Seven Minutes to Noon

never live in the President Street house again, no matter what. She mustered her best acting skills and continued. “He doesn’t need to start eviction proceedings when the Thirty Day Notice expires. We’re moving out. I was hoping you could reason with him.”
    “Who says Julius won’t be reasonable?”
    So they had discussed it. A chill zippered up Alice’s spine.
    “He acts as if—”
    “He’s an old actor,” Sal cut her off. He looked at her and winked, but what did it mean? Was there something she was supposed to implicitly understand, and didn’t?
    “We’re buying our new house through Garden Hill Realty,” Alice tried, thinking maybe that would get through to him.
    Sal brought the edge of his cleaver down along the pig’s haunch.
    “I was at Judy Gersten’s house just yesterday.”
    The knife stopped moving. Sal’s eyes crept up to Alice’s face. She had never seen his expression so still, and as every shred of civility dropped off his face, he became a different man. He stared at her with eyes that had transformed from blue to steel gray, and seemed to wait.
    Alice knew in that instant that Judy was not Sal’s wife. She also knew that Judy was more than just a friend. They were lovers, or she was part of Metro, or both.
    “She was in bad shape,” Alice continued.
    Despite the frigid room, a new sweat gathered on her skin. She felt the wires tracing a map on her body.
    “She was drunk,” Alice said. “It was first thing in the morning. I think she’d been reading the newspaper, it was lying open. It was that long article in the Times.”
    Sal put down his knife.
    “Don’t go there again,” he said calmly.
    Alice nodded, then remembered she had to speak for the wire. “Okay.”
    “I’ll talk to Julius. Don’t worry about the notice. You take your time.”
    He crossed the room without looking at her and pulled the latch that opened the door. Alice stepped out of the freezing room into the cool back office, then passed through the shop into the respite of summertime heat.
    She headed back toward Union Street, to the Seventy-sixthPrecinct. The Van Brunt Bakery van passed her and drove slowly down Court Street to Union, where in the distance she could see it make the right turn and disappear around the corner.

Chapter 31
    Mike, Frannie, Giometti and Dana were standing together in the precinct lobby when Alice walked in. Mike hurried over to her, his hair such a frenzy of mismatched direction that she knew he had spent the hour worrying it with nervous fingers. He stared into her eyes, assessing her mood, then pushed a strand of sweat-plastered hair off her forehead.
    “How did it go?” he asked.
    Alice cringed. “Let’s give up meat.”
    His face lifted in smile, crinkling his eyes at the corners, where his wisdom lines seemed to have deepened in the last two weeks. She wanted to tell him everything, recount every detail and nuance so he could see it, rewind time half an hour and be there with her. She could still feel the deep chill of the meat locker, the goose bumps on her bare arms. Yet the humidity in the precinct was stifling.
    “It’s so hot,” she said. She began to feel dizzy and a little sick. With an arm at her back, Mike led her to a chair at one of the center tables. He joined Frannie and Dana where they stood at a vending machine, drinking small bottles of water. Giometti was banging his fist on the soda machine.
    “Let it go, Paul.” Frannie opened her wallet and pulled out a dollar bill. “Here, try something else.”
    “Thanks.” He threw up his hands. “But it’s the principleof the thing. Excuse me, people.” He left them for the front desk.
    Frannie used the dollar to buy Alice a bottle of water. She tried to refuse but Frannie insisted. Alice realized how thirsty she was when she drained the bottle in three gulps.
    “You did good,” Frannie said.
    Mike and the women gathered around Alice, pulling chairs close, leaning in.
    Dana reached over to rub Alice’s neck. “Excellent.”
    Alice felt her muscles begin to relax. Suddenly, she began to sweat in earnest.
    “Delayed reaction to stress,” Dana said. “Come on, let’s get you into the AC.” She stood, and the rest followed with a quick scraping of chairs. Mike helped Alice up.
    “Paul, we’re going in,” Frannie said. They passed him at the front desk, retrieving his lost dollar from the officer who controlled the petty cash.
    They went back to the small basement room where Alice had