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"So, how's your eggs," Verleen asked Sotak as she layed down the check, more to Cleo's side of the table.
Mopping up the warm, yellow yolk from his sunny sides with a lightly toasted piece of bread, Sotak looked over to Verleen's hand as it slid the yellow note across the red and white checkered table cloth. He noticed her nails were painted differently than he remembered from Friday. "Great. Thank you Verl." He thanked her as if she cooked the eggs herself and especially for him. Verleen sensed that his response was a little overboard, considering they were just eggs. As she walked back toward the kitchen, Verleen thought to herself, "what ever floats your boat."
As they walked back to the shop, Cleo noticed Jose' Viccaro's truck parked out front. She wondered what he was doing there on a Sunday morning. Sotak also noticed the truck, a cherry-red '57 Dodge pickup with high chrome baby moons, and bright yellow fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror. On the tail gate reads in a flourish style of script "the Hose", a nickname Sotak gave Jose' shortly after Cleo hired him and brought him up from Tijuanna. The Hose always had a story or a joke for every occassion. Sotak's favorite Hose-ism is how you can always tell how big a guys dog might be by how high up on the back of the seat the brown stripe is, "from the dogs butthole rubbing there, you know?" Jose would explain.
As they got closer, Jose' stepped out from the opened garage door to greet them.
"What brings you in this morning?" asked Cleo, craning her neck a little so to see what "favor" he may be trying to do off the clock.
"Aw, I just wanted to get that tuck-and-roll job out of the way," he explained. "On Tuesday, I got a guy driving in from up-state to have me try to restore the finish to his leather seats. A Roll Royce, Baby!" Jose' said this while making a lewd twisting motion with his hips. He looked inquistively at Sotak and asked what he was doing there.
"I live upstairs, remember?"
"Yeah, but where's the "'Pala?" Jose' asked, still twisting.
Cleo halfheartedly joining Jose' in his dance said,"That's what we were just going to go upstairs and talk about."
Jose' stopped and looked at Sotak with angered surprise. Cleo could tell from that look that Jose' knew something. But, it didn't look like the information she wanted was going to come easy -- not from Sotak and not from Jose'.
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