Bar’s a funny place, but it rarely makes me laugh.
Get to know someone, serve ’em drinks for years maybe, learn their life story, who’s dead, who’s alive in their family, if they have a family and the name of their dog or cat. Then one day you never see them again. Just gone, not there, don’t come in any more and you never know why.
So when Anthony Angelo walked into Mario’s Tap Room after five years’ absence, all I could say was, “S’up Tone? Usual?” which kind of hid my surprise at seeing him missing his right arm and with a patch over his left eye. He also walked with a decided limp.
“Didn’t think I’d still find you working here,” he muttered with a tight lipped delivery I didn’t remember from back then. He was tougher, leaner and in his voice the hint of a threat. “Thought you’d have another job by now. Higher class joint, maybe. Serving sushi and sake. Yah. Gimme a Hook.”
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I tried to look nonchalant as I wiped a glass and put it in the service rack. “Nope,” I said. “Like it here. Meet all kinds, including you. Where you been Tony? You look like hell if you don’t mind me saying. What happened?” I went over and pulled a pint. He didn’t say a word until I set it on the counter in front of him.
He groused in his beer, stared at it long and hard with that one good eye, blew the foam over to one side, took a sip and looked me straight in the face. “If I told you I’d have ta kill ya.”
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