“I believe that,” Hawk said. “I’ll have one, medium rare. And a double vodka martini on the rocks with a twist.”
“You want that before the meal, sir?”
“Un huh.”
I ordered the same thing. And the waitress went briskly to the bar.
“You gonna ask her, she seen Susan Silverman,” Hawk said.
“Not yet.”
The waitress came back with the martinis. “Go good with dinner,” Hawk said. “But I thought they’d serve it in a jelly glass with a straw.”
I drank a little of the martini.
“I think I know your plan,” Hawk said. “You, figure we sit here till Russell and Susan decide to go out to dinner and catch them when they come here.”
“Hell, I don’t have a plan that good,” I said.
“You know what you doing?”
“No.”
Hawk drank some martini. “Not bad,” he said.
“Even bad martinis aren’t bad,” I said.
We drank again. “Didn’t want to order champagne,” Hawk said. “This the kind of place you order champagne they bring you Cold Duck in a styrofoam cup.”
I finished mine and waved at the waitress put up two fingers. She came over.
“Did you wish something, sir?”
“Two more,” I said.
“Two more drinks?”
I smiled attractively. “Yes,” I said.
“What kind, sir?”
I smiled harder. “Two more martinis,” I said. “On the rocks, and with a twist. Actually with two twists, one in each martini.”
“Yes, sir.”
She raced off toward the bar.
“Probably hurrying so she won’t forget ‘fore she get there,” Hawk said.
“No wasted motion,” I said.
The waitress came hurrying back, carrying a tray. She put steak and french fries down in front of us. She put out two small dishes of canned carrots, and a basket of rolls. There were squares of foil-wrapped butter in the basket with the rolls.
“I’ll get your drinks right away,” she said. Hawk looked at his plate and then at me. The steaks were wide and flat, covering nearly the whole plate, and about a half-inch thick at best. There was a large bone in each steak.
“Better wait and drink the second martini,” I said.
“What kind of steak you figure this is,” Hawk said.
“Camel.”
Hawk nodded. “Well, we didn’t actually say beef steak, did we.”
The waitress brought the second martinis. Hawk and I each drank some.
“Gin,” we said simultaneously.
“We could send them back,” Hawk said.
“Yeah, but the next one might be made with Kool-Aid,” I said.
“You right,” Hawk said and drank some more.
The steak looked better than it tasted. The french fries were not edible. The carrots had been cooked for maybe an hour and a half. The rolls tasted like sugarless marshmallows.
“Wow, you boys must have been hungry,” the waitress said when she cleared the plates.
The place was filling up, some diners and a lot of drinkers. I paid the check and we moved to the bar. We each ordered beer.
“What do people do for a living around here,” I said to the bartender.
“Transpan mostly,” he said. “Half the people in here tonight work out at the facility.”
“What’s Transpan,” Hawk said.
“They make guns,” the bartender said. He had on a white shirt and a black string tie. His gray hair was short. “They got a big factory about five miles from here. There’s a range and a test course. Big facility.”
