'Hawk tell you the deal?'
'Un huh.'
'Need to know anything else?'
'Who pays for my ammunition,' Vinnie said.
'I do,' I said.
'It's a fringe benefit.'
'Man, my career is taking off,' Vinnie said.
The drizzle was becoming more insistent.
'We smart enough to get in out of the rain?' Hawk said.
'You bet,' I said.
'Want coffee?'
'Pick some place we don't like,' Hawk said.
'So it get shot up we won't feel bad.'
'I got to meet Jocelyn Colby over here in something called the Puffin' Muffin.'
'Fine.'
Vinnie looked at Hawk.
'The Puffin' Muffin?' he said.
Hawk shrugged.
'Get used to it,' he said.
The Puffin' Muffin, in the theater arcade, was one of the many shops in Port City designed for affluent Yankees, and located in places where affluent Yankees never went. When they did come, it was for an evening of theater at which time they were rarely hungry for muffins.
'Got a nice big picture window,' Hawk said.
'Yeah.'
'Let's not sit in it,' Hawk said.
We took a seat against the rehabbed brick wall.
There was a counter across the back of the place and a display case full of muffins. On the walls there were pictures of muffins; the pictures were interspersed with theater posters from the Port City Stage Company. The furniture was blond. Including the muscular waitress, with her long hair gathered in a geyser on top and tied with a pink ribbon. She poured us coffee from a thermos pot.
'Is it possible to get a muffin with my coffee?' I said.
She didn't smile. People never thought I was as funny as I did.
'Blueberry, bran, corn, banana, carrot, pineapple orange, cherry, raspberry, apple cinnamon, maple nut, lemon poppy seed, oat bran, cranberry, and chocolate chip,' she said.
'Corn,' I said.
'Toasted or plain?'
'Plain.'
'Butter or margarine?'
'Neither.'
'You want jelly with that?'
'No.'
'Honey?'
'No.'
She looked at the other two.
'Same,' Hawk said.
Vinnie nodded.
The waitress went away.
'Any sign of anyone following Jocelyn?' I said.
Hawk grinned.
'Same guy following the Greek.'
'You,' I said.
'Un huh.'
'Nobody else.'
