Page 16 of Shadow Of Sin

“You told the UPS guy to go to hell last week.”

“He left my package in a puddle. That was a proportionate response.”

I pick up the second plate and move one stool closer so I’m sitting next to her. She watches me do it.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“The food’s set up here.”

“You were fine where you were.”

“And now I’m closer to the plate.”

We eat. Sal moves between us and his other customers, dropping in to add something every few minutes. At one point he asks me what kind of computer work I do.

“I build things that keep other things from breaking,” I say.

“In English?” Eva says.

“That was English.”

“That was the vaguest sentence ever spoken in this restaurant, and Sal once described his meatballs as ‘an experience.’”

“They are an experience,” Sal says.

“They’re meatballs.”

Sal’s looking between us with an expression I’m choosing to ignore. He’s got the face of a man who’s already writing a toast for a wedding that isn’t happening.

“I’m gonna go help Marco,” he says, backing away. “You two keep...I don’t know, doing whatever this is.” He grins and disappears through the red doors.

“He’s going to be unbearable,” Eva says with a groan.

“About what?”

“About you.” She chews like she’s annoyed at the food for being good. “He thinks I need people.”

“Do you?”

“I need Sal to be safe. That’s the whole list.”

“That’s a short list.”

“Short lists are easier to protect.”

She said it simply. Matter of fact. But I heard what’s underneath. She’s someone who has cut everything out of her life except the one person she can’t lose. I know what that feels like. My list has four names on it. Five, now. And that fifth one happened fast enough to make my head spin. It hasn’t really stopped.

We eat in silence for a minute. Her knee is close to mine under the bar. Not touching. Just there.

Sal comes back out and refills her water. He catches her eye and does something with his eyebrows that I’m clearly not supposed to see. She gives him a look that could freeze a radiator.

“Stop,” she says.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your eyebrows said plenty.”

“My eyebrows are my own business.” He turns to me. “Wolfe, come back anytime. I mean it.”