It’s All Over Now, Goodnight

“It’s gonna be a shit show. You can feel it in the air,” said the cop from San Jose. He and his partner had been trying to act all hard-boiled, demurring when I asked what exactly brought them here. But here we were at Wolski’s, the 116-year-old tavern aglow in brothel red and hung with only slightly more American flags than normal, with shots of Jager before us. It was the fellows’ last night off before a week of 16-hour days patrolling the conference grounds, and soon enough the shorter of the two was spilling all his beans—his divorce, his beat-style travels to most all the 50 states, and how a long career in tech had led him to the wacky world of small-time law enforcement. “Any corner in this city, I could point out all the agents,” he bragged, dragging with gusto from a borrowed cigarette. “It’s all in the mustache.”