I call Gladys over. "Where's Feigenbaum? What's with these guys?"

"I'm going on my smoke break," Gladys says. "Meet me outside and I'll fill you in." Gladys takes a ten-minute break for a cigarette every hour. Anyone else, I wouldn't allow it.

In the alley behind the restaurant, Gladys lights up a Marlboro, exhales, through her nose and mouth, a terrific cloud of smoke.

"I asked Mr Kizerman how Mr Feigenbaum was," she said, "and he replied that he wouldn't know. He was reading the paper with his lunch, and didn't even bother to look up.

"‘Nothing wrong, I hope,' I said. ‘Hope to see you and Mr F back here soon.'

"‘Not likely,' he said, still not looking up from his paper. He then told me that Feigenbaum insulted him. I didn't think it was my place to ask him how.

"‘Sorry to hear it,' I said. ‘You two go back a ways.'"

"‘Nearly 60 years,' he said. ‘Can I get some more coffee?'"

The following Friday Feigenbaum shows up, alone. His electronic chair is so large he needs help with the door. Usually Kizerman holds it open for him. Today I do. He motors in and drives to his usual table. I follow him.

"Expecting Mr Kizerman to join you?" I say.

"Not for a long while," he says.

"Nothing wrong with his health?" I ask, pretending not to know there's been a serious falling out.

"No. Just with his brain," Feigenbaum answers.

"Meaning?"

"It's a long story. Got a minute? Sit down."

Before Kizerman begins, Gladys comes up to take his order: a large bowl of kreplach soup, a brisket sandwich on rye with a side of fries, a Dr Brown's Cream Soda, coffee and cheesecake for dessert. Not one for "The Liter Side" of our menu, Morrie Feigenbaum.

"Anyhow," he begins, "my old friend Hal Kizerman comes to me six, maybe seven weeks ago, to announce he's thinking about remarrying. He'd not mentioned any woman before, you understand, and Hal and I are pretty close. I held back. Offered no opinion. Where'd he meet this lucky lady? I ask him. At a benefit dinner for Rush Memorial Hospital, he tells me, where his boy Gary is on staff. What does she do? I ask. Some hospital volunteer work, he says. How old? I ask. 62, he says, which would make her 23 years younger than Kizerman. Married before? Three times actually, he tells me, no children. Is currently living at Imperial Towers, on Marine Drive. Will I get to meet her? Soon, he says.