She asked him, 'Do you need to be alone right now? Do you want me to go?'

He moved forward and put his hands on her arms. He felt a tremor there. 'Not ever,' he said quietly, 'not ever.'

Her arms came up around him, moving into him. He could feel her heart against him. He could feel his own.

They were beating in the same time. Together. Real time, real life.

In the old days, not the old old days (since the Little Shamrock had been in existence since 1893) but back in the Fifties, the bar had been as popular for its lunches as for its drinks.

Moses McGuire and his silent partner, Dismas Hardy, thought it would be a good promotional move and a pretty good time to roll back the clock for the Fourth of July, and they had obtained a city permit to cook hot dogs and serve clam chowder (ten cents and fifteen cents, respectively) out on the sidewalk in front of the bar, on Lincoln, across the street from Golden Gate Park. They had draped a huge American flag from the roof of the Shamrock, which covered the front of the building down to the top of the windows. The whole area out front was cordoned off with saw-horses, and the weather had cooperated as it so rarely did in San Francisco.

Now at seven in the evening it was warm and still. The holiday traffic was light on Lincoln, and Hardy and McGuire were standing behind a table under which kegs of Guinness Stout, Bass Ale and Anchor Steam sat in metal containers filled with ice. All around them, inside and outside the sawhorses in front, spilling out and over into the street, in the bar behind them, a mixed crowd of at least two hundred people ate and drank to a background of some John Philip Sousa marching band music, which Moses had thought would be appropriate and which Hardy had agreed to, although it wasn't his favorite. McGuire was the three-quarter majority owner.

They had been pouring beer as fast as it would flow for the past hour and suddenly there was a lull.

'Where's your friend Glitsky?' Moses asked. 'I thought he was going to be here.'

'He might show yet – he said something about going down to Monterey. Priorities.' Hardy gestured at the throng. 'Glitsky or not, though, this looks like it's working.'

'It may be our best idea ever,' Moses answered. He tended to hyperbole even when he wasn't drinking, and he'd had about four beers already.

'It might be your best idea, but I personally have had better ones.'

'Yeah, such as what?'

'Such as marrying your sister.'

Which, of course, Moses couldn't dispute.

'Still,' Hardy was conciliatory. 'I have to admit I was worried.'

McGuire had poured himself another paper cupful of stout. He drank off a third of it. 'About what?'

'About what, he asks. Oh, nothing, Mose, it's been so mellow in the city lately, whatever could one find to worry about?'

Moses drank again, shook his head. 'Not here. It would never happen here. Not in my bar.'

'I've heard that song before… never in San Francisco either, but guess what…?'

Moses gestured. 'Hey, look out there now, Diz. Just look.'

Hardy's eyes raked the crowd. There was a sea of faces, all kinds. 'Okay… so? This proves something?'

'I think so, Diz. I really do. Hey, two days ago, all last week, you remember… now look at this. We're moving on.'

Hardy hit his Guinness tap and let an inch or two of the black nectar fall into his cup. He drank it off in a gulp, scanned the crowd one more time, turned to his brother-in-law. 'Maybe,' he said. 'Let's hope so.'

John Lescroart

JOHN LESCROART, the New York Times best-selling author of such novels as The Mercy Rule, The 13th Juror, Nothing but the Truth, and The Hearing, lives with his family in northern California.