Chapter ten
Sully
The lemons were fine.
I knew they were fine. I'd cut them myself at the start of the shift, twelve wedges per tray, angled the same direction so the flesh faced up and the rind didn't bleed onto anything. It was good work, clean work.
I didn't need to revisit it, but I did anyway.
The last hour was winding down, and the bar had gone soft around the edges. A few customers remained. A tab was still open at the far end of the rail. Nobody needed anything urgently.
I moved a wedge a quarter inch to the left, then moved it back.
"Sullivan."
Nora appeared beside me like a ghost. I hadn't heard her arrive. When I suggested she might be part spirit, she insisted it was only good shoes. She had her coat on and her till sorted.
"What?"
"Nothing." She looked at the tray and back at me. "Nothing at all."
"Prep," I said. "Getting a jump on tomorrow."
"You already did tomorrow." She nodded toward the far end of the rail. "Before your break."
I looked at the tray. She wasn't wrong. I picked up a lime that was perfectly intact, turned it over once, and set it back.
"He's back in town tonight," she said.
I didn't look up right away. I did a last check on the left side of the tray, confirming it was correct. It had been correct the last four times I had checked it.
"I know the schedule," I said.
The words came out without hesitation. With the next beat, I understood I'd handed her what she needed.
She looked at the lemons again. Then she picked up her bag from the service end and looked at me sideways.
"That's the part I find alarming," she said.
She was through the service door before I could answer. I heard her say something brief to Tomasz in the back before the door swung shut.
I stood there. The lemon tray was as good as it was ever going to be, and I had the lime bin organized. The citrus station was, by any reasonable standard, overdone.
It was time for the closing routine: wipe the rail, check the wells, and cap everything that needed capping. The motions carried me to the door and out to the street.
Outside, Chicago was its late-night self, never quite shutting down. A cab turned onto LaSalle, and the cold hit the back of my neck where my scarf had slipped.
I didn't put my earbuds in. Usually, I had something going during the walk home. It might be a playlist, a podcast about true crime or cocktail history, or occasionally true crime about cocktail history.
Tonight, I let the city provide the soundtrack.
I walked north and kept my hands in my pockets. Halfway through the second block, I began rehearsing. I could open with something good, shaped in a way he didn't see coming.
I let it go.
Whatever I built would get dismantled the moment Pratt looked at me, and I'd be standing there holding the pieces. I knew that from past experience, weeks of it.
Our building came up on my left. I didn't slow down.
