairy man and a lady who looked injured. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.”

I was relieved. “No problem. I’m glad you let them in, but be careful now. I’m still in the shit and it feels closer to the fan.”

“Sounds like you are in trouble?”

I started toward the front door. “Come with me to the apartment, will you? I might need your help.”