“You know what, Dad, I’m pretty hungry myself,” Lou said as he followed Stone down the walk to the cruiser.

“Great. Meet me at the Wave Rider in thirty.”

Lou knew his father was already salivating to be treated to his beloved Wave Rider Bacon Burger, but he had another idea. “Actually, Dad, I’m thinking we should try someplace different this time.”

Dennis Welcome snorted into the phone. “Yeah?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”

“Have you ever heard of a place called Millie’s?”

CHAPTER 16

EVERYBODY EATS AT MILLIE’S

The block lettering above the main entrance was set beneath a ten-foot enamel rainbow.

Judging by the number of cars in the parking lot as the noon hour approached, Lou believed the claim had some muscle behind it. Waiting in the busy lobby for his father, he used the time to scan the photographic history of the place, which had gone from a classic railroad car diner through a number of incarnations and reincarnations. According to the text accompanying the photos, Millie’s had opened for business thirty-five years before, with a five-thousand-dollar bank loan, ten soon-to-be maxed-out credit cards, and one very determined owner-cum-cook named Millie Neuland.

The original railroad car endured, and now, glorified by an imaginative designer, held sway at the epicenter of a vast dining room, surrounded by a dozen private salons. Given that Lou had lived in the region most of his life, he was impressed that his path and the restaurant’s had never crossed. Impressed, but not that surprised. Renee was totally into foods of various ethnicities, and in his life before her, he ate far less than he could have, worked far more hours than he should have, and spent what money he managed to hang on to in dark parts of the city that featured no rainbows.

In the years since its grand opening, Millie Neuland bought up much of the surrounding acreage, paved a parking area the size of a fairground, and at one point, added a quasi motel on the far side of the lot to house the cooks and waitstaff.

EVERYBODY EATS AT MILLIE’S.

Or works there.

After a lifetime of dealing with his father, Lou became aware of his presence almost before he had entered the building. Dennis Welcome was an expansive, barrel-chested charmer, with a salt-and-pepper crew cut and a deeply etched face that seemed perpetually tanned. His wardrobe consisted of one or two pairs of jeans, heavy, virtually indestructible work boots, and perhaps a hundred flannel shirts of various colors and plaids. This day, he had chosen a forest green.

Dennis was devoted to his two sons and granddaughter only slightly more than to his red Chevy pickup, the 200,000 miles on its odometer, and the LOCAL UNION 589 sticker fixed to the center of its rear window.

Barring the year or so following the cancer death of his wife, he was the most inexorably upbeat person Lou had ever known, except when it came to holding on to his money. Whether it was water bottling, real estate, new toys, or a chain of barber shops, he was as capable of losing investments as he was at making people believe in them.