work? How? Why should I believe you’re not the one he misjudged?”
“Do I look like a fucking murderer?” Rufus snapped, briefly losing his sense of place before saying much quieter, “Jesus Christ. I can’t tell you how I know him from work.”
Rufus waited for the insistence, the demands. But Sam just sat there, his hands tucked up under his arms, watching him. And then he said, “The murderers I know don’t have such dainty wrists.”
“You’re a dick,” Rufus remarked, echoing his prior thought aloud. “I don’t have dainty wrists.”
“Some guys like dainty wrists.” Slowly, Sam worked a pack of cigarettes out from his pocket, tapping one out, fumbling with it—the movement seemed awkward to Rufus, although he couldn’t put his finger on why. Sam didn’t light it, though; he stuck it between his lips, drawing on it cold and studying Rufus.
“You won’t tell me how you worked with Jake,” he said, taking the cigarette from between his lips and toying with the filter. “And you’re definitely not a cop.” Nothing in the tone, but the way his gaze flicked up and down Rufus, the slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes, was enough. “You’re not his boyfriend, although I think you wanted to be. You’re not one of those tech guys, because why would Jake be texting you to meet him alone. I think you’re a snitch,” he said before returning the unlit cigarette to his mouth and sucking on it again.
Rufus was flying once more. Defying gravity for that one brief, exhilarating moment before crashing to the linoleum. Pop. Snap. Sam was so matter-of-fact. So blunt. His words were like being stabbed, but the knife was so dull that Rufus wouldn’t bleed enough to die.
Swallowing the sour taste in the back of his throat, Rufus leaned across the table and snatched the cigarette from between Sam’s lips. “Jake had a girlfriend. I don’t fuck around with guys who have girlfriends.”
Sam’s answer was mild: “I just said that’s what I thought.”
“Yeah? Well, while you’re thinking—I’m thirty-three, not fifteen. Talk to me like it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Rufus leaned back, springs squeaking as he adjusted his weight in the booth. He glanced at the cigarette and snapped it into two.
Maddie returned to the booth, holding a conversation with someone at the counter across the room while somehow also addressing them at the same time. She slapped down two plates laden with greasy, oily, perfect food. The shine of butter melting atop the stack of pancakes and the hearty aroma of the home fries caused Rufus’s stomach to growl like he was housing a monster in a deep, unexplored cavern. Maddie set a canister of cream on the table before filling both mugs with coffee that smelled like it’d been brewed hours ago.
“Everything good?” Maddie asked, looking at Rufus. She hadn’t meant the food.
Rufus reluctantly nodded. “It’s fine. Thanks, Maddie.”
She gave his head a few pats before leaving their booth and resuming the heated conversation with the local at the counter. “I’m not playing General Hospital again, Stan. It’s Days of Our Lives today, and if you don’t like it, you can scram.”
Sam was digging into the potatoes, the over-easy eggs already broken open and soaking the home fries. He spoke in a low voice, his attention seemingly fixed on the food. “I hate this place. The city, I mean. I don’t like… people. I don’t like being touched. I don’t like loud noises. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“A hell of a place to come and investigate, then,” Rufus said as he pulled his own plate closer. His meal was a mirror of Sam’s. He actually never ate at BlueMoon beyond the occasional fried egg Maddie would slip him if he came in looking particularly pathetic. Rufus’s usual was coffee and sugar, so this was a hell of a treat. At the realization of his own words, Rufus’s hand froze where it hovered over his cast-aside utensils. “That’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it?”
Glancing up, Sam offered a small, bitter smile that seemed turned inward rather than at Rufus. All he said was “Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m going to do. Not very easy when Jake’s partner tells me he was shot in the forehead and has no gunshot residue on his hands.”
“Lampo’s a jackass,” Rufus muttered over the clatter of utensils being unrolled and falling onto his plate. He picked up the fork and licked butter off the tines.
“You know him? Jesus, maybe you can get a straight answer