He turned on Brunswick and Austin, to the corner diner. The Hall of Records was across the street. It used to be a bank. Which meant it had grand wooden doors and a curvaceous facade. The rest of the block had been built with brick, to measure at least partly to the standard that the bank set for the rest of the street.
But this was not the block of the bank, this was the block across from the bank, that did not have to be held to any standards and had thus been built as cheaply as possible. The diner was no exception. As he stepped into the diner, with the red polyester booths and the linoleum floors, he was enveloped by a comforting scent.
It was not until he had seated himself by the window, that he realized what he was smelling was bacon, and the reason why it was so comforting to smell was because it was the first hot meal he had smelled in several days. As the waitress approached him, he knew at once what he wanted, and as the words began to pour from his mouth, he began to imagine how the bitter warmth of the coffee would mingle with the grease of the bacon, and that undefinable taste of meat, but the waitress had gone still.
Her pencil was in her hand, held aloft between the hair she had lifted it from and her hip. Her eyes had gone dilated. And looking from the waitress, to the man at the counter, and to the man behind the counter, all in equal stationary states, Scott realized that something was wrong. What was wrong emerged from the doorway. It was hooded and carried a revolver.