For protection Jackson carried a stripped-down remade Uzi, a simple firehose with a pistol grip, capable of emitting a steady steam of bullets. The weapon hung from a shoulder strap down at his left side for easy access, right below the bottom of the short coat he wore.
“Nice suits,” Sandy told them.
“Thank you. Will you seat us?” Green asked the waitress.
“Pick a table. Don’t matter which,” she replied in a bored voice. “Get yourself situated, and I’ll take your orders.”
“Are you on the menu?” asked the big man, Constantinople, with a leer.
“No,” she said flatly, “I’m not. And if I was, you couldn’t afford me.”
As the blonde disappeared in the back, Constantinople watched the shallow movement of her hips and snorted. “Not much of a ride back there, but I guess it’d do in a pinch.”
“You’d crush her, big man,” Jackson replied. “Smash her right into the ground once you got pumping.”
“Damned straight,” Constantinople replied. He glanced at the older man. “Well, Ben,” he said, “you planning on eating before dark or we gonna go out and catch our own? I guess we could continue to stand here with our thumbs up our asses waiting for the lady to bring us our grub, if you want.”
Green nodded and gestured for the others to choose a table.
As the group strode past Ryan’s table, the one-eyed man noticed that Constantinople was the classic example of a big man gone to seed. The broad shoulders and imposing height and weight had probably once made him an unstoppable opponent in hand-to-hand combat, but an appetite as huge as his frame had added weight to his flabby cheeks, his thick neck and his colossal stomach. A patch of hairy pelt could be seen at the apex of his middle where a shirt button had buckled and fallen under the constant assault of his gut.
Constantinople was no intellectual; that could be seen in his wide face and half-lidded, cruel eyes. Unlike the Greens, he was no fashion lover. He wore a dirty brown duster, red-checked flannel shirt, jeans and boots that were more mud than leather. Perched on his skull was the quintessential ten-gallon hat, a tall hat with a wide brim, much like its owner. A semiautomatic handblaster was tied down to his right leg.
The last man, the one called Briggs, took the initiative and sat down first, picking a table across from Ryan’s group in the opposite corner of the dining room. As if to express his own lack of interest in his fellow diners, he sat with his back to them. Briggs was all in shades of brown: brown kerchief, brown gloves, brown hat, brown coat. Even his hair and his bushy eyebrows were brown.
The waitress returned when the men were seated. She held her pad and looked at the new customers impatiently.
“What’s good tonight?” Green asked.
“Stew,” Sandy replied.
“Stew,” Green parroted.
“Got grits on the side if you want them,” she added. ‘ ‘All out of bread. Won’t be no more up for another hour or so.”
“We’ll have stew, then. And grits. And four cups of coffee.”
“Four stews and subs coming right up,” she announced cheerily, happy to escape the obvious gaze from Constantinople. She quickly returned with four chipped mugs and a lime green metal pot. After filling all four mugs, Sandy had nearly made it away from their table before silently having to endure a quick slap on the rump from Jackson.
Ryan couldn’t help but notice that Jackson seemed more interested in impressing Constantinople than actually getting any sort of thrill from smacking the waitress’s buttocks.
The sniggering of the two men ringing in her ears, she turned her attention to Ryan’s table.
“Refills?” she asked stoically.
Doc and J.B. took her up on the offer, but the rest abstained. They’d had enough of the lackluster brew.
‘”Tis poor to the palate, but it does give one fire in the belly,” Doc said after taking a large gulp.
“Fire in the belly, hell, that’s gas,” J.B. retorted. “You could run an engine off this stuff.”
“Cut the chatter and drink up,” Ryan announced in a low voice. “I’ve got a bad feeling about the boys who just joined us. I’d rather avoid any trouble if we can help it. My stomach’s full, and the last thing I want is to exert any energy dealing with a bunch of stupes.”