As soon as they were seated, and Angela had smiled and thanked the waitress, Angela then said, “Holly, could you bring coffee right away, please?”
Holly just smiled and said, “Sure thing,” and she took off. Bonaparte pointed out the ones he had noticed in particular. She nodded and said, “The two men in the hats are Leroy and Leonard.”
“Isn’t that cliché?” he said.
“Their mama would never let them come in here with a hat on, so, the minute she was dead, they refused to take them off,” she said. “In all fairness, they aren’t 100 percent all there mentally. They have some disability, but I don’t know that she ever got them tested.”
He nodded. “So, in other words, we’re just dealing with teenage rebellion in adult bodies.”
“In forty-year-old men, yeah,” she said, with an understanding smile.
“And the other one?” he asked, nodding to the man at the back.
She twisted and took one look, slowly reversing, until she faced Bonaparte again. In a lowered voice, she said, “That’s Ronnie, one of our troublemakers. His brother is Johnny.”
Bonaparte looked at her in surprise and studied the man. “He’s older than I thought.”
“He looks older, yes,” she said. “My understanding is that he’s just turned thirty-eight.”
“Interesting. I was thinking early thirties,” he murmured. It was hard to get a fix on him, but the way everybody was acting said a lot. “He really thinks he’s somebody, doesn’t he?”
“News flash,” she said, her lips twitching. “He is somebody.”
“So are we,” he said.
“Hey, I got some service when I walked in,” she said. “I wasn’t sure I’d even get that.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Would they be so blatant?”
“It’s hard to say,” she said. “Just when you think you know what’s going on around here, you don’t.”
“Understood,” he murmured. He picked up the menu in front of him and asked, “What’s good?”
“Pretty much everything,” she said, “but I really like the ribs.”
“Ribs are good,” he said, with a nod. “Steak is what I’m after.”
“So is the steak,” she said.
By the time Holly came back with the coffee, they were ready with their order. Holly wrote it down quickly and left.
“She looks like she’s in a hurry.”
“Whether that’s because it’s busy,” Angela said, “or because her bosses rattled her about us, I don’t know.”
“You wouldn’t expect it to be quite so overt,” he murmured.
“I know. It’s been getting worse over time,” she said, her voice equally quiet. “And I can’t blame them. Everybody is rattled and wondering where things will go from here.”
“Of course,” he murmured. “There’s that sense of waiting, isn’t there?”
“Yes, there is, and it’s pretty unnerving.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Well, it’s like when the weather is building up, and you know it’s about to break, but it hasn’t yet, so you’re hot and muggy and feeling sticky and just wishing it would happen, so you could get on with life.”
“Right, but these kinds of storms have a tendency to not be something that you actually get over,” he murmured. They kept their conversation low, as they discussed various people who had interested him in the room. They were still the center of attention, as everybody turned to look and then would look away, as soon as he caught their gaze.
“But nobody is being overtly unfriendly,” he said, “nor have they been overtly friendly.”
“No,” she said, “it’s just that strange weightiness.” Even as they waited for their meals to arrive, several people got up, as if hurriedly finishing to leave.
“Was that because of us?”
“It’s possible,” she said, slowly studying the room and its occupants. “I haven’t really had them get up and leave when I’m here yet, but—because you’re here and an unknown, and of course Ronnie is here—maybe this combo has them jumpy.”
“You think that’s what it is?”
“I wouldn’t put it past anybody,” she said. “Most of the town is just sleepy, and people don’t want to be bothered. They just want to go about their daily life without dealing with any of this strife. The fact that it’s come home in a big way makes them uncomfortable. It makes them nervous, and they don’t want anything to do with it.” As they watched, another couple got up, leaving a little bit on their plates, and walked over to the cashier, where they paid hurriedly and walked out. She nodded and said, “Now they are definitely leaving because of the scenario.”
“Good,” he said. “When bullets fly, fewer people are here to catch a stray one.”
“Well, bullets flying is one thing,” she said, “but bullets flying inside a restaurant full of people is a whole different story.”
He spied the waitress coming toward him just then. She carried large platters and looked to be in a hurry. “Here’s dinner,” he said, settling back, as a large platter was put in front of him and another before Angela, as Holly skittered off again. He looked at his food and smiled. “Maybe our money is just as good as everybody else’s here because this looks lovely.”
“Might be better than everybody else’s, as the owner’s an old friend,” she said easily, “but that doesn’t mean he can handle being too friendly with me.”
Bonaparte didn’t care how friendly the owner was as long as the steak tasted as good as it looked. He looked over at her ribs and nodded. “Those look damn fine too.”
She gave him a fat grin. “They are,” she said. “I wasn’t kidding. It really is the best thing on the menu, if you ask me.” She picked up her knife and fork and started separating the ribs. He could see the meat fall off the bone, as he looked down at his steak. His mouth started to water, and he cut in, anticipating that first bite. He had just lifted it and put it in his mouth, when a man interrupted them.
“So who the hell are you?”
Bonaparte looked up to see the arrogant asshole from the back booth standing in front of them. His hands on his hips, his legs planted wide
