First Avenue (25 page)

He looked at his watch.
Two o’clock
. Still an hour before
Maria
was off. Still an hour and more before he could go home.

He put the newspaper back in the rack and walked through the crowded market to Silve’s restaurant. The Market was always packed on Saturdays.
Sam
tapped on the kitchen door. Silve’s kitchen door was divided in two, with the top open and the bottom closed and locked.
Sam
could have reached inside himself, but he waited for Silve to unlock it.

“Come in, sir. It’s not morning already, is it?” The old man laughed at his joke as he headed back to the stove. “For a second I don’t recognize you.”

“Is everybody gone?”
Sam
asked. He craned his neck to peer into the empty dining room. Dishes were stacked high in the sink beside the dishwasher.

“I close a little early. Are you hungry? I can still make something.”

“No thanks. Business was not so good today?”

“It was okay.”

“Are you alone?”

“Now I am. My son came in to help with the lunch. You sure you’re not hungry?”

“I’m sure.”

“There might be some coffee left.”

“I’ve had enough coffee today. Do you need some help? I have some time to kill.”

“Sit down on the stool,” Silve said. He pointed to the stool beside the door where he liked to sit himself when the lunch rush was over. It was cool there away from the stove and the steam of the dishwasher. From there he could see down into the dining room, or direct any help he might have in the kitchen, or talk to friends who came to the door. There was no help in the kitchen today.

With the old man still behind the stove,
Sam
didn’t feel like sitting down. “I know how to do this,” he said as he walked to the dishwasher. He lifted the handle at the side of the machine, pulled out a rack of glasses, and headed downstairs. He carried the rack to the counter in the dining room where the clean glasses were stacked. There was no room on the counter. Two heaping bus tubs of plates and silverware took up all the space.

“Just leave those on the table,” Silve said. He stood at the top of the stairs.

“I know where they go,”
Sam
replied. He set the rack of glasses on the table, took off his jacket and shoulder holster, wrapped the gun in his jacket, and stuffed both of them onto a shelf below the coffeemaker.

“Okay,” Silve said, still standing at the top of the stairs. He shrugged his small shoulders. “I can’t stop you.”

“That’s right.”

Sam carried one of the bus tubs up to the kitchen and filled another of the green dish racks with plates. He slid it inside the dishwasher and closed the door. The machine began washing immediately. He wondered how Silve’s son could leave the old man with such a mess.

He cleaned out one of the sections of the three-compartment sink and filled it with clean water. Silve came to his side and handed him an orange apron like his own.

“You may as well wear this,” the old man said. “Don’t get dirty that way.”

Sam took the apron and slipped it over his neck.

“How do I look?” he asked as he tied the apron string behind his back.

The old man laughed with a short grunt and dismissed
Sam
with a wave of his hand.
Sam
was not dismissed, however. He ran racks of dishes through the dishwasher and scrubbed pots while he waited for the racks to finish. He liked the work. It made the time pass faster. It was better than shooting customers.

“It looks like you still need somebody,”
Sam
said.

“Today I do. Maybe tomorrow I don’t. That’s how it goes.”

“There’s a girl who works over at the Donut Shop on
Pike Street
. She gets there by six in the morning, so I know she’s not afraid to get up. She’s got something up here, too,” he said, tapping the side of his head with a finger. “She needs to get out of there. It’s not a good place for her.”

“Why does she work there anyway?” Silve asked.

“She just got here from
Alaska
. I don’t think she knew what it was like.”

“You send her to me.”

“I’ll do that. If you don’t mind, I’ll bring her today. I told her I would meet her at three. She and I have some things to talk about.”

“I’ll be here,” Silve said. “You working on something over there?” He tipped his head in the direction of First and Pike.

“Maybe. It’s not good for me to talk about it yet.”

“We don’t talk about it then,” Silve said.

Silve went down to clean the dining room.
Sam
scrubbed vigorously. When Silve returned to the kitchen, there were only a few pots left to wash.

“Now we are almost done,” Silve said. “I’ll finish these last ones.” His voice made it clear that he would tolerate no more opposition from
Sam
. “Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome,”
Sam
said. He looked at his watch. It was almost
three o’clock
.

“You bring the girl,” Silve said. “Take your time. I’ll wait for you.”

“I think I’m better in the kitchen than I would be waiting on tables.”

Silve laughed softly as he thought again about
Sam
waiting on customers. It was an image dear to him. “Maybe, but I would still like to see that.”

Sam took off the orange apron, folded it, and put it on top of the dishwasher. He walked down to the dining room and pulled his jacket off the shelf. After slinging the holster over his shoulder, he snapped the straps to his belt. He put on the jacket that he needed even less than before.

“I’ll be back soon, I hope,”
Sam
said.

“I’ll be here,” the old man replied.

Sam walked on the cobblestones of
Pike Place
to avoid the crowds around the food stalls. He passed through a line of cars waiting for parking spaces that were not likely to become vacant. At the newsstand he picked up the
Omaha
paper again. He thought about Silve’s restaurant and the tired, old man. He had never seen the old man so tired.

Maria was there before he knew it. Nervous, unsmiling, confused by his lack of recognition, she stood away from him until he finally stopped thinking about restaurants. He was startled to see her, much sooner than he had expected, although there was no reason not to expect her. He silently scolded himself for letting his mind wander. Whatever she wanted to tell him could not be good. One girl, one baby, already knew that. He concentrated his eyes on hers as a message for her to follow, and she walked slowly after him.

When he got deeper into the Market, he stopped and waited for her. He felt safe standing with her between the produce and fish stands.
First Avenue
was only a block away, but it seemed much farther.

“It’s nice to see you away from that place,” he said. They both knew what that place was. “We’ll go down a little farther. I have a friend who has a restaurant. We’ll talk there.”

He walked with her through the Market, past the neat rows of tomatoes and cucumbers, past the stacks of green onions, the salmon on ice, and the geoducks with their long obscene necks that stopped all the tourists. What are those? they all wanted to know. He stopped at the ramp that led down to Silve’s kitchen.

“Ever been in the Market before?” he asked.

“No.”

“You should look around sometime. There are all kinds of interesting places here. Over in that building there’s a great oyster bar.” He pointed as if he were giving a tour.

“What’s an oyster bar?” she asked.

“A place where you eat oysters—fried, baked, raw. Any way you like them.”

Her expression showed she did not like oysters.

“Let’s go down to my friend’s restaurant,” he said, giving up the tour guide business. “I told him we might be coming.”

She walked with him to Silve’s door. This time
Sam
reached inside and unlocked it himself. Silve watched from the stove and didn’t step forward until
Sam
introduced them. Then the old man wiped his hand on the bottom of his apron and extended it to her.
Sam
could see from her awkward response that she was not used to shaking hands, but when she got hold of the old man’s hand, she grasped it firmly.

“No sissy,” Silve said. He chuckled and pointed to her biceps.

It was true. She had strong muscles. He wished he could have taken her hand as easily as Silve.

“You go down there,” Silve said, directing them out of his kitchen. “I’ll talk to you later. I made fresh coffee if you want it.”

He led
Maria
down the steps to the dining room and pointed to the first table beside the stairs. It was the place where he sat in the morning.
Maria
slid into the seat closest to the kitchen wall. He poured each of them a cup of the fresh coffee Silve had made and sat across from the girl.

“So what would you like to tell me?”

He thought it was a question she would be ready to answer, but she took a moment to begin.

“There’s something strange going on there,” she said. Her voice was almost a whisper, similar to the way it had been in the Donut Shop, as though she didn’t realize she was now in a safe place.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“It’s like they’re waiting for something. I can’t really explain it, but I see it in their faces.”

“Whose?”

“
Pierre
’s,
Bill
’s, those other kids. They come in the morning, and he sends them away. At first I thought they came for free doughnuts, but it’s not that. It’s something else. They’re waiting for something.”

“Any idea what that might be.”

“No.”

“Do you think any of them would tell me?”

“They won’t have anything to do with you.”

“But you do,
Maria
. Why is that?”

He was back in business again. When he said her name, he meant to bring her into his confidence. A name could do that. He had seen it often. Say the name aloud and watch the transformation. Instead of being fooled, if that was what he intended, she seemed to understand. She understood more than she should have. She didn’t answer his question.

“He hates you, you know.”

“Who?”

“
Pierre
.”

“I don’t like him very well, either. That’s my job.”

“He doesn’t hate the other policemen.”

“What do you mean?”

“The two men that come in the afternoon. The two with the sticks.”

“The beat cops?”

“I don’t know who they are.”

“Big guys?”

“Yes.”

“McDonald and Fisher. They’ve got the walking beat on
First Avenue
.”

“Yesterday
Pierre
left the store after they came in.”

“Do you think that’s unusual?”

“I think he went to meet them.”

“How do you know that?” His voice was harsh enough that she pulled back from him. He hadn’t meant to be harsh, but the girl needed to be careful making up stories like that. “What makes you think that?” he asked more softly.

“I saw them yesterday. He told me to take a break when they came in. He stood beside them and poured their coffee. He never does that. He won’t wait on anybody. They pretended that they weren’t looking at each other, but I know they were. After they left, he walked down the street the same way they did.”

“With them?”

“No. A few minutes later.”

“That doesn’t mean what you think. He walked out today when I was there, too.”

“He walks out all the time.”

“See. That’s what I mean,”
Sam
said.

“They know each other. I could see it. They didn’t pay for their coffee, either.”

Jesus, he thought. Would
McDonald
be so stupid as to still freeload a cup of coffee? He had worked with
McDonald
a few times after graduating from the academy—he had been just a kid, a few years older than
Maria
.
McDonald
, the veteran even then, had showed him how to walk like a cop, had showed him, too, how whiskey tasted in a coffee cup. The old days. Everybody had gotten over those days, hadn’t they?