THE DECORATOR OF LAS COLIMAS MUST HAVE been a great admirer of both early Aztec and late Taco Bell architectural styles. The restaurant was a gaudy mess of bright booths, garish pi?atas, and fake greenery. A resin skull rack modeled after the actual racks, which the ancient Aztecs filled with countless skulls of human victims, crowned the roof of the long buffet table. Small terra-cotta replicas of arcane relics sat on the windowsills among the plastic fruit spilling from wicker cornucopias.
The setting did not matter. The moment I walked in, the delicious smell enveloped me, and I hurried past the five-foot-high terra-cotta atrocity meant to personify the famous Xochopilli, the Prince of Flowers, which separated the entrance from the cash register. A redheaded waitress thrust herself in my way.
"Excuse me," she said with a smile that showed off her entire set of teeth. "Are you Kate?"
"Yes."
"Your party is waiting. This way, please."
As she led me past the buffet table, I heard a male voice, asking the waitress, "Do you serve gravy with that?"
Only in the South.
The waitress delivered me to a corner booth, where Crest sat, immersed in the menu.
"I found her, Doctor!" she announced. The patrons at the neighboring tables glanced at me. If the restaurant was not so crowded, I would have strangled her on the spot.
Crest glanced from the menu and shot her a smile. "You remembered," he said, his voice filled with surprise. "Thank you, Grace."
She giggled. "Let me know if you need anything!"
She swept away, putting an extra kink into her walk. I would not have thought that a woman with an ass that bony could make it wiggle so much but she proved me wrong.
I landed.
"A storm walking in," he said.
"Five minutes here and the waitresses already bat their eyelashes at you," I said. "It must be a talent."
He unrolled his napkin, took a round-tipped serrated knife from it, and mimicked being stabbed in the heart. "Actually, it's not a talent," he explained, waving the knife around. The knife's blade looked sharp. "Most people treat waitresses like dogs. They bring you food and wait on you, therefore they must be a lower breed of human being and don't mind being harassed."
I took the knife away from him before he hurt himself and put it on the table.
The redheaded Grace returned, dazzled us with another smile, and asked if we were ready to order. I ordered without looking at the menu. Crest asked for churassco and chimichurri in unaccented Spanish. Grace gave him a blank look.
"I think he would like the filet mignon in garlic and parsley sauce," I said. "The Chef's special."
Her face brightened. "Anything to drink with that?"
We both ordered ice water and she departed, wiggling furiously.
Crest grimaced.
"A sudden change of attitude?" I asked.
"I detest incompetence. She works in a restaurant that serves Latino cuisine. She should at least know how the names are pronounced. But then she probably does the best she can." He looked around. "I must say, this isn't a place to promote quiet conversations."
"You have a problem with my taste?"
"Yes, I do," he said.
I shrugged.
"You are quite… hostile." He did not say it in a confrontational way. Instead, his voice held quiet amusement.
"Was I supposed to pick a quiet place, tastefully decorated and private, that would promote intimate conversation?"
"Well, I thought you might."
"Why? You blackmailed me into lunch, so I thought I might at least enjoy the food."
He tried a different line of attack. "I've never come across anyone like you."
"Good thing, too. People like me don't like it when you try walking over them. They might break your legs."
"Could you actually do it?" He was grinning. Was he flirting with me?
"Do what?"
"Break my legs."
"Yes, under the right circumstances."
"I have a brown belt in karate," he said. I decided that he found my tough woman persona amusing. "I might put up a fight."
This was actually fun. I gave him a full blast of my psychotic smile and said, "Brown belt? That's impressive. But you have to remember, I break legs for a living while you…"
"Fix noses?" he put in.
"No, I was going to say stitch up corpses, but you're right, 'fix noses' would've made a much better retort."
We grinned at each other across the table.
Grace arrived right on cue, holding two platters. She set them in front of us and was called away before she could blind Crest with another toothy smile.
"The food's wonderful," he said after the first two bites.
And cheap, too. I raised my eyebrow at him, meaning I told you so.
"I'll stop trying to impress you if you promise not to break my legs," he suggested.
"Alright, where did you learn to speak Spanish?"
"From my father," he said. "He spoke six languages fluently and understood who knows how many. He was an anthropologist of the old kind. We spent two years at Temple Mayor in Mexico."
I arched an eyebrow, took a bottle of hot sauce shaped like a stylized figurine, and put it in front of him.
"Tlaloc," he said. "God of rain."
I smiled at him. "So tell me about the temple."
"It was hot and dusty." He told me about his father, who tried to understand people long gone, about climbing the countless steps to the top of the temple, where twin shrines stared at the world, about falling asleep under the bottomless sky by the carved temple walls and dreaming of nightmarish priests. Somehow his voice overcame the noise of the restaurant, muting the conversations of other patrons to subdued white noise. It was so remarkable that I would have sworn there was magic in it, except that I felt no power coming from him. Perhaps it was magic, but of that special human kind—magic born of human charm and conversation, which I too often discounted.
He talked while I listened to his pleasant voice and watched him. There was something very comforting about him, and I was not sure if it was his easy manner or his complete immunity to my scowling. He was funny without trying to joke, intelligent without trying to sound erudite, and he made it plain he expected nothing.
The lunch stretched on and then suddenly it was close to one thirty and time for me to go.
"I had a great time," he said. "But then I talked the whole time, so I suppose that's obvious. You should've shut me up."
"I enjoyed listening to you."
He scowled at me, disbelieving, and warned, "Next time it will be your turn to talk."
"Next time?"
"Would you go to dinner with me?"
"I would," I found myself saying.
"Tonight?" he asked, his eyes hopeful.
"I'll try," I promised and actually intended to do so. "Call me around six." I gave him my address in case the magic knocked the phone out.
I insisted on paying my half of the lunch and declined an offer to be walked to my car. The day I needed an escort was the day I'd turn my saber over to someone who knew what to do with it.