BEIRUT<br > The lone patron of the sidewalk maqha signaled the<br >tea shop owner to bring him another glass， his gesture<br >displaying the impatience and arrogance of the young. The<br >old tea vendor disliked having to cater to every youth with a<br >9-mm automatic in his waistband， but what young man did<br >not have one these days? Or a Kalashnikov or some equally<br >deadly thing. Beirut was， after all， a city of guns. The old<br >man wiped sweat from his graying stubble and brought tea<br >for the sullen young man.<br > Despite the cease-fire， all other shops near the Green<br >Line that divided Christian East Beirut from Muslim West<br >Beirut remained closed as the noon hour approached. No<br >one believed in cease-fires anymore--it was safer to close<br >up and watch the soccer on television. The tea vendor had<br >been closing his own shutters when the young man ap-<br >proached， opening his light Italian-cut sport coat to expose<br >his pearl-handled Browning and staring coldly at him from<br >behind his Vuarnet sunglasses. With the fatalism character-<br >