Bolin’s sallow face shook once and became chiseled apathy.
“So do I,” he answered, his voice like the accidental ring of light metals. “I’m the new waiter Foley hired last week. You’ve been too busy to notice me much.”
For a full minute the woman stood staring at him, her hands upon her hips, her slightly bulging gray eyes like water-drops threatening to roll down her shattered face.
“You’re the guy they call Nutty Louie,” she said at last, as though confiding a ludicrously startling message to herself.
Then for another full minute she stood staring at him.
“We’re bughouse,” she said in a mesmerised whisper. “Bughouse.”
Bolin walked forward without a word. The woman gaped at him for a moment and then ran after him as she had in the garden of peonies.