Dugan looked at Mooney. “Did you come in here to raise an issue?”
“I came in to cool off,” Mooney said loudly.
“Then cool off,” Dugan said. “Just relax and cool off.”
“Might as well be drinking hot soup,” Mooney grumbled. “It’s a damn shame when a man can’t get relief from the heat.”
Through the mirror Kerrigan was studying the huddled figure on the other side of the room. He saw that the man had yellow hair cut short, with some silver showing through the yellow. He told himself to stop looking at the man, and he went on looking at him.
“I’m suffocating,” Mooney was saying. “It’s a goddamn furnace in here. And this beer makes it worse. I feel like I’m melting away to nothing.”
A white-haired gin-drinker raised his head from the glass and looked at Mooney. “Why don’t you walk down to Wharf Street and jump in the river?”
Nick laughed. But Mooney looked thoughtful, and after a moment he said solemnly, “That ain’t a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all.”
Mooney turned away from the bar and started out of the taproom. Nick went after him and pulled at his arm.
“Let go,” Mooney said. “I need relief from this heat and I’m gonna get it if I have to stay in the river all night.”