IT WAS AFTER SEVEN when I got to Susie’s. The patrons at the bar had achieved a high degree of merriment. I didn’t recognize the plinky tune the steel band was playing, but it was all about sun and the sparkly Caribbean Sea.

  Made me want to move to Jamaica and open a dive shop with Joe. Drink passion fruit mai tais and grill fish on the beach.

  I reached our table in the back room as Lorraine was clearing away a plate of chicken bones. She took my order for a Corona and dropped off the menu. Claire was taking up one side of our booth, what she called “sitting for two,” while Cindy and Yuki sat across from her - Yuki pressed up against the wall as if she’d been smushed there like a bug.

  It looked like she’d lost a fight.

  I dragged up a chair, said, “What’d I miss?”

  “Yuki gave a great closing argument,” Cindy said, and then Yuki broke in.

  “But Davis obliterated it!”

  “You are nuts. You got the final damned word, Yuki,” Cindy said. “You nailed it.”

  I didn’t have to beg. As soon as we ordered dinner, Yuki launched into her impeccable L. Diana Davis impression, screaming, “Where’s the beef? Where’s the beef?”

  When Yuki paused for breath, Cindy said, “Do your rebuttal, Yuki. Do it like you mean it.”

  Yuki laughed a little hysterically, wiped tears from her eyes with a napkin, downed her margarita - a drink she c............