Henry Lee was drinking coffee over by Bea. Drenovis was standing next to him looking pissed when Bill and Mary came back up the stairs and into the kitchen.
Bill could tell he’d been there a while. He was drinking coffee and drumming his fingers on the glass door of the icebox against which he stood. Mary went directly to her station but Bill went over by Henry Lee and Drenovis. He stopped first to get himself a coffee mug and drew himself a coffee from the Bunn.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Where you been?” Drenovis shot back.
“Well, Mary and I had about two hours extra time, so we took a trip downtown to go shopping.”
“Very funny.” Drenovis shifted on his feet. “You better watch your ass,” he said.
“I heard that before.” Bill stood next to Drenovis and drank his coffee. “You don’t have anything to worry about. Lunch will be ready in plenty of time.”
“It better be.” Drenovis finished his coffee, stepped away from them over to the dish machine. He put his mug in the rack of dirty dishes. Then he took a look around the dishwasher area, the pot washer area, and out into the hall. From there he went around back to where Mary was working.
“Don’t be coming back here.” Mary quickly said. “I don’t want your silly ass back here with me.”
“I don’t really care much what you want,” said Drenovis. “I’ll do my job and you do yours. So I’ll look at what you’re doing if I want to and you have nothing to say about it.”
“Feeling brave today, huh? Well that’s pretty stupid.” Mary started to untie her apron. “Cook the goddamn lunch yourself.” She threw the untied apron on her counter and walked out of the kitchen.
Drenovis didn’t really have anything to say. He had only come out east to talk to Tommy and to take the deposit that Tommy had not made the night before.
It was unusual for Tommy not to make the deposit, but business had been slow and there wasn’t all that much cash. Tommy had reckoned last night that it wasn’t worth making the trip, even though he still remembered the time they’d been robbed and he didn’t want to get robbed again.
Statistical likelihoods had played in his mind. Time had played in his mind. They were almost out early, earlier than most nights, and he had a chance to get home and into bed with his wife at a reasonable hour. So he made the call over to the West side and told Drenovis what he was doing. Drenovis said it would be okay, to let it go like that.
So here he was, too early for any of the waitresses to be in so there was no one from the front staff to mess with. If the girls had been there, especially given that he was smarting from Bill and Mary being absent from the kitchen when he’d come in, he would’ve started stuff.
Bill was still over by Bea and Henry Lee. Nothing much Drenovis could do with Mary right now, so he went over by Bill, but before he could say a word, Bill said, “Don’t start nothing, won’t be nothing.”
“You have to get Mary back in the kitchen.”
“I don’t have to do anything but my job.”
“I just love coming over here,” Drenovis said.
They lingered a moment there, everyone quiet, no one going after Mary or over to her station in the back.
“We love having you too,” said Bill. “So the quicker you get your ass out of here the better we all are.”
“Maybe I’ll wait around for a bit.”
“Your funeral,” Bill said.
