When Malk had finally parked and walked into the restaurant, Bozzaris was already inside, waiting on a vinyl couch by the west-side nonsmoking dining room, and he stood up and jerked his head in that direction.
"Yo, Steve," he said. "Table's waiting."
Any name that began with "S" meant I haven't had time to do a route, to be sure I'm not being followed.
Swell, thought Malk as he followed the younger man to a table only a couple of yards away from a booth occupied by a preteen girl and a dark-haired man of about his own age, mid-thirties. That's our quarry, he thought, not letting himself look directly at Frank and Daphne Marrity. He noticed that Frank had lasagna, and Daphne was eating some kind of pasta with sausage and bell peppers on it.
Malk and Bozzaris sat at adjoining sides of the square table, more or less between the Marritys and everyone else. Malk was mentally rehearsing the old training on how to throw himself backward in his chair and shoot under the table.
When he had sat down, he pulled his Chap Stick out of his pocket and nervously twisted off the cap; then, reflecting that it was probably bad manners to use it in a restaurant, he snapped the cap back on. He looked more closely at it.
"Shit," he said absently to Bozzaris, "this isn't Chap Stick — it's… 'Nose Soother'! There's a picture of a red nose on it. I've been putting it on my mouth!"
"Oh boy," said Bozzaris. "They test those things in the factory, you know. Guys that test 'em, they can't get any other jobs."
"Shut up," said Malk, shoving the tube back into his pocket.
"Some big old retard had that up his nose." Bozzaris looked at his watch and then toward the door, as if they were expecting a third person, and then he looked around at the tables and booths. "Bailey did say one o'clock, didn't he?"
"That's what the message on my machine said," Malk agreed, looking around himself. Waiting impatiently for an imaginary third person was a good excuse to check out the surrounding people; he memorized the other diners — a man and a woman in the booth south of the Marritys, three older women toward the north end, and three college-looking boys in T-shirts against the inner wall, under a shelf full of pasta boxes and Italian cookie cans. At least one party, he told himself, must be operatives of the other force, whatever it is, and they'll be speculatively noting Bozzaris and me. At least we're talking spontaneously, what with the Nose Soother and all.
"What are you going to have?" Malk asked.
"I don't know. A beer, a sandwich."
Because he was listening for it, Malk could hear Bozzaris suppressing his Israeli accent, pronouncing the r at the front of his mouth and flattening the emphases; somehow the cadence of American English wasn't as sociable as the Israeli cadence.
"Me too, I guess," said Malk.
"I'm gonna hit the head first," said Bozzaris, pushing his chair back. "A Budweiser, if the lady comes by."
Malk nodded, and when Bozzaris strode away he took a ball point pen from his pocket and began doodling on the paper place mat so that he could keep his eyes in an unfocused stare that took in the periphery — absently he drew a dog wearing a bowler hat and a snail with a mustache and pince-nez glasses.
"No," Marrity was saying six feet away, "I imagine the funeral will be down here. I guess Bennett and Moira will arrange to have the body flown down from Shasta. I should have called them this morning."
Malk noted that Marrity was apparently not aware of any need for secrecy. As he'd told Bozzaris last night, Marrity didn't seem to know anything about his grandmother's history.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the girl nod.
Bozzaris came back and sat down. "You should go to the head too," he said, very quietly. "Check out an old party sitting in the last booth by the east wall."
Malk nodded, guessing that he meant the old man who had visited the Marritys five hours ago. What the hell did that mean? "Bailey can do it or not," he said in a normal tone, "doesn't matter to us." He pushed back his chair.
"Daph?" said Marrity urgently, and Malk looked over at them.
The girl was holding her throat with one hand, and her face was blank.
"Daph, can you talk?"
She shook her head, her eyes showing alarm now; and Marrity slid out of the booth and stood up, pulling her to her feet. He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around, then he crouched and linked his fists over her abdomen from behind.
"Relax, Daph," he said. "Heimlich."
He jerked his fists back and up, ramming the inner one into her stomach just below the ribs; her hands gripped her thighs, but apparently no food was dislodged.
"Hang on," Marrity said hoarsely, "one more time, harder." Again he drove his fist upward into her abdomen, but again there was no result.
Malk had tensed, and his hands were tingling, but he was sure he couldn't do any better than the girl's father was.
"Somebody call 911," Marrity shouted, and then yanked his fist powerfully into Daphne one more time. His shirt was already dark with sweat.
A gray-haired man in a green Members Only jacket had shuffled in from the other dining room, and now stood by Malk's table, looking on in evident horror; and he was indeed the man who had driven the green Rambler and spoken to Marrity this morning.
Malk looked back at the girl and her father, and gripped the edge of his table. He realized that he was praying.
The couple in the booth behind Marrity had got to their feet, but were only staring at the man holding the girl, and the three old women had all put down their forks and were blinking in evident confusion. Malk's training overrode his horrified fascination, and it occurred to him that this conspicuous emergency would probably wreck any kidnap plans.
Daphne opened her mouth and Malk could see her abdomen tighten as she tried uselessly to expel the blockage.
One of the college boys had a cellular phone out, and the cashier was anxiously looking their way and speaking into a telephone at the counter.
"And another, Daph," said Marrity in a voice that was nearly a sob. This time her knees folded after the forceful upward thrust, and Marrity sat down hard on the linoleum, holding her in his lap now.
He looked up desperately, and clearly noticed the old man in the green jacket. Marrity opened his mouth as if to say something to him, then just closed his eyes and jerked his fists up again. Malk heard the girl's teeth snap shut as the thrust rocked her head back.
Four minutes until brain damage, Malk thought. How quickly can the paramedics get here?
He noted that everyone in the restaurant seemed to have crowded in the doorway to watch. A distraction not to be wasted, he thought. Choose your moment.
Marrity could only think of how humiliated Daphne must be by this public spectacle. He would not permit himself to imagine that she might die here.
He loosened his cramped hands and reached forward to roll her head back; she was unconscious now, her face white, her lips and half-closed eyelids shadowed with a bluish tint. Of course she was not breathing.
The Heimlich maneuver was not working, would not work; it dawned on him finally that very soon he would be uselessly pummeling a limp corpse. "Dammit, Daphne," he whispered, "why couldn't you chew?"
He looked up at his father. The old man was nodding in evident sympathy.
Marrity lifted Daphne's limp body off his lap and laid her faceup on the black-and-red linoleum.
"A sharp knife," he said, holding out his right hand. "Quick!"
The older of the two men who had been at the nearest table flicked open a flat stainless-steel pocketknife and slapped the grip into Marrity's hand.