Author

Gene is already there when I come through the door of the New Deal Cafe and Bar. There’s a sausage speared on the end of his fork and he’s waving it in Rita’s face. Gene’s a fat man but a long way from jolly; he can in fact be mean as a snake if you give him half a chance.

Lieberman had his eyes on his chicken salad and so at first didn’t see the woman. She stopped short at his table and stood, swaying a little this way and that, looking like a person who had just bumped into something and is wondering if she hurt herself. To the people at the next table it was clear what she’d bumped into was Lieberman.