I Pointed My Finger At Him While He Smiled With That Cigarette Near His Mouth...

The smile didn't reach his eyes. That was the first thing I clocked while my finger was still in the air between us.

The candle threw a thin line of heat up past the holder, and the steak in front of him had stopped steaming. The fat around the edge was already going white. Behind him, one of his guys shifted his weight and the leather of his shoes creaked against the wood. I could feel all of it at once — the chandelier buzzing low, the clink of someone else's fork two tables over, the cigarette smoke curling up from his right hand.

He looked at my pointing hand like it was something he'd ordered and found amusing.

"Interesting," he said.

It was low. Almost soft. He let the word sit there while he brought the cigarette up near his mouth without actually touching it to his lips. He watched me over it.

Then, quieter, "Sit down."

Not loud. Not for the room. Just for me. The way men like that give orders when they know someone else will enforce them.

My knees were locked. My tray was tucked up under my left arm, digging into my ribs. I didn't move my finger right away because if I dropped it first, I knew I'd lose whatever ground I'd taken.

"No," I said.

He blinked once. "No?"

"I'm not taking your chair," I said. "I'm on shift."

I kept leaning in. The edge of the table pressed into my thigh. I could smell the peppercorn on the steak and the wax from the candle and the sharp chemical off his cigarette. Staying bent over him kept us eye to eye. It kept me from having to look up at the guards.

"You think standing makes you taller," he said.

"I think sitting makes me yours," I said. "I'm not."

From the corner of my eye I saw movement by the marble column. The bald one. He'd been hanging back near the shadow with his hands clasped in front, earpiece glinting when he turned his head. Now he took two steps forward, slow, not rushing, and stopped with his shoulder just past the column. Close enough to get to us in three strides. He didn't touch his earpiece. He didn't say anything. He just watched my hands.

The seated man noticed it too. He gave the smallest shake of his head — not even a shake, just a twitch — and the bald guard held where he was.

"Control your people," I said before I could talk myself out of it.

"My people?" He almost laughed.

"You went after my busser," I said. My throat was dry. "Eighteen years old. Carrying a tub twice his size. You stopped him by the service door and told him he was too stupid to carry plates in a place like this. Told him to go back where he came from."

I made myself say what he'd done without using his exact words. I wasn't going to put that sound in my mouth, not in the middle of the dining room, not with the kid still hiding back by the dish pit. But I said it plain enough that he knew I heard it. The color didn't leave his face. If anything, he looked more entertained.

"That's what this is about," he said. "Him."

"He works for me tonight," I said. "You don't speak to my staff that way."

His fingers turned the cigarette once. Ash fell onto the white tablecloth next to the steak plate. He didn't brush it off.

"You took long enough," he repeated back at me, my first words from when I'd walked up. He said them like he was tasting them. "You rehearse that?"

"No."

"You point at all your customers?"

"Only the ones who earn it."

That got a real smile out of him this time, quick and tight. He set his left hand flat on the table, his watch catching the candlelight. He didn't reach for me. He didn't have to. The chair across from him sat empty, pulled out a few inches like an invitation he'd already arranged.

"Sit down," he said again. Same tone. "Just for a minute. We'll talk about your busser."

"I can hear fine standing," I said.

For a second nobody moved. The candle flickered hard when the server door swung somewhere behind me, then steadied. My finger had finally lowered to hover over the table, but I didn't straighten up. My back was starting to burn from holding the lean.

He studied me the way he'd probably studied the menu — deciding what something was worth.

"You're going to lose your job," he said. Not threatening. Just stating it.

"Maybe."

"You still won't sit."

"No."

Past his shoulder, over by the bar, I caught it. Marty, our floor manager, had stopped wiping a glass. He was watching us with the rag frozen in his hand. The light from the back bar cut across his face. He lifted his chin a fraction — not a wave, not yet. A warning. Wrap it up.

I felt that look land in my stomach harder than anything the man at the table had said.

The seated man followed my glance without turning his head fully. He saw Marty. He smiled like that was another piece falling into place.

"Your manager's nervous," he said.

"He'll live."

"He'll fire you to keep me happy," he said. "You know that, right?"

I finally straightened, just an inch, enough to get air. I didn't step back. I didn't pull out his chair.

"Then he'll have to," I said.

The bald guard by the column unclasped his hands and re-clasped them. The other suited man near the back stayed put. The cigarette smoke kept rising between me and the man in black, thin and steady.