Deek had to be in his early seventies, dark, barrel-chested, with tatted forearms that looked strong enough to wrestle cattle without benefit of a lasso. He always wore a plain black baseball hat, more grease than cap at this point, and I’d never seen him smile, not once. Deek didn’t make small talk. He could not care less how your day was going. In here, you got it the way he fixed it, or you didn’t get it, and service with a smile was only a silly fool’s Christmas wish. The quicker you got in, ordered something, ate it, and got the hell out, the better Deek seemed to like it. Look at him wrong or do something stupid, like ask for a saltshaker or an extra napkin, and you were likely to get your feelings hurt. Deek slung plates and tossed silverware. He snagged picky diners by the seat of their pants and threw them out onto the sidewalk. Willis Deacon didn’t know the meaning of the word “decorum.”

He did, however, know his way around a buttermilk pancake. His food was hot and made to order and really cheap, once you factored in the floor show. The indigestion brought on by his rampaging performances? Well, Deek threw that in, gratis. The fact that I could practically spit on the diner from the swivel chair in my office a few doors down wasn’t a bad deal, either. Did I mention Deek delivered? So, for convenience sake, I could deal with surly, especially since, for some inexplicable reason, he left me alone.

I don’t know what made me special. I’ve never asked the question and Deek, in all the years he’s growled over his greasy griddle, has never volunteered the information to me or anyone else. He scowls at me plenty, sure, but a scowl beats a pants toss any day of the week. You can rise above a scowl. It was nearly impossible to shrug off another man’s grip on the seat of your pants.

I snaked through the maze of wooden tables, past the few diners spread out around the place, breathing in bacon and coffee fumes. I made a beeline for the back booth, the one I preferred and considered mine, the morning paper tucked under my arm. I’d come to eat. I didn’t need to do it in the middle of Deek’s gladiator pit.

Sliding onto the cracked vinyl, my back to the mustard yellow wall, my view of the front door unobstructed, I tossed the paper on the table, picked up the laminated menu, and watched as Muna, one of Deek’s battle-tested waitresses, ambled over to take my order.

I eyed the room. “You alone, Muna?”

“Wasn’t. Am now. Adele walked off twenty minutes ago.”