"Zackel, Frederick - Dead Wrong About The Guy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zackel Frederick)

Dead Wrong About the Guy
by Frederick Zackel
Copyright © 2001


The waitress was young, maybe seventeen years old, very short and very skinny. She looked fragile and small, a mere whisper of a woman, which I figured she hated about herself. But I could also see she was working hard at overcoming her faults. See, her blonde hair had been chopped short and then dyed a bright magenta. She also had three earrings in one ear and a butterfly tattoo on the crest of her right breast.
She was the waitress on duty at the Pier Inn Restaurant and I was in the back booth. I was her last lunch customer. Although it fronted the piers and the gas dock, the restaurant was a bit out of the way, a tad off the beaten track and not flashy enough to attract the tourists, like this part of Maui itself. Inside, the eatery had checkered curtains and no table cloths, a half-dozen tables, booths along either side wall, and a counter with swivel stools.
I looked up from my paper as she approached. "What did the parrot say about me?"
The skinny young waitress was caught off-guard, and so she blushed, which surprised her. She hadn't seen me look over at her. She got ballsy to cover her confusion. "I said, that's a guy married to his job," she said. "I said, look how he's got his head buried in a newspaper."
"And what’s that mean to you?"
"What a waste! If he moves his head six inches, bang!, he's looking at one of the most sensational sunsets Maui ever had."
I looked out at the sunset, then at her.
"Well, you had your head buried in that newspaper," she said lamely.
I looked at the newspaper, then at her.
She said, "That newspaper's the dead giveaway. When I see a guy with his nose in a newspaper like that, he's used to traveling alone and eating alone. Bet you spend your whole life on business trips. You’re a salesman or something. Bet you doesn't even know what state you’re in now."
"So, do you talk to the parrot a lot?"
"Only when the place is slow." She turned on a dime and became a waitress again. "I didn't think you were ready to order."
I folded the paper, set it aside, and gave her my undivided attention. "I'm ready to order now."
She said, "Okay. What would you like?"
"I'll have a chef salad. Blue cheese on the side."
"Anything to drink?"
"Coffee. Black."
"Anything else?"
I shook my head, gave her back the menu. When she left for the kitchen, I watched her walk. Once her cute little butt disappeared into the kitchen, I went back to my newspaper.
Moments later, she returned with my salad.
"Thanks."
I started eating, still reading my newspaper.
The waitress went behind the counter, poured herself a cup of coffee, and watched me for a while. She brought the coffee pot and filled my cup. I looked up, "noticed" her so I smiled a customer's smile, but said nothing to her, and she said nothing to me.
She came back when I was half-finished.
"How was it?" she asked.
I didn't look up. "Fine."
She didn't leave. "You always eat just a salad only?"
I noticed her for the second time. "Yeah."
"You don't look like a vegetarian."
"You live longer if you keep your weight down."
She looked at the broad-leafed salad and she knew better.
I added, "That's if you don't die from the pesticides first."
She stared suspiciously at my chef's salad, then looked quizzically at the guy. "Something I should know about?"
"No. There was nothing wrong with my salad."
"Oh. Okay." She tried being a waitress again. "How’s your meal?"
"It was as magnificent as Maui. Or you."
We made eye contact, and I was surprised that her eyes could meet mine for as long they did. When she found herself blushing, she left for the kitchen. I smiled.
As she left, Flea Nichols entered the restaurant.
I almost laughed seeing Flea Nichols after all those years. Flea was a small guy in his thirties, but he was already out-of-shape. And though his hair was receding, he wore it long and tied back in a ponytail. He wore a gaudy aloha shirt two sizes too big for him. Spindly legs poked out of his khaki shorts. Seeing the man in the back booth, he went pale as a ghost.
I beckoned Flea to join me. Flea Nichols reluctantly came and sat across from me.
I laughed, then slapped Flea Nichols' leg. "So tell me about it, Flea!" I said cheerily. "Tell me why I came four thousand miles to see you."
Flea's fingers trembled as he took ten one-hundred dollar bills from his wallet and passed them across the table to me.
I looked the money over. The bills were real, used bills and out of sequence. I didn't return the money. They were mine now.
Flea was jittery. "They're real, Mister Paoli. A guy up here gave them to me to get somebody willing to listen to a deal he wants pulled off."
We cruised past the city limits of Kahului in my rented Mustang.