The waitress dropped off the tab. Grimacing, Bruzzi took a twenty out of his wallet and placed it on the table. He regarded Gage as if he was about to say something, then shrugged.
"Well," he said, scooting out of the booth, "I better get going. Places to go, people to see, you know.'"
"Oh? Other women and children to kill?"
Bruzzi froze, his big body halfway out of the booth. Finally, Gage got a glimpse of how Bruzzi had earned his nickname: Those enormous cheeks of his darkened, first turning red, then darkening some more, the red becoming crimson and the crimson becoming deep purplish blue, almost black. "I ain't never killed no children, Gage. Never."
"Nice to know you have standards."
They had a bit of a staring contest, then Bruzzi shook his head and rose the rest of the way out of the booth. Even sitting, Bruzzi had come across as a big man, but on his feet he was as wide and thick as a rhinoceros. He certainly had the barrel-like legs of a rhinoceros; he was all shoulders and torso, his center of gravity low. Even approaching sixty, as he must have been, it would have taken a bulldozer to bring him down.
He took a pair of mirrored sunglasses out of his jacket and slipped them on his face. The way the frames bent at wide angles to reach his ears, it gave them the look of child's glasses. The blue in his cheeks was already fading.
"You really should watch that mouth of yours, Gage. It's going to get you into trouble one of these days."
"Hmm. Lessons in manners from a former Jersey longshoreman. That's rich."
"I'm just sayin'. No need to go pissing off people for the sake of it."
"Why are you here?"
"Nope, still not the right time. But don't you worry, we'll be talkin' soon enough. The two of us got unfinished business."
The words weren't spoken as a threat; they were said matter-of-factly, without a hint of menace, as if he was telling Gage it was going to rain. Before he could manage a reply, Bruzzi walked away. Another man might have walked out without notice, but an ocean liner like Bruzzi turned a lot of heads in his wake. They were still watching him when he stepped outside, his shadow darkening the window.
It wasn't until Gage felt the cold snap of the breeze that he was roused from watching Bruzzi himself. He started for the door, but two wincing steps on the right knee and he remembered he'd forgotten his damn cane. He fetched it from the booth, nearly falling as he leaned for it, only the quickness and strength of his arm saving him from complete humiliation.
The wind had picked up when he stepped outside, cold and fierce, forcing him to clamp his fedora on his head. Down the hill to his right, a block away, an eighteen-wheeler rumbled over the highway, spitting out black fumes. The ocean, visible over the low stores, was the same charcoal color as the road. The sky above it wasn't much lighter. To his left, beyond his rusted-out Volkswagen van parked at the curb, the street rose into the older homes, little cottages and weedy yards.
Bruzzi was gone.
~continued~
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A Desperate Place for Dying,
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The Gray and Guilty Sea Page 27