"I knew you would." He tapped the counter twice with his knuckle, a light little rap, like knocking on a door. "Tell Jodie I'll see her tomorrow." And he went out, and the bell jangled, and I watched him through the window, past my own reflection, walk to the Chevelle and get in and sit there with the engine running and the wipers going for a long minute, looking at the front of the cafe. Then the brake lights came on, red in the rain, and he pulled out onto Marine Drive and went east, toward Brownsmead, and was gone.
I stood there. Eino, at the end of the counter, put down his fork.
"That's Edna Tolan's grandson," he said. He'd been sitting there the whole time. I'd forgotten him. "Little Darrell. He used to sit in five."
"Yes," I said.
Eino looked at me over his glasses for a long moment, the way he'd looked at the bar in a southwest gale for thirty years, deciding whether to take a ship across. Then he went back to his supper. "I never liked him," he said. "Even when he was little. He used to kick the jukebox."
Toivo came out of the kitchen and picked up the ten-dollar bill off the counter, and folded it once, and put it in the pocket of his apron.
"That goes back to her," he said. "Not in the register. Not in your tips. Back to her."
"I know," I said.