Yeah, Manfred thought. ’Cause choking guys look soooo cool.
“What do you think?” Lemuel said, in the voice that nearly wasn’t there.
Manfred turned his head a little to look into the eyes that were exactly the color of—wait, he nearly had it—the color of snow and ice melting over asphalt, a cold gray. “I thought they must be watching you or Olivia,” he said, though he couldn’t get as close to silent as the creature next to him. He managed well enough that Joe (to his left) didn’t hear him but kept up his conversation with Chuy about Chuy’s cousin’s upcoming visit.
“That’s what I thought, too,” said Lemuel. “Which one of us is the target, do you reckon?”
“Neither,” Manfred said, in a normal voice, and then hastily looked away and brought his volume down to extra-low. “They’re watching Bobo. They’re interested in you and Olivia because you’re his tenants.”
Lemuel did not reply. Manfred was sure he was chewing over this idea, seeing if it could be digested.
“Because of Aubrey, maybe,” Lemuel said, just when Manfred was sure the topic was concluded.
“Who’s Aubrey?” Manfred asked blankly.
“Not now,” Lemuel said. He tilted his head very slightly toward Bobo. “Some later time.”
Manfred patted his lips with his napkin and put it by his plate, which was still half full. He’d eaten enough. He wondered if Lemuel would suddenly pounce on the two strangers and kill them in some horrific way. Or maybe Madonna would charge out of the kitchen with a cleaver in her hand and fall upon them.
It seemed possible in Midnight.
“Ridiculous,” he muttered.
“What?” said Chuy, across Joe.
“The amount I’ve eaten is ridiculous,” Manfred said. “You’d think I was a starving dog.” Too late, he noticed his half-full plate contrasted with Chuy’s empty one.
Chuy laughed. “I always figure if I only eat here two or three times a week and I’m careful all my other meals, I’m okay,” he said. “And you’d be surprised how many times I have to lift things in the store . . . plus, taking turns with Joe walking the dog, and doing yard work. I keep telling myself I need to start jogging, but Rasta won’t pick up the pace when we’re out.” And Chuy was off and running . . . about the dog.
Once Rasta was the topic of conversation, Manfred didn’t have to say a word. He’d observed that a small percentage of pet owners are simply silly about their pets, especially the owners who don’t have human kids in residence. Part of that silliness lay in assuming other people would find stories about the pet as fascinating as the owner did. But (Manfred had always figured) there were a lot worse things to make false assumptions about.
For example, he found it far more pleasant to think about a little fluffy dog than to wonder what two strangers were doing at Home Cookin. Two lurking strangers. And it was far better to consider Rasta’s history of constipation than the cold hand gripping his own under the table. When Joe turned to ask Chuy a question about a television show they’d watched, Manfred was left alone with his acute anxiety.
He didn’t want to offend the terrifying Lemuel, but he wasn’t used to holding hands with a guy. Manfred liked to think of himself as cool and comfortable with all sexual orientations, but the grip Lemuel had on his fingers was hard to interpret. It was not a caress, but it didn’t seem like a restraint, either.
So Manfred took a sip of his water left-handed and hoped his face wasn’t all weird.
“Manfred,” Fiji said, “do you watch a lot of television?”
She was trying, very kindly, to draw him back into the conversation, since Joe and Chuy had transitioned from the dog’s bowels to an argument about Survivor with Teacher.
“I have one,” Manfred said.
Even Olivia laughed, though Manfred noticed that while he’d been preoccupied with Lemuel, she’d edged her chair out from the table, perhaps so she could rise quickly. She’d also told Joe and Chuy she sided with Teacher on the Survivor issue (whatever it was), and she’d angled her chair to align with Teacher’s, so she could see the men by the door without turning her head too much.
“She has a gun,” Lemuel said in that voice that was audible to Manfred alone.
“I figured,” Manfred said. He was feeling unaccountably tired. Suddenly he figured it out. “You leeching?”
“I’m sorry, yes.” Lemuel turned his head to look at Manfred. His flaxen hair brushed his collar. “I am a bit unusual.”
“No shit,” Manfred muttered.
Lemuel smiled. “Absolutely none.”
“Don’t they have a bottle of blood here for you? Wouldn’t that help?”
“I can’t tolerate the synthetics. They come up as fast as they go down. I can drink the real stuff in any method of delivery. Energy is just as good.”
“You got enough, now? Think you can let go?”
“Sorry, fellow,” Lemuel whispered, and the cold hand slid away.
Manfred thought, I feel like a pancake that’s been run over by a tank. He wasn’t sure he could get up and walk out of the restaurant. He decided it would be a sound idea to sit right where he was for a few minutes.
“Drink,” said the sepulchral whisper, and Manfred carefully reached for his glass of water. But the white hand interposed a glass of a dark beverage full of ice. Manfred put it to his lips, discovering the glass contained sweet tea, very sweet tea. Normally he would not have been interested, but suddenly that seemed like exactly what he’d been longing for. He drank the whole thing. When he put down his empty glass, he caught sight of Joe’s startled face.
“Thirsty,” he said brusquely.
“I guess so,” Joe said, looking a little puzzled and concerned.
Manfred felt much better after a moment or two.
“Eat,” whispered Lemuel. Though his hands were still a little shaky, Manfred now finished his dinner completely. His plate was as bare as Chuy’s.
“I got my second wind,” he said sociably to Chuy and Joe (though why he had to cover for Lemuel, he couldn’t have expressed in words). “I think I missed lunch, too. I’m going to have to watch that.”
“I wish skipping meals was my problem,” Joe said, patting his gut. “The older I get, the more my metabolism slows down.”
That sparked a discussion about treadmills that engaged the whole table. Manfred was only obliged to look attentive. He wanted to leave, so he could get back to his house and think about what had just happened—decide if he was angry at Lemuel “borrowing” from him, if he was cool with it, or if he should make an “okay for one time but don’t do it again” speech. At the same time, he was sure he needed to sit for a while longer.