Ed Rath was coming out of the place as we went in. “Have the apple pie,” he suggested. “Good as mine, if not better.”
We landed at a table against the wall, and once we’d ordered beefsteaks and beer, I sat back and looked Frank in the eye. What then came out of me was not what I intended. “I’d no idea you and Merle were paired.”
He fiddled with a fork, making to clean it, until the beers arrived, at which point he further stalled with a long drink.
“Don’t want to say?” I continued. “Then don’t, but you and him won’t stop me. You get that?”
He nodded, and I saw then what a kid he was and how a brute like Bonner could overpower him.
The ache that occupied too much of me now reared up and forced me to blurt, “I’m gone on you, Frank. You have to know that.”
Welcome spread over him, relax
