Adele and Muna made an efficient team of opposites, or did, until twenty minutes ago. Adele was small, thin, quick moving, and overly skittish; Muna was big, broad, and loudly indelicate at the best and worst of times. Adele was also easily offended and quit at least twice a month. I often wondered why she’d chosen to work here in the first place. I mean, it’s not like she didn’t know what she was letting herself in for; Deek was Deek 24/7.

I grimaced. “Deek?”

“Well, it sure wasn’t me.” Muna licked the tip of her short pencil and poised it over her order pad. I smiled thinking of Big Percy. This was the second time in the span of eight hours that I’d watched people wet their writing utensils with spit. “I’ve been polite as pie all mornin’, and if I were you, I wouldn’t be ordering nothin’ from that man’s griddle. He’s been revving up back there since Adele walked off, and it’s only a matter of time before he clears the place out.”

I snapped the menu closed, defiant. I wasn’t about to let Deek ruin my vibe. “I’ll risk it. Blueberry pancakes, skim milk, bacon, extra crispy. And you really ought to put a sign on the door when Deek’s in a snit. Warn a person.”

“Tried that,” Muna said without missing a beat. “Griddle Man ate it.”

She moved off toward the kitchen, the rubber soles of her wide, comfy shoes squeaking across the sticky linoleum.

“Way too early for funny, Muna,” I called after her.

“Never too early, you ask me,” she shot back over her shoulder.

The front page of the paper offered nothing new. There was city corruption, tax hikes, Washington chaos, dozens felled by city violence. Every day it was the same old thing, and it just made you tired. I’d made it to page four when a familiar voice roused me from my melancholy.

“You’re here. I have to talk to you.”

My eyes drifted off the paper to the patch of floor to my right, where I found a pair of scuffed combat boots with thin hairy legs standing in them. I scanned up past knobby knees, cargo shorts, and a wrinkled T-shirt into the flushed face of Jung Byson, Deek’s indolent delivery boy. He was new to the place, just a month or so since he’d been hired. I didn’t know too much about him, but what I did know seemed weird.